6o DENIZENS OF THE DESERT 



notice of the giant that was now reposing in 

 their storehouse. 



Many a merry tune they played at night as 

 they scurried over the tin lids and kettles in 

 the pantry out-of-doors. Sometimes they would 

 make such a racket that I would expect to 

 see everything turned topsy-turvy by morning. 

 But always when I went to count the damage 

 against them I found nothing disturbed at all, 

 a thing which was always a puzzle to me. 



For some reason or other the spiny pocket 

 mice much preferred most of the time to stay 

 outside the house, although it had so many 

 cracks through which they could enter and 

 leave. On the whole they seemed to like to stay 

 close to the rock piles out of doors, leaving the 

 indoor crumbs to be picked up by the wood rats 

 and the white-footed mice that seemed to want 

 to come in on every occasion. 



It is a clever and swift-flighted owl that 

 catches the spiny pocket mice. I don't think he 

 gets many. A pocket mouse can shoot out of 

 sight and under cover in less time than any 

 wild creature I know of. They leap three and 

 four feet at a single jump, and so quickly that 



