224 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



the green plains in which the golden banner 

 bloomed like broken yellow coral. A cottontail 

 hopped slowly from his hole to a clump of 

 Spanish bayonet; buzzing gnats and bees hum- 

 med by. Grasshoppers all jumping toward 

 the town limits suggested that they were aban- 

 doning the congested town. 



Suddenly there were two disturbances : Near 

 me an old dog was set upon by a protesting, 

 noisy mob of dogs, while off on my left an invad- 

 ing rattlesnake threw a locality into a frenzy of 

 excitement. 



Apparently dogs aim to bury alive all enemies 

 and invaders. The frightened rattler was pur- 

 sued by a screeching, noisy dog mob, and driven 

 into a dog hole. While two or three dogs kept 

 watch of this, other dogs were looking into or 

 wildly watching other dog holes which the snake 

 might reach through underground tunnels. 



Out of one of these holes he glided and at him 

 went the yapping, snapping dog mob. Down 

 into another hole he ducked. Evidently the 

 dogs realized that this hole was detached, and 

 the dogs fell over each other with efforts to 

 claw earth into it. Presently the hole was 

 filled to the collar and the snake buried. On 

 this filled hole the dogs danced with weird and 

 uncanny glee. 



The other dog mob evidently rough handled 



