THE HAYMAKER OF THE HEIGHTS 21 
Slide rock—the home of the cony—frequently 
is his tomb. All cliffs are slowly falling to 
pieces, and occasionally a clinging mass weigh- 
ing hundreds and possibly thousands of tons 
lets go and down the slide rock it tumbles, 
bounding, crushing, and tearing. The conies 
that escape being crushed come out peeved and 
protesting against unnecessary disturbances. 
One day while crossing the heights there 
came a roaring and a crashing on the side of a 
peak that rose a thousand feet above the level 
of the plateau. A cloud of rock dust rose and 
filled the air completely for several minutes. 
As the echoes died away there were calls and 
alarmed cries of conies. Hastening to the bot- 
tom of a slope of slide rock I found scattered 
fragments of freshly broken rocks. A mass had 
fallen near the top of the peak and this had 
crashed down upon the long slope of slide rock, 
tearing and scattering the surface and causing 
the entire slope of a thousand feet or more to 
settle. I could hear a subdued creaking, groan- 
ing, and grinding together, with a slight tumble 
of a fragment on surface. 
This slide had been temporarily changed into 
a rock glacier—a slow, down-sliding mass of 
confused broken rocks. Its numerous chang- 
ing subterranean cavities were not safe places 
for conies. 
