CHAPTER II
THE HAYMAKER OF THE HEIGHTS
The first time I climbed Long’s Peak I heard a strange, wild cry or call repeated at intervals. “Skee-ek,” “Ke-ack,” came from among the large rocks along the trail a quarter of a mile below the limits of tree growth. It might be that of bird or beast. Half squeak, half whistle, I had not heard its like. Though calling near me, the maker kept out of sight.
A hawk flew over with a screech not unlike this mysterious “Skee-ek.” I had about decided that it was dropping these “Ke-acks” when a rustling and a “Skee-ek” came from the other side of the big rock close by me. I hurried around to see, but nothing was there.
This strange voice, invisible and mocking like an echo, called from time to time all the way to the summit of the peak. And as I stood on the highest point, alone as I supposed, from somewhere came the cry of the hidden caller. As I looked, there near me on a big flat rock sat a cony. He was about six inches long and in appearance much like a guinea pig; but with regulation rabbit ears he might have passed for a young rabbit. His big round ears were trimmed short.
Rarely do I name a wild animal—it does not occur to me to do so. But as he was the first cony I had seen, and seeing him on top of Long’s Peak, I called him almost unconsciously, “Rocky.”
Rocky raised his nose and head, braced himself as though to jump, and delivered a shrill “Ke-ack.” He waited a few seconds, then another “Skee-ek.” I moved a step toward him and he started off the top.
That winter I climbed up to look for a number of objects and wondered concerning the cony. I supposed he spent the summer on the mountain tops and wintered in the lowlands. But someone told me that he hibernated. At twelve thousand feet I heard a “Skee-ek” and then another. An hour later I saw conies sitting, running over the rocks, and shouting all around me—more like recess time at school than hibernating sleep.
One of these conies was calling from a skyline rock thirteen thousand feet above the sea. I walked toward him, wondering how near he would let me come. He kept up his “Skee-eking” at intervals, apparently without noticing me, until within ten or twelve feet. Then he sort of skated off the rock and disappeared. This was the nearest any cony, with the exception of Rocky on the top of Long’s Peak, had ever let me come. His manner of getting off the rock, too, instead of starting away from me in several short runs, made me think it must be Rocky.
The American cony lives on top of the world—on the crest of the continent. By him lives also the weasel, the ptarmigan, and the Bighorn wild sheep; but no other fellow lives higher in the sky than he; he occupies the conning tower of the continent.
But what did these “rock-rabbits” eat? They were fat and frolicking the year around.