And so on for a hundred miles. And then Texas gets a little tired of so much level land and begins to undulate. Dry river-beds are passed, and then a muskeet "chapparal" commences, and with it a prodigious city of prairie-dogs. But the inhabitants are partially civilized. The train does not alarm them in the least. It does not even arouse their curiosity. They sit a few feet off the rails, with their backs to the passing trains. Perhaps they may look over their shoulders at it. But they do not interrupt their gambols nor their work for such a trifle as a train. They eat and squabble and flirt--do anything, in fact, but run away. Now and then, as if out of good taste and not to appear too affected, they make a show of moving a little out of the way. But the motive is so transparent that the trivial change of position counts for nothing. The jack-rabbit imitates the prairie-dog, just as the Indian imitates the white man, and pretends that it too does not care about the train. But there is an expression on its ears that betrays its nervousness; and why, too, does it always manage to get under the shady side of the nearest bush? One thing more about the prairie-dog, and I have done with him. The soil east of Colorado city changes for a while in colour, being reddish. Before this it had been sandy. And the prairie-dog alters its colour to suit its soil. You might say of course that the dust round its burrows tinged its fur, just as dust will tinge anything it settles on. But it is a fact that the fur itself is redder where the soil is redder, and that in the two tracts the little animal assimilates itself to the ground it sits upon. And the advantage is obvious. Dozens of prairie-dogs sitting motionless on the soil harmonized so exactly with their surroundings that for a time I did not observe them. Detecting one I soon learned to detect all. Now one of the grey prairie dogs on the red soil would have been very conspicuous, just as conspicuous in fact as a red one would have been trying to pass unobserved on the lighter soil. The undulations now increase into valleys, and splendid they are, with their rich crops of wild hay and abundant life. The train stops at a "station" (I am not sure that it has earned a name yet), and some cowboys, and dreadful of their kind, get on to the train. But it is only for an hour or so. But during that hour the prairie-dogs had much excitement given them by the perpetual discharging of revolvers into the middle of their family parties. It is impossible to say whether any of them were hit, for the prairie-dog tumbles into his hole with equal rapidity, whether he is alive or dead. But I hope they escaped. For I have a great tenderness for all the small ministers of Nature, in fur and in feathers. "Their task in silence perfecting, Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, Labours that shall not fail, when man is gone."