Dog town watched the hail but was deserted before the first raindrop fell. The downpour lasted for several minutes with a plentiful accompaniment of crashing of lightning.
A deep sheet of water swept down from the prairie beyond the town limits to the west, where the rainfall was a cloudburst. The sheet of water overspread the town and temporarily filled hundreds of the inhabited dens.
Out came the sputtering, protesting dogs. Numbers, perhaps hundreds, were drowned. Across the soaked prairie I hurried, catching the effects and the movements. I pulled several gurgling dogs from their water-filled holes, each of them making nip-and-tuck efforts to climb out.
The following morning a pair of coyotes slipped up the invading gully trench into town. Occasionally these crafty fellows peeked over the bank. Then they crept farther in, and one peeped from a screen of sagebrush on the bank. Suddenly both dashed out and each killed two dogs. The entire village howled and yapped itself hoarse while the invaders feasted within the town limits. Leisurely the coyote at last moved on through the town turning aside to sniff at the drowned dogs.
One spring I called early in Cactus Center and found blackbirds, robins, and other northbound birds among the visitors. Among these was a flock of golden plover, one of the greatest of bird travellers. These birds were resting and feeding. They probably were on their way from the far South American plains, to their nesting ground on the treeless grassland around the Arctic Circle.
During an early summer visit to this dog town it was decorated with wild flowers--sand lilies, golden banner, creamy vetch, and prickly poppy. I wandered about in the evening twilight looking at the evening star flowers while a coyote chorus sounded strangely over the wide, listening prairie. Near me was a dog hole; its owner climbed up to peep out; in a minute or so he retired without a bark or a yap.
The magnificent visible distances of the plains seem to create a desire in its dwellers to see everything that is going on around. And also a desire for sociability, for herds. Buffalo crowded in enormous herds, the antelope were sometimes in flocks of thousands, and the little yellow-brown dogs crowded and congested.