It was peaceful here in the cañon, and hot. Tompkins lay shaded by an overhanging rock which concealed him and enjoyed himself while he waited. He was a third of the way up the cañon, which wound upward for another mile before opening on the mesa. Here it was fairly wide, and the sun had excellent chances to radiate from the boulders, and the spring life of the place was warmed into activity. Patches of cacti and jack-pine abounded. No water was in sight, but Tompkins had a water-bag within reach. He lay perfectly quiet, watching a trade-rat whose nest lay in a cranny of the rocks just to one side, and a young coyote which was vainly endeavoring to investigate the rat and nest. It was obvious that this particular rat had migrated from the desert below, for while his nest was composed of pebbles and sticks and all manner of queer objects, it was protected after the peculiar fashion of his desert brethren. Two runways entered the nest, itself nearly out of sight under the rocks; and about these runways, laid with mathematical precision, were hundreds of terrible opuntia joints. To Tompkins, as to every other naturalist, it was an unsolved mystery how the pack-rat, with delicate and unprotected paws, could handle these joints of cactus. No other living creature can face the _cholla_ cactus, whose spines, as the Indians declare, jump at one, inflicting acute agony; even the rattler avoids it gingerly. Here for a space of ten feet around the nest were heaped the matted _cholla_ joints, while the pack-rat who owned the establishment sat out in full sight and insulted the hovering coyote with angry taunts. That the coyote was young and hungry was obvious, or he would not have attempted to molest so well-entrenched a rat. Oblivious to the presence of Tompkins, who sat perfectly motionless, he charged again and again on those defenses. Each time his courage failed at the last moment and he would draw off, snarling and snapping in futile rage, before his nose touched the _cholla_. In a cool niche between two rocks, in sight of Tompkins above but concealed from the furious coyote, lay a fifteen-inch sidewinder, safely sheltered from the deadly rays of the sun, his brown-and-gray length practically invisible against the rocks. He lay stretched out, head lifted ready to strike, a venomous and malignant thing beyond all words with his horned features and green jewels of eyes. The coyote, unconscious of this lurking death, continued backward and forward, now rushing and now sending a flurry of sand flying in his anger. One such flurry had aroused the sidewinder, and Tompkins waited for the inevitable, since the coyote was drawing closer and closer to the unseen death.