I had been strolling over exactly such a hill half an hour before, circling one cluster of shrubs after another, opera-glass in hand, on the alert for any bird that might show itself (it was likely as not to be a stranger), when all at once—how it came about I shall never be able to tell—there, just before me on the ground, twenty or thirty feet away, stood one of the birds that I had most desired to see in this novel Southwestern world—a road-runner. I have found some puzzles since my arrival at San Antonio, three days ago, but this was not one of them. As our good common saying is, the fellow looked “as natural as life.” Mr. Fuertes’s drawing had stepped out of the book. I could have shouted with pleasure.
The bird was true to his name. There was no road, to be sure, but he knew what was expected of him, and started off at once at a lively trot; then, within ten or fifteen feet, he stopped short, lifted his ridiculously long tail till it stood at right angles with his body,—the white “thumb-marks” at the ends of the feathers making a brave show, in spite of the almost indecent absurdity of his attitude,—and after a moment started on again. Two or three times he repeated these manœuvres; and then, without my knowing how he did it, he escaped me altogether, although the bit of shrubbery into which he had vanished was only a few feet in diameter. “Never mind,” I thought, “I have seen him.” And he was every whit as oddly behaved a piece as my fancy had painted him.
The road-runner, it should be said, is an overgrown member of the cuckoo family. Its length from the tip of its bill to the end of its tail is about two feet. It wears what may be described as a frightened-looking crest, its plumage is conspicuously mottled, and, what gives it its special character, its tail is a foot long. As Mrs. Bailey well says, it is “one of the most original and entertaining of Western birds. The newcomer is amazed when the long-tailed creature darts out of the brush and races the horses down the road, easily keeping ahead as they trot, and when tired turns out into the brush and throws his tail over his back to stop himself.”
My bird’s performance was less theatrical than that, perhaps because I was on foot, perhaps because the day was Sunday, perhaps because of the absence of a thoroughfare; but I was well pleased.
It is noticeable how birds, not less than men, tend to become specialists. To accomplish one thing supremely well,—that is certainly the way to make one’s self famous. And that is what the road-runner does. He has chosen a hobby, and he rides it. His legs are proportionally no longer than other birds’, but that does not matter. Such as they are, he will make the most of them.
He is like a certain Maine farmer of whom I have heard, a plain tiller of the soil, who feels, nevertheless, that he was born for better things; not for a cart-horse, if you please, but for a race-horse. He may be working on his farm, at the plough, we will say; suddenly the impulse comes upon him, as inspiration is said to come upon a poet; there is nothing for it but he must start and run; and so he does. Once every summer he travels from Maine to Mount Washington, for the great event of the year. When he appears at the Summit House, every one knows what is to happen. So-and-so is going to run down the mountain. The daily newspaper chronicles his arrival and announces the hour of the annual event. Then, at the minute agreed upon, all hands gather before the door, a man appointed for the purpose holds the watch and gives the signal, and down the steep road starts the farmer, his invariable “tall hat” on his head, and his coat-tails flying. At the Half-Way House, and again at the base, his time is taken. If it is shorter than last year’s, so much the more glory. If it is longer,—well, he has run; and presumably, like Cincinnatus before him, he goes back to his plough contented.
The road-runner, I suspect (the running cuckoo!), is subject to the same irresistible ambulatory impulses, and by a curious coincidence he, too, wears what we may term a “tall hat.” I should like to see him racing down the Mount Washington road, putting on the brakes now and then, at the sharper turns, by a sudden cocking of his tail!
The temperature here—for temperature must always be mentioned in writing of one’s travels—has thus far been pretty comfortable for a walker, though not without something of the contradictoriness which seems to belong to weather conditions everywhere and always: roses in all the gardens, and steam in the radiators; children, black and white, paddling about in the mud barefooted and barelegged, and gentlemen with heavy overcoats on, and, not unlikely, collars turned up. Concerning such things, here in “San Antone,” you take your choice. For myself I have compromised the matter, keeping my boots on and wearing, except when the sun has been more than commonly persuasive, the lightest of spring overcoats.
The great drawback to a walking man’s comfort, and just now the most impressive “feature” of the city,—more impressive by far than the old Spanish missions, the most famous of which, the Alamo, is directly at my door,—has been the mud; deep and black, and more adhesive than glue. If you go outside the city your shoes gather it as a rolling snowball gathers snow (“to him that hath shall be given,” you repeat to yourself), and it is like one of the labors of Hercules to get it off. I walk about, scuffing and kicking, with pounds of it on either overshoe, like a dark fringe, and fancy I know how it feels to drag a ball and chain. However, conditions are bettering in this respect, and in any case, things might easily be worse. Yesterday morning, seeing the sky clouded, I remarked to the elevator boy on my way down to breakfast, that I believed it was going to rain; and I added, sententiously, “More rain, more mud.” “Yes,” said the boy, quick to resent an imputation upon the climate of Texas, “and the more rain, the better crops.” The State, it appears, has suffered greatly from drought for the past few seasons, and no doubt its people can well afford to play the mud-lark for a week now and then in winter. It makes a difference whether you are a selfish, pleasure-seeking tourist, thinking only of to-day’s comfort, or a man with his living to make out of a cotton plantation or a market garden.
For the present, if the tourist wishes, as I do, to walk in the country, he may do worse than betake himself to one of the numerous railroad tracks.[10] These have carried me into good places and shown me many interesting birds; but they would be more convenient if they were not walled in, mile after mile, except as a highway or a plantation road crosses them, by an excessively high and close barbed-wire fence. Yet even this hateful obstruction has served me one slight good turn.