DOG-TOWN DIGGINGS 219 



struck water at three hundred feet, none less 

 than this depth. This told that dogs did not 

 dig down to water. They are busy diggers 

 and have five claws on each foot but they do 

 not dig through geological ages to obtain water. 



One day two cowboys came along with a 

 shovel which was to be used in setting up a 

 circular corral and I excited their interest in 

 prairie dog dens. We made the dirt lively for 

 two hours but we did not reach bottom. I 

 examined old and new gullies by dog towns 

 but learned nothing. Finally, a steam shovel 

 revealed subterranean secrets. 



This steam shovel was digging a deep rail- 

 road cut through a dog town. The dogs barked 

 and protested, but railroads have the right of 

 way. The holes descended straight and almost 

 vertically into the earth to the depth of from 

 ten to fourteen feet. From the bottom a tunnel 

 extended horizontally for from ten to forty feet. 

 There was a pocket or side passage in the 

 vertical hole less than two feet below the top: 

 and a number of pockets or niches along the 

 tunnel with buried excrement in the farther 

 end of the tunnel. The side niches were used 

 for sleeping places and side tracks. There was 

 a network of connecting tubes between the ver- 

 tical holes and communicating tunnels between 

 the deeper tunnels, 



