h milk; and
coffee as black as your hat and strong as sin. How easy it is for
civilized man to become primitive and comfortable in his way of eating,
especially if he has just ridden ten miles on a buckboard and nine more
on a mule and is away down at the bottom of the Grand canyon--and there
is nobody to look on disapprovingly when he takes a bite that would be a
credit to a steam shovel!

Despite all reports to the contrary, I wish to state that it is no
trouble at all to eat green peas off a knife-blade--you merely mix them
in with potatoes for a cement; and fried steak--take it from an old
steak eater--tastes best when eaten with those tools of Nature's own
providing, both hands and your teeth. An hour passed--busy, yet
pleasant--and we were both gorged to the gills and had reared back with
our cigars lit to enjoy a third jorum of black coffee apiece, when
Johnny, speaking in an offhand way to Bill, who was still hiding away
biscuits inside of himself like a parlor prestidigitator, said:

"Seen any of them old Hydrophobies the last day or two?"

"Not so many," said Bill casually. "There was a couple out last night
pirootin' round in the moonlight. I reckon, though, there'll be quite a
flock of 'em out to-night. A new moon always seems to fetch 'em up from
the river."

Both of us quit blowing on our coffee and we put the cups down. I think
I was the one who spoke.

"I beg your pardon," I asked, "but what did you say would be out
to-night?"

"We were just speakin' to one another about them Hydrophoby Skunks,"
said Bill apologetically. "This here canyon is where they mostly hang out
and frolic 'round."

I laid down my cigar, too. I admit I was interested.

"Oh!" I said softly--like that. "Is it? Do they?"

"Yes," said Johnny. "I reckin there's liable to be one come shovin' his
old nose into that door any minute. Or probably two--they mostly travels
in pairs--sets, as you might say."

"You'd know one the minute you saw him, though," said Bill. "They're
smaller than a regular skunk and spotted where the other kind is
striped. And they got little red eyes. You won't have no trouble at all
recognizin' one."

It was at this juncture that we both got up and moved back by the stove.
It was warmer there and the chill of evening seemed to be settling down
noticeably.

"Funny thing about Hydrophoby Skunks," went on Johnny after a moment of
pensive thought--"mad, you know!"

"What makes them mad?" The two of us