40 Life in the Open 



been plainer. Here was the soft footprint of a wildcat, 

 the dainty trail of a snail ; here a cottontail had crossed 

 at full speed, and, deep in the yielding sand, the hoof- 

 prints of the black-tailed deer. He had cooled his 

 hoofs in the stream, then started back to drier ground, 

 where, with ears alert, he stood listening. It did not 

 require a mystic to translate the story of the footprints 

 in the sand that perhaps were effaced by the night's 

 rain, or by the rising of the stream a dreamer of 

 dreams could read it. 



Several times, in wading down the stream, looking 

 through some leafy covert, I came upon a deer, and 

 sometimes in the fall, along the unfrequented slopes, 

 one would be seen in the blue haze of early morning. 

 During the hot day he has been lying on the summit 

 of the range in some little clearing, or on the north and 

 cool slopes ; but in the cool evening or morning he is 

 abroad, pushing through the chaparral, showering him- 

 self with crystal drops, sniffing at the perfumed panicles 

 of the wild lilac, and nipping the green tips of the 

 Adenostoma. 



Down he comes, crossing the divide, looking out 

 into the valley filled with silvery fog, through which the 

 tops of hills emerge like islands. He brushes aside the 

 trumpets of the mountain mimulus, starts at the mur- 

 mur of the deep-toned pines, stands and listens until the 

 mimic echo of the sea dies away, then pushes out into 

 the stream and takes the trail along whose sides grow 

 the viands of his choice. He nibbles at the wild honey- 



