Vol. IV. 1908. 



BULLETIN OF THE CHILDS MUSEUM OF NORTH AM. ORNITHOLOGY 

 Published October 1st. at Floral Park, N. Y. 



J o h.n Lewis Child s, Editor 



Krideri the Fearless 



By P. B. Peabody 



1WAS walking down the narrow plank walk of Coal Camp at Cambria, 

 after Even-song, one June evening. The blinking bulbs, festooned like 

 Chinese lanterns, along the house-tops, made barely visible the way; amid 

 the dense shadows that fell from the high canyon walls above the camp. 



A burly man over-took me: Manifestly he was not a minor; but a well- 

 to-do ranchman. He grasped my arm, familiarly; as men grasp the arm of a 

 clergyman with whom they enjoy a one-side acquaintance: "I want you to 

 marry me", rather equivocally he said: "You know Mrs. H?"(I nodded). 

 "The kids need her and, — she needs the kids." — (A pause). — I tightened my 

 grip on his arm: "Has either of you Wife or Husband living? " (That is a 

 question that is ever pertinent, in Wyoming !) Questions of eligibility set- 

 tled, I inquired the way to the ranch: "It's out on Skull Creek, ten miles 

 from here. You go south from Newcastle three miles to the T-Bar-Y cor- 

 ner. Then you turn west for three miles until you reach Dead Mule Creek. 

 There you cross under the Burlington Track; and you're at the mouth of 

 Skull Creek. From there", -and he laughed a little, to relieve the tension 

 of his mood, — "well, I guess you'll just have to follow your nose the rest of 

 the way". 



The road to Dead Mule Creek lay across a small prairie dog town. 

 Above this hovered a finely-plumed male Krider Hawk. -"Aha, o Id fellow", 

 said I, out loud, — "I wonder where your babies are?" A moment or two 

 later my prairie-dog-chasing pointer ran right across the home of a pair of 

 burrowing owls. Instantly these two, with a malignancy engendered, one 



