Of  small  life  there  was  plenty,  but  not  in  much
variety.  Ground-squirrels  by  hundreds  scurried
across  the  road,  or  sat  motionless,  so  exact  an  imi-
tation of  dead  stumps  of  wood  that  it  was  hard  to
detect  the  trick,  which  they  no  doubt  relied  on  for
safety.  Their  runways  were  as  well-beaten  and  plain
to  see  as,  in  many  places,  was  the  county  road  we
were  on.  A  ground-owl,  like  another  stump,  sat  on
the  edge  of  the  creek-bluff,  his  head  revolving  like
a  screw  as  he  watched  us  through  three-quarters  of
a  circle.    Two  road-runners  raced  away  uphill,  the


A    HERMIT'S    CAVE  25

sunlight  glancing  from  their  long  straight  backs
and  tail-feathers  as  if  from  steel.  Once  a  coyote
stole  up  the  hillside,  standing  in  plain  view  on  the
ridge  as  long  as  he  felt  sure  he  was  out  of  range,  and
then  dodging  from  cover  to  cover  until  he  reached
his  safe  ravine.  A  hawk  chevied  by  kingbirds,  like  a
Spanish  galleon  beset  by  pirates,  drifted  and  flapped
about  in  misery,  a  fine  moral  spectacle  of  poetic
justice.
We  had  been  told  of  a  cave  somewhere  in  the  canon,
which  had  been  in  past  days  inhabited  by  a  hermit.
