As April arrives the effects of sunshine and moisture become evident. The grass is green, leaves are coming out on the shrubs and the earth is broken by the first tender shoots of myriads of growing plants. There is a damp, earthy smell in the canyons; the dank odor of rotting leaf mold, the heavy odor of wet clay. Through it all is the delicate fragrance of growing, budding plants. Back from the south come the first birds and spring is definitely in the Mesa Verde. The earth-loving Indians are bursting with restless energy and everyone is busy. Sometimes the town is almost deserted as the call of spring draws them out of the cave. The cliffs echo with the laughter of small children as they play along the slopes and down in the bottom of the canyon. During the winter in the shadowy cave their skins became pale but already the spring sun is tanning them to a warm brown. Their hearts are light; they are like unrestrained little brown animals as they play the days away. They have fewer cares and troubles than the chipmunks and squirrels whose lives they make miserable. Each small boy carries a bow and each one knows how to set cord snares in the runways among the rocks. Sometimes a small hunter is successful and the cliffs ring with his exultant shouts as he brings a chipmunk or a squirrel or even a fat rat to his mother. At the next meal he is a hero and receives the choicest morsels from his kill. Some of the older boys go out on the mesas for larger game. The wet, silent earth makes it easy for them to stalk the deer and mountain sheep that have never been alarmed by the thundering reports of firearms. At long range their flint-tipped arrows are not effective but they are clever stalkers and at close range the silent arrows are deadly. In the evening they return with their game. They trot proudly down the precipitous trails and through the city, hoping that the eyes of the maidens will rest upon them. But the soft brown eyes are always turned away—still they see. Most of the men climb up to the mesa-top fields even though they are too wet to be worked. Their love of the soil draws them to their farms and they boast about the crops they intend to grow, or listen to the old men as they tell of the miraculous crops of bygone years.