Some small brown sparrows, of two or three species, lived there, and they were very talkative. Sharp, metallic chirps were heard, also, as the blue snow-bird flitted about, showing the white feathers on either side of its tail, in scudding from one sheltering bush to another. Doubtless, careful search would have discovered its home, snugly built of circularly laid grasses, and tucked deeply into some cozy hollow beside the root of a spruce. My pace now became slow, for in the thin air of a place twelve thousand feet above the sea-level, climbing is exhausting work. But before long I came to the top, and stood on the verge of a crag that showed the crumbling action of water and frost. Gaping cracks seamed its face, and an enormous mass of fallen rock covered the broad slope at its foot. The very moment I arrived there, I heard a most lively squeaking going on, apparently just under the edge of the cliff or in some of the cracks. It was an odd noise, something between a bark and scream, and I could think of nothing but young hawks as the authors of it. So I set at work to find the nest, but my search was in vain, while the sharp squeaking seemed to multiply and to come from a dozen different quarters. By this time I had crawled down the rough face of the cliff, and had reached the heaps of fallen rock. There I caught a glimpse of a little head with two black eyes, like a prairie-dog's, peering out of a crevice, and I was just in time to see him open his small jaws and say _"shink" _--about as a rusty hinge would pronounce it. I whipped my revolver out of my belt and fired, but the little fellow dodged the bullet and was gone. Echoes rattled about among the rocks, wandered up and down the canon, and hammered away at half a dozen stone walls before ceasing entirely. But when they had died away, not another sound was to be heard. Every little rascal had hid. So I sat down and waited. In about five minutes a tiny, timid squeak broke the stillness, then a second a trifle louder, then one away under my feet in some subterranean passage. Hardly daring to breathe, I waited and watched. Finally the chorus became as loud as before, and I caught sight of one of the singers only about ten yards away, head and shoulders out of his hole, doubtless commenting to his neighbor in no complimentary way upon the strange intruder. Slowly lifting my pistol, I pulled the trigger. I was sure he had not seen me, yet a chip of rock flying from where he had stood was my only satisfaction; he had dodged again.