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.
The following September I came near Rocky again. He was standing on
top of a little haystack--his haystack. All alone he was working. This
was his food supply for the coming winter; conies are grass and hay
eaters. A hay harvest enables the cony to live on mountain tops.
Rocky’s nearly complete stack was not knee-high, and was only half a
step long. As I stood looking at him and his tiny stack of hay, he
jumped off and ran across the rocks as fast as his short legs could
speed him. A dozen or so steps away he disappeared behind a boulder,
as though leaving for other scenes.
But he came running back with something in his mouth--more hay. This
he dropped against the side of the stack and ran off again behind the
boulder.
I looked behind the boulder. There was a small hay field, a ragged
space covered with grass and wild flowers, surrounded with boulders
and with ice and old snow at one corner. Acres of barren rocks were
all around and Long’s Peak rose a rocky crag high above.
Back from the stack came the cony and leaped into the field, rapidly
bit off a number of grass blades and carrying these in his mouth raced
off for the stack. The third time he cut off three tall, slender plant
stalks and at the top of one a white and blue flower fluttered. With
these stalks crosswise in his teeth, the stalks extending a foot each
side of his cheeks, he galloped off to his stack.
Many kinds of plants were mixed in this haystack. Grass blades, short,
long, fine, and coarse; large leaves and small; stalks woody and
stalks juicy. Flowers still clung to many of these stalks--yellow
avens, alpine gentians, blue polemonium, and purple primrose.
The home of Rocky was at approximately 13,000 feet. The cony is found
over a belt that extends from this altitude down to 9,500. In many
regions timberline splits the cony zone. In this zone he finds ample
dwelling places under the surface between the rocks of slides and
moraines.
Conies appear to live in rock-walled, rock-floored dens. I have not
seen a cony den in earth matter. With few exceptions all dens seen
were among the boulders of moraines or the jumbled rocks of slides.
Both these rock masses are comparatively free of earthy matter. Dens
are, for the most part, ready-made. About all the cony has to do is to
find the den and take possession.
In the remains of a caved moraine I saw parts of a number of cony dens
exposed. The dens simply were a series of irregularly connected spaces
between the boulders and rock chunks of the moraine. Each cony appears
to have a number of spaces for sleeping, hay-stacking, and possibly
for exercise. One cony had a series of connected rooms, enough almost
for a cliff-dweller city. One of these rooms was filled with hay, and
in three others were thin nests of hay.
These dens are not free from danger. Occasionally an under-cutting
stream causes a morainal deposit to collapse. Snowslides may cover a
moraine deeply with a deposit of snow and this in melting sends down
streams of water; the roof over cony rooms leaks badly; he vacates.
[Illustration:
_Photo. by Frank Palmer_
_Goat-land_]
Slide rock--the home of the cony--frequently is his tomb. All cliffs
are slowly falling to pieces, and occasionally a clinging mass
weighing hundreds and possibly thousands of tons lets go and down the
slide rock it tumbles, bounding, crushing, and tearing. The conies
that escape being crushed come out peeved and protesting against
unnecessary disturbances.
One day while crossing the heights there came a roaring and a crashing
on the side of a peak that rose a thousand feet above the level of the
plateau. A cloud of rock dust rose and filled the air completely for
several minutes. As the echoes died away there were calls and alarmed
cries of conies. Hastening to the bottom of a slope of slide rock I
found scattered fragments of freshly broken rocks. A mass had fallen
near the top of the peak and this had crashed down upon the long slope
of slide rock, tearing and scattering the surface and causing the
entire slope of a thousand feet or more to settle. I could hear a
subdued creaking, groaning, and grinding together, with a slight
tumble of a fragment on surface.
This slide had been temporarily changed into a rock glacier--a slow,
down-sliding mass of confused broken rocks. Its numerous changing
subterranean cavities were not safe places for conies.
Numbers of conies were “Skee-eking” and scampering. Weasels were
hurrying away from the danger zone. Possibly a number of each had been
crushed.
The conies thus driven forth probably found other dens near by, and a
number I am certain found welcome and refuge for the night in the dens
of conies in undisturbed rocks within a stone’s throw of the bottom of
the slide.
The upper limits of the inhabited cony zone present a barren
appearance. Whether slide or moraine, the surface is mostly a jumble
of rocks, time-stained and lifeless. But there are spaces, a few
square feet, along narrow ledges or in little wind-blown or
water-placed piles of soil, which produce dwarfed shrubs, grasses, and
vigorous plants and wild flowers.
Dried food in the form of hay is what enables the cony to endure the
long winters and to live merrily in the very frontier of warm-blooded
life. In this zone he lives leisurely.
Rocky placed his haystack between boulders, beneath the edge of the
big flat rock on which he sat for hours daily, except during haymaking
time. As soon as the stack was dry he carried the hay down into his
underground house and stacked it in one or more of the rock-walled
rooms. It appears that all cony stacks are placed by the entrance of
the den, and in as sheltered a spot as possible. Rocky cut and
stacked his hay during September, then early October I saw him
carrying it underground.
These cony haystacks were of several sizes and many shapes. The
average one was smaller than a bushel basket. I have seen a few that
contained twice or even three times the contents of a bushel.
There were rounded haystacks, long and narrow ones, and others of
angular shape. But few were of good form, and the average stack had
the appearance of a wind-blown trash pile, or a mere heap of dropped
hay. Invariably the stack was placed between or to the leeward of
rocks; evidently for wind protection.
One stack in a place was the custom. But a number of times I have seen
two, four, and once five stacks in collection. Near each stack
collection was an equal number of entrances to cony dens.
But little is known concerning the family life of the cony. Nor do I
know how long the average cony lives. A prospector in the San Juan
Mountains saw a cony frequently through four years. I had glimpses of
Rocky a few times each year for three years. During the second summer
one of his ears was torn and the slit never united. Just how this
happened I do not know.
All conies that I saw making hay were working alone. But there were
five conies at work in one field. One of these haymakers was lame in
the left hind foot. Each haycutter carried his load off to his stack.
One stack was thirty steps from the field; the one of the lame fellow,
fortunately, was only eight steps.
The cony is a relative of the rabbit, the squirrel, the beaver, and
the prairie dog. Although he has a home underground, he spends most of
his waking hours outdoors. Above ground on a rock he sits--in the
sunshine, in cloud, and even in the rain.
Except during harvest, or when seeking a new home, he works but
little. Much of the time he simply sits. On a rock that rises two feet
or more above the surrounding level he sits by the hours, apparently
dreaming.
By the entrance of Rocky’s den lay a large, flat slab of granite,
several feet long. This was raised upon boulders. He stacked his hay
beneath the edge of this outreaching slab and upon the slab he spent
hours each day, except in busy haymaking time.
With back against his rock, without a move for an hour or longer, he
would sit in one spot near his den. Now and then he sent forth a call
as though asking a question, and then gravely listened to the
responses of far-off conies. Occasionally he appeared to repeat a
call as though relaying a message from his station. Many of these
“Skee-eks” may at times be just common cony talk, while others, given
with different speeds and inflections, sometimes are quick and
peculiarly accented, and probably warn of possible danger or tell of
the approach of something harmless.
One spring day I came by Rocky’s place and he was not in sight. I
waited long, then laid my sweater upon his slab of granite and went on
to the home of another cony. On returning Rocky was home. Like a
little watch dog he sat upon the sweater.
Another time in June he was out in the hay meadow eating the short
young plants. I stood within ten feet of him and he went on eating as
though he did not know I was there. Occasionally he called “Ke-ack”
that appeared to be relayed to far-off conies. He did not seem to be
watching me but the instant I moved he darted beneath a rock out of
sight.
Conies are shy wherever I have found them, and I found many in places
possibly not before visited by people.
Rocky’s nearest cony neighbour was more than two hundred feet away
across the boulders. During a winter visit to him I found cony tracks
which indicated that these two conies had exchanged calls.
The cony appears something of a traveller, something of an explorer. A
number climb to the summit of the nearest peak during the summer and
occasionally one goes far down into the lower lands.
A few times I have seen them as explorers on top of Long’s Peak and
other peaks that rise above 14,000 feet; and occasionally a cony comes
to my cabin and spends a few days looking around, taking refuge, and
spending the nights in the woodpile. My cabin is at 9,000 feet, and
the nearest cony territory is about a mile up the mountainside.
One snowy day, while out following a number of mountain sheep, I
passed near the home of Rocky and turned aside hoping to see him.
Before reaching his rock I saw a weasel coming toward me with a limp
cony upon his shoulder and clutched by the throat. The weasel saw me
and kept on coming toward me, and would, I believe, have brushed by.
He appeared in a hurry to take his kill somewhere, probably home.
I threw a large chunk of snow which struck upon a rock by him. He fell
off the rock in scrambling over the snow. But he clung to the cony and
dragged it out of reach beneath a boulder.
No fur or blood was found on Rocky’s rock nor on any of the rocks
surrounding his den. Possibly the cony carried by the weasel was
another cony. Just what may have become of Rocky I cannot be sure.
Possibly he was crushed by the settling of the rock walls of his
house; a fox, eagle, or weasel may have seized him. But at any rate, I
never saw him again that I know of, and that autumn no busy little
haymaker appeared in the meadow among the boulders.
The weasel is the most persistent and effective enemy of the cony.
Evidently he is dreaded by them. Bears, lions, coyotes, foxes, and
eagles occasionally catch a cony; but the weasel often does. The
weasel is agile, powerful, slender bodied, and can follow a cony into
the smaller hiding places of the den and capture him. During winter he
is the snow-white ermine, and in white easily slips up over the snow
unseen. He can outrun, outdodge a cony, and then, too, he is a trained
killer. From the weasel there is no escape for the cony.
During winter rambles in cony highlands I occasionally discovered a
stack of hay on the surface. Most stacks are moved into the dens
before winter is on.
When a stack is left outside it commonly means that either the stack
is exceptionally well sheltered from wind and snow, and in easy and
safe reach of the cony, or else the little owner has lost his
life--an avalanche or other calamity forced him to leave the locality.
One sunny morning I set off early on snowshoes to climb high and to
search for the scattered cony haystacks among the rocks on the side of
Long’s Peak. A haystack sheltered against a cliff was found at
timberline. By it was the fresh track of a bighorn ram. He had eaten a
few bites of the hay. No other part of the stack had been touched.
Around were no cony tracks in the snow. The stack had the appearance
of being incomplete. Had a lynx or other prowler captured the haymaker
in the unsheltered hayfield? Evidently the owner or builder had not
been about for weeks. A slowly forming icicle almost filled the unused
entrance to the cony den.
Against the bottom of one large slide of rock was a grassy meadow of a
few acres which during summer was covered with a luxuriant growth of
grass and wild flowers. Three big stacks of hay stood at the bottom of
this slide in a stockade of big rock chunks. The hay was completely
sheltered from the wind; from the rich near-by hayfield the stack had
been built large. Close to the stacks three holes descended into cony
dens.
Had these three near neighbour conies worked together in cutting,
carrying, and piling these three stacks? They were separated by only
a few inches and had been cut from one near-by square rod of meadow.
But it is likely that each cony worked independently.
Far up the mountainside I found and saw an account of a cony adventure
written in the snow. In crossing a barren snow-covered slide I came
upon cony tracks coming down. I back-tracked to see where they came
from.
A quarter of a mile back and to one side a snowslide mingled with
gigantic rock fragments had swept down and demolished a part of a
moraine and ruined a cony home. This must have been a week or more
before. The snow along the edge of the disturbed area was tracked and
re-tracked--a confusion of cony footprints.
But the cony making the tracks which I followed had left the place and
proceeded as though he knew just where he was going. He had not
hesitated, stopped, nor turned to look back. Where was he bound for? I
left the wreckage to follow his tracks.
Up over a ridge the tracks led, then down a slope to the place where I
had discovered them, then to the left along a terrace a quarter of a
mile farther. Here they disappeared beneath huge rocks.
In searching for the tracks beyond I came in view of a tiny cony
haystack back in a cave-like place formed among the rocks. By this was
the entrance to a cony den. In the thin layer of snow were numerous
cony tracks. To this entrance I traced the cony.
As I stooped, examining things beneath, I heard a cony call above.
Edging out of the entrance I saw two conies. They were sitting on the
same rock in the sunshine. One probably was the owner of the little
haystack--the other the cony from the wrecked home.