Under western skies

Chapter 12. Faithful Unto Death . 259 HALF WOLF—HALF FOX

COME call them wolves—prairie wolves—while ^ others call them coyotes. For myself I prefer the latter name; it is the one by which I came to know them, and which I heard used by the people out west who did know them. The lonely prairies and the mountain fastnesses are now the only refuge of the coyote, since civilization is pushing forward from either shore.

The name coyote is Mexican—or Spanish; but in the homeland of the coyotes this name has been so long in common use that to call them prairie wolves would merely cause confusion.

Since my first acquaintance with the coyotes I have thought of them as hybrids, a cross between the wolf and the fox. I can think of no other de¬ scription which would give those who have never seen the animal, nor had experience of its cunning, a better idea of what it is like.

In size the coyote is midway between the wolf and the fox. In color it is of a reddish yellow, with a suggestion of gray at certain seasons of the year. Its tail is more bushy than that of the wolf, and somewhat less bushy than that of the fox. The coyote has the narrow snout of the fox and the broad head of the wolf, with bright and beautiful eyes. It is a graceful and interesting beast, with a cunning which is equal to that of the fox in the struggle for existence. Tho not dangerous to man, or to the larger animals—such as horses and cattle —it will sometimes, when occasion demands it, fight with the foolhardiness of the wolf in defence of life and liberty. Such was my first impression of the coyote, and this is the picture of it still remain¬ ing with me.

It is a day in spring; a day of sunshine and clear skies, with a hint of coming summer in the gentle breezes from the fields of snow up on the mountain sides. It is springtime on the strips of rolling prairie winding in among the mountain walls, and cut thru by river canons and countless ravines, which are dry except when occasionally filled by melting snows and heavy rains.

Scattered over the prairie are seen low bushes, somewhat like heather, but less soft, and of a light green or grayish color. Between these bushes the light, sandy soil is bare; and all is somber and gray —in striking contrast to the moors of Norway, for instance, with their thick heather and rich brown color. The soil here in the west has a much lighter hue; so light, in fact, as seriously to tax the eyes when it is bathed in bright sunshine. The grass comes late and in little tufts, and is cured into hay by the July sun when the rains have ceased.

The flowers are few; generally only those of the cactus are in evidence. And of birds there are only a few varieties of the grouse, and an occasional bird of prey sailing alone across the face of heaven and keeping a watchful eye for a possible victim—lonely as the prairies and the mountains among which they live. There are no little songbirds to break the somber monotony.

The sagebrush—which might as well be called heather—sometimes hides a little rabbit, who takes an occasional little nibble at the bunch-grass or heather, its sensitive nose alive to every slightest change of the wind. This acute sense is the good guardian angel of many wild things.

A few trees only are to be seen bordering the river banks.

On this day of spring a coyote is seen trotting over the prairie, sniffing the air, and carefully ex¬ amining whatever it may chance to see.

It is alone, and it goes leisurely; with frequent stops, indicating the wild animal’s avoidance of danger and its sharp craving for something to eat. It moves in about the same way as a dog would have done; but its frequent stops, the manner in which it sniffs at the slightest breath of air, the careful casting of the eyes to either side, these in¬ dicate either appetite or a troubled conscience.

It may be doubted that the coyote has ever felt the sting of a bad conscience—at; least I have never heard of a case in point. But I have many times witnessed its ravenous appetite; how it revels in a carnival of gluttony whenever occasion offers.

The day is nearly done. The sun hangs low on the western horizon, and the coyote has eaten nothing since early morn.

Suddenly it stops and stands motionless as a statue. It must have seen something stir under one of the bushes over there.

In the wild places, where the wild animals have the same color as their surroundings, some of them changing color with the seasons; it is only by moving that they betray their whereabouts.

The coyote seems to know this and remains stand¬ ing still, looking over to the spot where something had stirred, waiting. For it knows also that if there is some living thing under the heather over there, a rabbit or a grouse, this living thing will soon move again. And the coyote likewise understands that its own movements also may be observed, and that the slightest stir will cause the thing under the bushes to stand still also and trust to watchful wait¬ ing. Thus the coyote remains standing, still as death, with only a gentle quivering of the nostrils. I'he beast of prey is about to change its tactics, when something stirs again in the same place.

And then the coyote sees what it is; sees the long ears of a rabbit, thin and transparent in the slant¬ ing sunlight.

Now is the time when care is necessary. The coyote remains standing perfectly still for yet some moments; until the rabbit stirs for the third time, turned away from its enemy, stretching its hind legs and reaching out after a bunch of grass.

And in the earnest desire for enough to eat be¬ fore the sun goes down the coyote to some extent forgets its natural caution. The slight sound made by the wind stirring the heather enables the beast

It of prey to move around to one side in order to have the rabbit to the windward.

Then the wily robber of the prairies begins to use its cunning to come nearer to its quarry. At first it walks erect, taking a stop now and then, each time the rabbit reaches out to nibble the heather.

And how the mouth of the coyote does water, and its throat burn. How its bloodthirsty eyes do shine red and green in the light of the setting sun.

Presently it cowers closer to the ground and crawls nearer, till the quarry is only ten or twelve feet away. Now one strong leap will do it. Not a muscle moves in the lean body; no sound breaks the silence; nothing gives the rabbit warning of the imminent danger.

The cringing and waiting coyote looks like a yel¬ lowish piece of rock or like a little hillock covered with dead grass. The coyote is very cunning; it might long ago have risked the leap.

What is it waiting for, anyhow? Don’t worry; it knows what it is doing. Like the experienced hunter, it waits for the right moment. There is no sportsman’s fever, no nervousness. Indeed, to the coyote this is no sport; it is the struggle for exist¬ ence. While these two are lying there—the weak and the strong—the sun sinks blood-red behind the western hills, its last beams mirrored in the glut¬ tonous eyes of the beast of prey.

The silence then becomes still more dense. It is as if something has sickened and died. There is a gentle breath of wind over the prairie, carefully stirring the bunches of heather and the dry grass of last year. The sun is down, and the day draws its last breath.

However, this gentle breath carries the scent of the coyote in the direction of the rabbit. There is a sudden change of position. The timid heart of the rabbit is paralyzed with fear. Is there yet time to escape, or is it too late?

The long and muscular hinder limbs of the rabbit act instinctively and mechanically. Quick as light¬ ning there is a flash and a turn, and a little cloud of dust is kicked into the air; and a coyote with open jaws and cruel fangs drops down on the place —where the rabbit is not.

The coyote turns and looks after the rabbit, now merely a gray streak moving over the prairie. The coyote knows well enough that the rabbit will stop, sit down on its haunches and look back at the enemy. But the coyote also knows that the rabbit can not w r ell be caught after being frightened and put to a test of speed.

So the coyote licks its chops once or twice, casts a last hungry look after the disappearing streak of gray, and sneaks away.

The light fades, and a chill comes into the air. As soon as darkness begins to settle down over the lonely wastes, the coyote begins to sing its peculiar evening song; a song which better than anything else fits the utter solitude of these wide plains. In the song there is an undertone of sadness unspeak¬ able. But should it cease it would be sorely missed by all who dwell on the prairies and love them with all emotions which they inspire. On rare occasions the coyote may bark or howl in the daytime; to desist from doing so at the coming of night would be as impossible as to stop the stars in their courses.

The coyote is not gregarious like the wolf. Often it is alone. Often there are two, and sometimes as many as three or four together, but I have heard of none who has seen more than six in company. When the coyote barks a person not familiar with it will surely think that there must be three or four of the beasts; there are so many distinct tones. It always begins with some sharp and short barks, which then change into a piercing, long drawn howl. The tones overlap, the new beginning before the first is finished.

Two or three coyotes often join forces and voices, sitting on a mound or hillock and howling their song w r hile day changes into night. It then sounds like a whole orchestra of infernal discord.

A DYING MOTHER

' I V HE coyote is the most troublesome enemy of -*■ the cattlemen and ranchers. It is hated for its cunning; but all who are interested in wild animals must admire its wisdom. It has learnt many tricks in the endless fight with man.

The coyote has in the course of the years cost the sheep ranchers enormous sums; so it is not to be wondered at that these get together and agree to offer a prize for the head of any coyote brought in, large or small, in addition to the bounty paid by the state.

There are many who hunt the coyote in the win¬ ter season; for then they have little else to do. Most of the men are miners, patiently washing gold from the sandy banks of the rivers. The ice of win¬ ter stops their work. So they go out to hunt the coyote—a business that fits well into their free and easy mode of life.

Then there are professional hunters with dogs and horses. The sheep herders also take part in the hunt, as do all others whose homes are on the prairies.

That the coyote has been able to survive all this persecution will not surprise one acquainted with its cunning; but it is a miracle that the beasts are, seemingly at any rate, as numerous as ever.

Its habitat is, however, not by far as large as it was. Pioneer settlers are encroaching on the coy¬ ote’s kingdom. It is driven farther into the fast¬ nesses and desert year by year, as are all the other wild animals. Fortunately for the coyote, there are, besides the mountains, great tracts which never will be fit for cultivation, and which always will re¬ main in possession of the wild beasts; a kingdom whose extent has been limited, but which is theirs for all time.

Civilization and the wild things do not go well together. Even as the Indian has been compelled to give way before the white man of industry, so the animals also have been pushed back. Some species have been exterminated. Others have mi¬ grated northward to more peaceful haunts. But in spite of all, the coyote holds its own, seemingly with no diminution in numbers. It gives way in certain places; but fortunately there still are places in which it may live as before, where it may love and hate, and where it may sing its song when the blood-red sun has gone down behind the western mountains.

*

Out there they call him German Fritz; for, many years ago he came over from Germany. By pro¬ fession he is a miner. For many years he has been patiently hoping that some company would build a railroad up to the copper districts in the mountains where he has his claim.

His copper mine is well enough, but the way to it is long and impassable. It will not pay to pack the copper out on mules; and the mining companies have time to wait until they can secure the mines for nothing. Optimistic as all miners must be in order to keep up their courage thru lifelong disap¬ pointments, German Fritz has waited year after year, hoping that the railroad might be built.

He is a tall, lean man, old and gray; careless about his dress; and contrary to the general rule among men of his class, he has money in the bank. He now seldom does any work in his mine; but hav¬ ing lived so long out on the wild frontier, he can not remain quietly at home. So the spirit often moves him to take his rifle and roam the prairies. On occasion he also goes up into the mountains.

On one of his summer excursions he sees a coyote with a prairie hen between its jaws. This is evidence that the coyote has its young cubs somewhere not far away. The coyote does not see Fritz, for he has been sitting for some time behind a little mound. He is so near to the coyote that had he wished it, he could easily have shot it dead. In fact he puts the rifle to his shoulder, but soon lowers it again. Will he not shoot? Perhaps his dear old heart will not permit him to destroy this life wantonly; or perhaps he is thinking of the innocent young cubs, who would then lose their mother and only support.

No, it is not this that stays his hand. Old Fritz is an honorable man, to be sure, with no cruelty in

EVENING SONG his nature, but he is not bothered with maudlin sen¬ timentality.

These many years during which he has explored the mountain clefts, caught his fish, hunted and shot wild beasts, cooked his food and baked his bread, have robbed him of all sentimental nonsense. No, Fritz’s trained eyes tell him at once that the coyote is a mother; and he has a pleasant vision of himself collecting the bounty, not on one head, but on many. Thus it means to him more trophies of the chase and many money prizes instead of merely one. So now it is a question of discovering the whereabouts of the cubs; he can come tomorrow and dig them out.

The mother coyote always has a warm hole in the ground for her young; tho she never, or very seldom, digs the hole herself.

The coyote is not enthusiastically fond of hard work. It always prefers, if possible, to satisfy its wants without any such effort. It is only when the mother coyote has her young that she has a home down in some hole. Generally she has merely taken possession after driving out some weaker animal. In all other seasons, whether hot or cold, wet or dry, the coyote roams the plains. When the sun in the cold winter stands highest the coyote may steal an hour’s nap in some hollow, on some slope facing south, one from which a good look-out can be kept.

Fritz does not this day find the coyote’s hole in the ground. He tries to follow the mother animal with his eyes; but the land is too uneven, and the color of the coyote soon makes it impossible to separate it from the tufts of heather. Fritz begins to be sorry that he did not shoot when the chance offered. The hole may be miles from here. Then he smiles as the thought occurs to him that a dog will be able to follow the fresh trail.

Next day he mounts his nag and rides to the place, armed with pick and spade, and followed by a shaggy dog. The dog knows its business, and seems to be energetic enough to accomplish results.

Fritz takes the dog to the spot where he had met the coyote. The dog would like to chase the rab¬ bits; but it is well trained, so that a mere threatening look causes it to obey orders.

The dog is put on the scent of the coyote, follows it for some distance, stops short, runs about in a circle, follows it again, comes back, and then decides that the trail is an old one.

Fritz, however, knows in which direction the coyote went; so he follows it, hoping to pick up a more fresh trail.

And luck is with him, badly handicapped as he is in matching his poor wit against that of the coyote. He picks up a fresh scent which the dog can follow; and they soon stumble upon the mother coyote herself, busy with her dinner at the bottom of a dry river bed.

They see each other at the same time.

The coyote, confused perhaps by the unexpected sight, bounds up out of the river bed, instead of keeping in it—as they usually do—and starts to run across a broad, level plain, on which a fast horse may keep up with her.

Then the chase begins. Horse and hound tear across the plain; the dog barking loudly, and the horse putting its whole mind to the matter of avoid¬ ing the spurs, which Fritz does not hesitate to dig into its sides.

In the beginning the horse seems to gain on the fleeing coyote. But the ground becomes more broken, putting the horse at a disadvantage; and then the distance between the hunter and the hunted becomes greater and greater.

Even then the dog is left far behind. The ground becomes still more broken. The horse is steadily losing; and Fritz, seeing that he can not get nearer to the coyote, lifts his rifle and shoots.

The ball, fired from the back of a galloping horse, fails of its mark; and the coyote, who has been shot at before and knows what it means, zigzags her way till she is out of sight behind the nearest hill.

Still the dog follows the scent across the broken ground, tho for a half hour nothing comes of it. The dog has no difficulty in keeping to the tracks of its quarry; and if the coyote runs to the hollow where she has her young, there will be no difficulty in finding them.

But the coyote is a perfect fiend for cunning, and none knows this better than does Fritz. He is fully prepared to have the mother coyote now try to lead him away from her dearest possession.

Suddenly she reappears on the top of a ridge stretching westward parallel with the cattle path which Fritz is following.

She trots as unconcernedly as if ignorant of the existence of horse, dog, and man. She merely trots along for a matter of forty rods or so, keeping just so far ahead of the horse; and she does not as much as look behind. She makes a fine target against the clear, blue sky.

There is a steep climb from the prairie to the top of the ridge; and Fritz understands that his horse can not make it. But how had the coyote managed to put the dog off the scent? The dog is running with its nose to the ground, without looking up, and utterly unconscious of the fact that the coyote is up on the ridge near by—so near that she can take note of all its movements.

Fritz now at once sees the hopelessness of con¬ tinuing this chase. He jerks his horse up, takes careful aim and shoots. The sharp report breaks the silence of the prairie. In the same moment the coyote makes a great jump, and then falls and lies still as tho dead.

When they reach the place she is not there, but a pool of blood tells the story; no doubt she has been mortally wounded.

It now is an easy matter to follow her path, marked out as it is by the heart’s blood of a dying mother. And Fritz knows that in these circum¬ stances she will instinctively try to reach her cubs, and will thus reveal their hiding place. In her final agony she will forget her cunning; which she has so often shown in leading the enemy away from her young.

At last Fritz finds her outside of her burrow with her cubs about her. She is lying stretched out on the ground, and is dead.

Fritz stops short and looks at the young cubs, touched by their helplessness, by the manner in which they are trying to wake up their sleeping mother. There are five of them. They pull at her, make piping sounds with their thin voices, sniff at her, lick her face lovingly, sit with their heads turned half away as if in deep thought. They wonder why mother does not stir, why she bleeds, and why she had brought them no food.

Then they are afraid of the horse, now nibbling at the grass; and they seek safety down in the bur¬ row.

Pick and spade now come into use; and after an hour’s work Fritz has reached the bottom of the hole, where the young coyotes are huddled together helpless with fear.

The old miner sees how they try to shut out the danger by closing their eyes to it. He thinks of how they tried to wake up the mother he had killed, and his heart is filled with pity. He can not kill them as he had intended. He will take them home with him. Sold alive they may bring him more money.

A FIGHT TO THE DEATH

WO of the young coyotes are given a home in

**“ the back yard of a hotel in the town. They are a he and a she, one big and one little. And the he is the little one, and also the one that seems to be best satisfied.

It is said that it takes five generations to produce a tame coyote. One may understand, then, how these two prisoners resent being cooped up in that back yard. Every movement, their foolish efforts to get loose, are stopped by means of cruel chains. In the beginning it is awfully trying. People come to look at them, and jerk them up sharp when they sneak away as far as the chains will allow. There is nothing which these two coyotes hate like the presence and the curiosity of human beings.

During the first few days they can not be induced to eat. They whine piteously all the time; and all night long may be heard the rattling of their chains. This continues for some days; forward and back, as far as the chains permit.

Once in a while they stop to swallow a mouthful of water, when the heat is trying. But they stand still only a moment; while the fine, brown eyes look to either side, sad and timid. Sometimes they start up nervously without cause, and then continue to trot back and forth.

The little male cub is the first to eat of the food set before them by the cook of the hotel. He is so famished that the food tastes good, tho he never before has tasted just that kind of meat. But the female, who is larger and more fierce, tries to fly at the cook, with wild hatred flashing from her usually innocent looking eyes. Had the chain al¬ lowed it, she would have buried her fangs in him. But then she sneaks away and is ashamed.

After a time the young coyotes become more reconciled to man and to their life in the hotel yard. The male cub sometimes even shows that he longs for the coming of the cook; and he shows the coy¬ ote’s sober joy at the appearance of food. She, on the other hand, remains callous to every offer of friendship. She begs to be excused from any nearer acquaintance, and nurses her natural hatred toward her captors.

This inability to accommodate herself to existing circumstances finally causes her death.

On a certain bright day the cook, as usual, brings them their dinner; when the fierce female buries her small fangs in his hand.

The cook kicks her little body against the wall of the woodshed, where it falls down with a loud rattling of the chain; but without any whining, tho one hind leg was broken. Before night she was shot and put out of her misery.

It was on this very day that I first made the ac¬ quaintance of the surviving cub. The short story of his life was told me by Fritz himself over a glass of beer in the barroom of the hotel.

The cub was too young to understand what had happened to his sister; and he let even a stranger like myself gently stroke his fur.

He is dear and innocent in his playfulness, cavort¬ ing like a young puppy on his clumsy legs. It is a fine, narrow head, which he holds gracefully aslant, and w r hich, with the clear brown eyes, are among his racial distinctions.

I stopped but a few days in the town, until I found work; but during those days I was a diligent visitor of the coyote. My work will take me away; and it will be months before I see the young cub again.

When I came back to the town the winter season was on us. Storms swept over the prairies, and at times there was a heavy fall of snow.

The young coyote, now obeying the name King, is almost full grown; and it has achieved the digni¬ fied bearing which it lacked when a young cub. Its whole nature seems to have undergone a radical change. It no longer cringes and whines. It goes about with a proud bearing and fearless eyes, all the time pulling hard at the hated chain—which it had come to hate more and more fiercely and had polished and dented with its teeth during the long nights, when raging with anger it had heard the howling of its brethren roaming free over the prairies.

During the daytime the chained coyote was more quiet. It lay outside of its kennel even in the coldest weather, looking out over the prairie—this free prairie which is calling to it, but of which man has robbed it.

To look at King now none could think that he was the same coyote who had cringed and whimp¬ ered there as a cub, wagging his tail like a puppy and satisfied with his surroundings.

He has changed surprisingly; is grown large, larger than most coyotes, and has acquired all that fierceness which he had not had a chance to learn of his mother.

A couple of dogs had seemed to King to be un¬ duly familiar, and they had paid the forfeit of their rashness with their lives. And of course King on occasion helped himself to the toothsome chickens and ducks that came too near.

“He will be a devil when he is a few months older,” says the admiring Fritz.

As the winter advances King chafes more and more at being a prisoner. When the snow is deep¬ est and the weather coldest, and the coyotes are the more fearless in approaching the little prairie town, half buried under its snowy blanket, then King’s answering call to his brethren—his mighty vow-vow-vow-vow-o-o-o-u-u-u—was a thing to drive the people to drink.

There is talk of putting him out of the way; but nothing is done in the matter, until King one day injures a little girl, who had ventured too near.

This is too much, and the owner is ordered to do away with the nuisance.

Now it happens that in this same town there is a bulldog, which because of evidence of an uncon¬ trollable temper also has been condemned either to death or to life imprisonment in chains.

Now, a bulldog and a coyote together in some pen from which they can not escape should be able to furnish interesting entertainment. Both of these are to die anyhow; so why not have some fun out of it? The matter is discussed, and the day agreed on for this sporting event.

The day arrived. I stood at the hotel window, looking at the coyote, now to fight to the finish. My heart is with him, and has been with him from the first day of my making his acquaintance.