230 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



him in zoological Latin — must know the times 

 and the seasons, and catch the scent of danger 

 afar off. You ■will find no trustful innocence in 

 these diggings. If there ever was any, it long 

 ago perished. Everything is shy, and has need 

 to be. " Nature red in tooth and claw " has here 

 its ancestral seat. He that cannot fight must 

 run ; and however it may be elsewhere, in the 

 desert the race is to the swift and the battle to 

 the strong. In one way or another everything 

 goes armed. It may be set with thorns like the 

 mesquite and the cactus, or it may have an offen- 

 sive oil like the creosote ; it may run like the 

 rabbit, or strike like the rattlesnake. If it can 

 do nothing else, it must hide. And even the 

 strong and the speedy must hide when that which 

 is stronger and speedier heaves in sight. The 

 desert is open to the sky, but its life is not open. 

 Like the currents of the rivers, the current of 

 animal existence runs mostly underground. 



A Tucson business man was telling me about 

 the great antiquity of the town : the oldest set- 

 tlement in the country, I think he called it, with 

 the exception of St. Augustine, Florida. 



" But how in the world came a city to grow 

 up here ? " I inquired. " I can see no sufficient 

 reason." 



" Well," said he, as if he could think of no- 



