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CHAT1, THE BLACKTAIL 



By J. CLINTON BRODIE 



HATI, as the Supai 

 Indians called him, 

 had the first view of 

 his world in the 

 dawn of an Arizona 

 summer morning, 

 high up in the Pica- 

 cho r an g e . His 

 mother, a large 

 blacktail doe, beside 

 him, uttering short 

 bleats as she ca- 

 ressed him. He was 

 hardly able to stand 

 on his slender legs, much too long for 

 his frail body. His coat, a brownish 

 gray, flecked with lighter spots half as 

 large as one's palm ; his large, long ears 

 lay flat on his neck ; and he was almost 

 half as tall as a man and was much 

 taller than he was long. His hoofs, 

 small pinkish affairs, which hardly 

 made an imprint in the soft turf when 

 he walked. With his small muzzle, eyes 

 much too large for his head and elon- 

 gated ears, he resembled nothing so 

 much as a large jack-rabbit, and but for 

 his spotted coat might easily have been 

 mistaken for one. 



It was an interesting world that Chati 

 looked out upon. Far to the south rolled 

 the barren foothills of the Picachos un- 



til they melted into the blue haze of the 

 distant Colorado desert. To the north 

 towered high summits clad in the green 

 of pine and cedar forest, flecked with 

 snow. Above the brilliant southwest 

 sun shone in a turquoise sky. On every 

 side a silent wilderness. No, not a wil- 

 derness, for it was inhabited by forest- 

 dwellers of many types whose numbers 

 could only be guessed at from the many 

 trails leading to watering places and 

 through the brushy thickets. 



Chati, however, was interested main- 

 ly in appeasing his constant appetite for 

 milk, and in a few days was browsing 

 on the buds of the oaks and the berries 

 of the juniper and grass seeds. He dis- 

 covered the uses of his eyes, legs and 

 ears. Very timid he was, too, and the 

 scamper of a porcupine or badger near 

 him would send him to his mother's side 

 wild with fear. Soon, though, he grew 

 accustomed to the harmless wild crea- 

 tures of the woods and thereafter re- 

 garded them with the greatest curiosity. 



Safely hidden in an alder thicket they 

 lay by day, and at night went forth un- 

 der the stars to drink at the pools of 

 clear mountain water, browse, nibble at 

 the grass seeds and mingle with their 

 kind. The young fawn grew rapidly. 

 In the little glades amid the pines he 



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