“Yes. I’ve watched many a battle between a road runner and a rattlesnake, and nearly all of those battles were won by the birds. But that is not the most wonderful thing a road runner does. I’ll tell you. I’ve never seen this thing myself, but a friend of mine, an old prospector named Dismukes, swears it’s true. He knows more about the desert than any man I ever met, and he wouldn’t tell a lie. Well, here’s what it is. He says he saw a road runner come upon a sleeping rattlesnake. But he didn’t pounce upon the snake. It happened to be that the snake slept on the sand near some bushes of cholla cactus. You know how the dead cones fall off and lie around. This wonderful bird dragged these loose pieces of cactus and laid them close together in a circle, all around the rattlesnake. Built a fence around him! Penned him in! Now I can vouch for how a rattlesnake hates cactus.... Then the fierce bird flew up and pounced down upon the snake. Woke him up! The rattlesnake tried to slip away, but everywhere he turned was a cactus which stuck into him, and over him the darting, picking bird. So round and round he went, striking as best he could. But he was unable to hit the bird, and every pounce upon him drew the blood. You’ve heard the snap of that big long beak. Well, the rattlesnake grew desperate and began to bite himself. And what with his own bites and those of his enemy he was soon dead.... And then the beautiful, graceful, speckled bird proceeded to tear and devour him.”
“I’ll bet it’s true!” ejaculated Genie. “A road runner could and would do just that.”
“Very likely. It’s strange, and perhaps true. Indeed, the desert is the place for things impossible anywhere else.”
“Why do birds and beasts kill and eat each other?” asked Genie.
“It is nature, Genie.”
“Nature could have done better. Why don’t people eat each other? They do kill each other. And they eat animals. But isn’t that all?”
“Genie, some kinds of people—cannibals in the South Seas—and savages—do kill and eat men. It is horrible to believe. Dismukes told me that he came upon a tribe of Indians on the west coast of Sonora in Mexico. That’s not more than four hundred miles from here. He went down there prospecting for gold. He thought these savages—the Seri Indians, they’re called—were descended from cannibals and sometimes ate man flesh themselves. No one knows but that they do it often. I’ve met prospectors and travelers who scouted the idea of the Seris being cannibals. But I’ve heard some bad stories about them. Dismukes absolutely believed that in a poor season for meat, if chance offered, they would kill and eat a white man. Prospectors have gone into that country never to return.”
“Ughh! I’ve near starved, but I’d never get that hungry. I’d die. Wouldn’t you?”
“Indeed I would, child.”
And so, during the leisure hours, that grew more and longer as the hot summer season advanced, Adam led Genie nearer to nature, always striving with his observations to teach the truth, however stern, and to instruct and stimulate her growing mind. All was not music of birds and perfume of flowers and serene summer content at the rosy dawns and the golden sunsets. The desert life was at work. How hard to reconcile the killing with the living! But when Adam espied an eagle swooping down from the mountain heights, its wings bowed, and its dark body shooting so wondrously, then he spoke of the freedom of the lonely king of birds, and the grace of his flight, and the noble spirit of his life.