The kill must have been made early in the evening, for it appeared that
the cougar had been twice to the spring; and since the meat-eater drinks
little until he has eaten, he must have fed and drunk, and after an
interval of lying up in the black rock, had eaten and drunk again. There
was no knowing how far he had come, but if he came again the second
night he found that the coyotes had left him very little of his kill.

Nobody ventures to say how infrequently and at what hour the small fry
visit the spring. There are such numbers of them that if each came once
between the last of spring and the first of winter rains, there would
still be water trails. I have seen badgers drinking about the hour when
the light takes on the yellow tinge it has from coming slantwise through
the hills. They find out shallow places, and are loath to wet their
feet. Rats and chipmunks have been observed visiting the spring as late
as nine o'clock mornings. The larger spermophiles that live near the
spring and keep awake to work all day, come and go at no particular
hour, drinking sparingly. At long intervals on half-lighted days, meadow
and field mice steal delicately along the trail. These visitors are all
too small to be watched carefully at night, but for evidence of their
frequent coming there are the trails that may be traced miles out among
the crisping grasses. On rare nights, in the places where no grass grows
between the shrubs, and the sand silvers whitely to the moon, one sees
them whisking to and fro on innumerable errands of seed gathering, but
the chief witnesses of their presence near the spring are the elf owls.
Those burrow-haunting, speckled fluffs of greediness begin a twilight
flitting toward the spring, feeding as they go on grasshoppers, lizards,
and small, swift creatures, diving into burrows to catch field mice
asleep, battling with chipmunks at their own doors, and getting down in
great numbers toward the lone juniper. Now owls do not love water
greatly on its own account. Not to my knowledge have I caught one