42 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT 



It was the gnawing of rodent teeth I heard; 

 then strange sounds of rapping, rapping, rap- 

 ping, almost as regular as the beats of a slow- 

 moving pendulum; then again the gnawing; 

 then more of the mysterious, ghostlike rapping. 

 I pounded the floor, threw a shoe into the 

 comer from which the sound seemingly pro- 

 ceeded, and it stopped, but shortly began again. 

 Three hours this knocking was continued. The 

 noise, which at first only aroused my curiosity, 

 now became nerve racking, impossible to bear. 

 If I could only have known its source and how 

 it was made, the knowledge would have taken 

 <^ the apprehension accompanying mystery. 



A few days later I heard the rapping again 

 behind the closet curtain, and in another in- 

 stant there stood in full view of me the deni- 

 zen of the world of mysterious rappings — a 

 gentle-faced neotoma, or hermit wood rat, with 

 great lustrous, super-prominent, jet-black eyes, 

 set like enormous crystal hemispheres of black 

 on the all-knowing, all-wise-looking face. His 

 beautiful batlike ears were as large as quarter 

 dollars, rounded and well set up, indicative of 

 his alert and sprightly manner. His body was 



