The songsters recovered from their fright while the rascal was giving vent to a cackle which sounded like a derisive laugh, and then they combined forces to drive the intruder out of the neighborhood. The bluejay proved to be as full of fight as of mischief, but a severe conflict produced an appreciable amendment of manners.
Even the red-headed wood-pecker ceased hammering holes in the trees and stopped long enough to inspect the stranger. It may have been only a trick of the bluejay’s to entice the worker away from the tree to allow a raid on the store-house of acorns. It did the pilferer no good, however; for the carpenter-bird never makes a mistake in selecting acorns to fit the holes made for them. From the beginning of time the bluejay has never been able to appreciate this fact.
The chip-munks, the grasshoppers and the squirrels peeped and wondered from different points of vantage, while a mother partridge by fluttering and scurrying along the ground, sought to divert attention from her tiny striped-back brood huddled up on one foot under a friendly bunch of wild-strawberry leaves.
A pair of quail established themselves in the screen of a honey-suckle vine, and the little crested head of the family was feeding his small mate a dainty tidbit, having coaxed her up into that leafy retreat to discuss the viand. Ring-doves cooed lovingly to each other, while the now extinct wild turkey sunned itself and preened its bronze feathers, perched high on the top of the bare rock above.
Up near the snow-line were red patches of snow-plants, looking like huge semi-transparent globules of crystallized sugar, having stem, bells and leaves all of one color, curiously mingled and intertwined.
Every inch of Akaza’s advance was contested by some flowering plant. Sometimes it was the drooping boughs of the white blossoming dog-wood. Again, it was a rhododendron bush stubbornly blocking the way. Or, perhaps, it was a shower of azalea blooms that fairly smothered him. The spice-bush, with its long, slender green leaves, and odd-shape wine-colored flowers, locked horns with the tall shapely Shasta Lily.
The gossamer, glass-like mountain mahogany disputed honors with a flaring brown-and-orange tiger-lily, while the pentstemon, distinctly blue at the base and pink at the rim of its cup, coquetted with a dainty butterfly-lily. “Like a bubble borne on air, floats the shy Mariposa Bell,” with its purplish white, its faint tint of pink or pale gold, each petal brocaded in soft shades of bronze-brown or patched with plush, as if fairy finger-tips had smutched them before the paints were dry.
Who does not know the yellow buttercup which faces the world everywhere, the red columbine, whose chandelier of scarlet tongues makes light in dark places, or the well-beloved larkspur?
Then purple thistle, goldenrods and dandelions shook their heads vigorously in the refreshing breeze, and argued it out with the grasses and ice-plants lying flat on the ground, where only a muchly debased cactus bristled and threatened everything that ventured even to look at its forbidden fruit.
The day was well nigh spent when Akaza approached the camp near the mouth of the Indian Canyon. Yermah and Kerœcia advanced to meet him, hand in hand, like happy children. Kerœcia did not wait for a formal presentation but came forward graciously.