ALONG FOUR-FOOTED TRAILS 



and ran to the house to tell her mother of the 

 storm-cloud, leaving her sunbonnet and much 

 loved rag-doll in her hurry and fear. Her 

 mother with a troubled face explained to Ella 

 that it was not a wind or rain cloud, but many 

 millions of Rocky Mountain grasshoppers in 

 search of food. The little girl looked at them 

 through a piece of smoked glass her mother 

 gave her. Her mother told Ella that the grass- 

 hoppers had come from the states of Idaho and 

 Montana and were traveling toward the South 

 and East. They kept moving with the wind 

 in one steady stream for almost an hour. It 

 seemed that the great army of flying insects 

 never would come to an end. 



Ella's parents watched this moving mass with 

 much fear, for they knew that the least change 

 of wind or temperature would bring the entire 

 horde to the ground and in a few hours there 

 would not be so much as a blade of grass left. 

 The child and her parents well remembered the 

 year before in the early part of August. At 

 night when they went to bed the ripe wheat 

 bent toward the ground with its own weight. 

 The corn-stalks were tall and heavy laden with 



