effect, "As for the Coney, his safe refuge is in the
rocks."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote C: It proved later to be an albino domestic Rabbit run wild.]

* * * * *

X

Ghosts of the Campfire

* * * * *

[Illustration]

X

Ghosts of the Campfire

It is always worth while to cultivate the old guides. Young guides are
often fresh and shallow, but the quiet old fellows, that have spent
their lives in the mountains, must be good or they could not stay in the
business; and they have seen so much and been so far that they are like
rare old manuscript volumes, difficult to read, but unique and full of
value. It is not easy to get them to talk, but there is a combination
that often does it. First, show yourself worthy of their respect by
holding up your end, be it in an all-day climb or breakneck ride; then
at night, after the others have gone to bed, you sit while the old guide
smokes, and by a few brief questions and full attention, show that you
value any observations he may choose to make. Many happy hours and much
important information have been my reward for just such cautious play,
and often as we sat, there flitted past, in the dim light, the silent
shadowy forms of the campfire ghosts. Swift, not twinkling, but looming
light and fading, absolutely silent. Sometimes approaching so near that
the still watcher can get the glint of beady eyes or even of a snowy
breast, for these ghosts are merely the common Mice of the mountains,
abounding in every part of the West.

[Illustration]

There are half a dozen different kinds, yet most travellers will be
inclined to bunch them all, and pass them by as mere Mice. But they are
worthy of better treatment. Three, at least, are so different in form
and ways that you should remember them by their names.

First is the _Whitefooted or Deer-mouse_. This is the one that you find
in the coffee pot or the water bucket in the morning; this is the one
that skips out of the "grub box" when the cook begins breakfast; and
this is the one that runs over your face with its cold feet as you sleep
nights. It is one of the most widely diffused mammals in North America
to-day, and probably the most numerous.

It is an elegant little creature, with large, lustrous black eyes like
those of a Deer, a fact which, combined with its large ears, the
fawn-coloured back, and the pure white breast, has given it the name o