Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-07-11
A PRAlRrE-poo STORY
Deplorable Results OF an Effort to Tane
These PECULIAR Crna urns

Deplorable Results OF an Effort to Tame
These Peculiar Crea ures.
did you ever see prairie-dogg" asked
countrynan of the Chicago Mall
" Only those IN the park. Whys"
"Well, / was just thinking of boyhood
scene in which the cunning little prairie
dog was very prominent figure.
When I ! was a little boy my father
moved from Hoosierdom over upon broad
and blooming prairie in Illinois. That prai-
RE, stretching as far as the eye could see
to the north and west, was one vast garden
of flowers from April to November. There
must have been hundred varieties of wild
blooming plants, ranging from the lowly
strawberry, with its white blossoms, to the
gaudy, fiamboyant wild nlarigold, whose
oriental splendors gave vivid color to miles
and miles of undulating plain.
9 But this by the way. 1 started to speak
Of the prairie-dogs. The flowers were
scarcely more numerous than they. You
might ride for miles along path fanked on
either side by their villages, which were
seldom more than a few rods apart These
villages, always on some little knoll, were
popnlous. The horsenlan who approached
one of them would see a sentinel sitting
gravely motionless at the door of every bur-
row. One could scarcely tell these sentries
from bits of wood, so still and straight were
llSgs % A4NOA a pdAO IL oOC1AAu5 VI lnS
great, silent landscape.
'But even if there was case of tnow you
see it and now you DON'T those little sem
tinel prairie dogs offer the traveller strik-
ing example. He sees them there as silent
and impressive as the sentries of Pompeii,
and wonders what they will do when he
gets closer. He keeps his eye fixed on two
or three of them and unconsciously checks
his horse, so that the clatter of hoofs may
not startle them. He is within fifty, thirty,
twenty PAGES, when-lol the sentries are
gone! He has not seen them go. The earth
has swallowed them. He rubs his ewes and
rides on, wondering if it were all an Illusion
He looks back to assure himself, when-lol
the sentries are there-as still and statu-
esque as before.
Zone time my father trapped four or five
Of them. l don't know how he managed it /;
I've forgotten that. think they must have
been young and foolish, like baby rats
which venture where their pa and ma would
never go. My father brought them home
and we children Rugged ourselves in de-
light as we fancied them as pretty pets like
squirrels or white rabbits. cage was
quickly fitted up; the captives were placed
in it and surrounded by all the dainties which
we fancied could tempt them TO forget their
captivity. Our parents kept us away from the
terror which they did not attempt to con-
ceal. But we went to place more food be-
fore them the next morning The food pre-
viously provided had not been touched The
little prisoners sat YEARLY ON their launches
in the dark extremity of their cell Childish
curiosity was repressed till the second
morning, when the cage was again visited.
| The captives sat in the same position, and
no morsel of the varied bill of fare with
which we had design cd to tempt them had
been touched. The water was undimin-
| ished in the bowl. Anot her day passed, the
| third morning came, and we ran out to see
our pets. The sight that met our eyes
shall never forget. In their hunger and
| despair the poor captives had eaten their
own feet. The bloody stumps were a sad
and slckening reproof of our cruelty in de-
| priving the children of the prairie of their
wild sweet liberty. We felt it, children as
we were, and silently, almost in tears we
opened the prison door and slipped away to
| give the captives. opportunity to escape.
But it was too late. With their feet gnawed
off up almost to their little bodies, they
could scarcely more than drag themselves
out, and creep away into the grass, where
they soon after diedn