ALONG FOUR-FOOTED TRAILS 



pumpkins. The plainsman wondered that so 

 many of the hills of corn failed to take root and 

 grow. He also noticed the increasing number 

 of gopher hills but gave little thought that 

 they would seriously damage his crops. The 

 gophers were quick to take advantage of the 

 new conditions that arose on the border of their 

 claims. They soon mined along and discovered 

 the grains of corn in many a corn-hill. In the 

 fall much was made clear to the unsophisticated 

 farmer and vengeance was sworn against the 

 luckless gophers of his locality. They had 

 lived in luxury from a gopher's point of view 

 and flourished with comparatively few attacks, 

 even from their natural enemies. With their 

 greed for more riches in the way of good 

 things to eat and greater stores to pack away 

 only to rot and waste, they had trespassed upon 

 the rights of the farmer and thus encountered 

 greater danger to life; dangers and struggles 

 they had never before known. 



When the farmer undertook, in the fall, to 



gather his crop of water-melons over one half of 



the melons were found eaten from the under side 



by his damaging little neighbors. The only way 



[216] 



