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Show ...... ........'' - i PRAIRIE DOGS STOPPED THE PROGRESS OF WAGON TRAIN Every now and then one hears about invasions of grasshoppers that stop railroad trains. The old yarn was being unreeled the other night when a skeptic put in his unbelief. "I have been through several grasshopper grass-hopper epidemics," he said, "but I never saw any such thing. But I did encounter an exodus of prairie dogs once, on what was then a prairie in Nebraska,' that held up a long emigrant emi-grant train for a day and night. "It was during the rush for Pike's Peak. It was no unusual sight to see miles and miles of covered wagons wendirg their way like an army toward to-ward what was supposed to be the better land. "We had been out about two weeks from Omaha when one of the advance ad-vance guard hurried back along the line with the information that a drove of prairie dogs was crossing the road a mile or so ahead, and that, they were so numerous that the vanguard van-guard .of the prairie schooners had been stopped. A temporary halt was made. "No one supposed it would be of long duration, but, darkness coming on, we rounded up for the night. The next morning the line did not move forward, nor did it gain an inch all day. "Then a few of us mounted our horses and rode forward to reconnoi-ter. reconnoi-ter. When we got within a quarter of a mile of the head of the line we looked forward. The face of the eaith was in motion. "As far as the vision extended, north and south, it was the same. They were moving from the north to the south the prairie dogs were. They were so close together that you couldn't have tossed your hat be-1 be-1 tween them. They did not seem to be panic-stricken, but just moved on and on like a great cloud. "It was the strangest sight I ever saw. . Old plainsmen said they never saw anything like it. When they were first seen we turned the dogs in the train loose upon them, but the dogs soon gave out. Maybe there is some sort of affinity between domestic domes-tic dogs and pairie dogs which prompted the former to strike when it came to exterminating their species. "Anyway, the domestic dogs just gave up the job. As for shooting the little brown rascals, that would have been folly. We hadn't the ammunition. ammuni-tion. "The last night of the great exodus everybody, tired out with watching it, gave up the job and sought rest-wherever rest-wherever it could be found. The next day there wasn't a prairie dog in sight. We resumed our journey. As we neared our destination and the long line of prairie schooners began to disintegrate, men had something else to think about, and the sight was forgotten, I suppose. "But I never forgot it, and now and then occasionally I have met some one who also saw the sight, and as I knew they were men " who never drank or dreamed, I satisfied myself that I was not mistaken in what I saw. I reckon it was the grand army of prairie dogs looking for places to burrow. I know where some of them located, but where the devil did they come from?" v |