Oh, the wrench to the mother's heart at the thought of what she could
foresee! But the warmth of the mother-love lent life to the mother-wit.
Having sent her little ones out of sight, and by a sign conveyed to
Saddleback her alarm, she swiftly came back to the man, then she crossed
before him, thinking, in her half-reasoning way, that the man _must_
be following a foot-scent just as she herself would do, but would, of
course, take the stronger line of tracks she was now laying. She did not
realize that the failing daylight made any difference. Then she trotted
to one side, and to make doubly sure of being followed, she uttered the
fiercest challenge she could, just as many a time she had done to make
the Dogs pursue her:

Grrr-wow-wow-wa-a-a-a-h,

and stood still; then ran a little nearer and did it again, and then
again much nearer, and repeated her bark, she was so determined that the
wolver should follow her.

Of course the wolver could see nothing of the Coyote, for the shades
were falling. He had to give up the hunt anyway. His understanding of
the details was as different as possible from that the Mother Coyote
had, and yet it came to the same thing. He recognized that the Coyote's
bark was the voice of the distressed mother trying to call him away. So
he knew the brood must be close at hand, and all he now had to do was
return in the morning and complete his search. So he made his way back
to his camp.




XII.


Saddleback thought they had won the victory. He felt secure, because the
foot-scent that he might have supposed the man to be following would be
stale by morning. Tito did not feel so safe. That two-legged beast was
close to her home and her little ones; had barely been turned aside;
might come back yet.

The wolver watered and repicketed his Horse, kindled the fire anew, made
his coffee and ate his evening meal, then smoked awhile before lying
down to sleep, thinking occasionally of the little woolly scalps he
expected to gather in the morning.

He was about to roll up in his blanket when, out of the dark distance,
there sounded the evening cry of the Coyote, the rolling challenge of
more than one voice. Jake grinned in fiendish glee, and said: "There you
are all right. Howl some more. I'll see you in the morning."

It was the ordinary, or rather _one_ of the ordinary, camp-calls of the
Coyote. It was sounded once, and then all was still. Jake soon forgot it
in his loggish slumber.

The callers were Tito and Saddleback. The challenge was not an empty
bluff. It had a distinct purpose behind it--to know for sure whether the
enemy had any dogs with him; and because there was no responsive bark
Tito knew that he had none.

Then Tito waited for an hour or so till the flickering fire had gone
dead, and the only sound of life about the camp was the cropping of the
grass by the picketed Horse. Tito crept near softly, so softly that the
Horse did not see her till she was within twenty feet; then he gave a
start that swung the tightened picket-rope up into the air, and snorted
gently. Tito went quietly forward, and opening her wide gape, took the
rope in, almost under her ears, between the great scissor-like back
teeth, then chewed it for a few seconds. The fibres quickly frayed, and,
aided by the strain the nervous Horse still kept up, the last of the
strands gave way, and the Horse was free. He was not much alarmed; he
knew the smell of Coyote; and after jumping three steps and walking six,
he stopped.

The sounding thumps of his hoofs on the ground awoke the sleeper. He
looked up, but, seeing the Horse standing there, he went calmly off to
sleep again, supposing that all went well.

Tito had sneaked away, but she now returned like a shadow, avoided the
sleeper, but came around, sniffed doubtfully at the coffee, and then
puzzled over a tin can, while Saddleback examined the frying-pan full of
"camp-sinkers" and then defiled both cakes and pan with dirt. The bridle
hung on a low bush; the Coyotes did not know what it was, but just for
luck they cut it into several pieces, then, taking the sacks that held
Jake's bacon and flour, they carried them far away and buried them in
the sand.

Having done all the mischief she could, Tito, followed by her mate, now
set off for a wooded gully some miles away, where was a hole that had
been made first by a Chipmunk, but enlarged by several other animals,
including a Fox that had tried to dig out its occupants. Tito stopped
and looked at many possible places before she settled on this. Then she
set to work to dig. Saddleback had followed in a half-comprehending way,
till he saw what she was doing. Then when she, tired with digging, came
out, he went into the hole, and after snuffing about went on with the
work, throwing out the earth between his hind legs; and when it was
piled up behind he would come out and push it yet farther away.

And so they worked for hours, not a word said and yet with a sufficient
comprehension of the object in view to work in relief of each other. And
by the time the morning came they had a den big enough to do for their
home, in case they must move, though it would not compare with the one
in the grassy hollow.




XIII.

It was nearly sunrise before the wolver awoke. With the true instinct
of a plainsman he turned to look for his Horse. _It was gone_. What his
ship is to the sailor, what wings are to the Bird, what money is to the
merchant, the Horse is to the plainsman. Without it he is helpless, lost
at sea, wing broken, crippled in business. Afoot on the plains is the
sum of earthly terrors. Even Jake realized this, and ere his foggy wits
had fully felt the shock he sighted the steed afar on a flat, grazing
and stepping ever farther from the camp. At a second glance Jake noticed
that the Horse was trailing the rope. If the rope had been left behind
Jake would have known that it was hopeless to try to catch him; he would
have finished his den-hunt and found the little Coyotes. But, with the
trailing rope, there was a good chance of catching the Horse; so Jake
set out to try.

Of all the maddening things there is nothing worse than to be almost,
but not quite, able to catch your Horse. Do what he might, Jake could
not get quite near enough to seize that short rope, and the Horse led
him on and on, until at last they were well on the homeward trail.

Now Jake was afoot anyhow, so seeing no better plan, he set out to
follow that Horse right back to the Ranch.

But when about seven miles were covered Jake succeeded in catching him.
He rigged up a rough _jГўquima_ with the rope and rode barebacked in
fifteen minutes over the three miles that lay between him and the
Sheep-ranch, giving vent all the way to his pent-up feelings in cruel
abuse of that Horse. Of course it did not do any good, and he knew that,
but he considered it was heaps of satisfaction. Here Jake got a meal
and borrowed a saddle and a mongrel Hound that could run a trail, and
returned late in the afternoon to finish his den-hunt. Had he known it,
he now could have found it without the aid of the cur, for it was really
close at hand when he took up the feather-trail where he last had left
it. Within one hundred yards he rose to the top of the little ridge;
then just over it, almost face to face, he came on a Coyote, carrying in
its mouth a large Rabbit. The Coyote leaped just at the same moment that
Jake fired his revolver, and the Dog broke into a fierce yelling and
dashed off in pursuit, while Jake blazed and blazed away, without
effect, and wondered why the Coyote should still hang on to that Rabbit
as she ran for her life with the Dog yelling at her heels. Jake followed
as far as he could and fired at each chance, but scored no hit. So when
they had vanished among the buttes he left the Dog to follow or come
back as he pleased, while he returned to the den, which, of course, was
plain enough now. Jake knew that the pups were there yet. Had he not
seen the mother bringing a Rabbit for them?

So he set to work with pick and shovel all the rest of that day. There
were plenty of signs that the den had inhabitants, and, duly encouraged,
he dug on, and after several hours of the hardest work he had ever done,
he came to the end of the den--_only to find it empty_. After cursing
his luck at the first shock of disgust, he put on his strong leather
glove and groped about in the nest. He felt something firm and drew it
out. It was the head and neck of his own Turkey Gobbler, and that was
all he got for his pains.




XIV.

Tito had not been idle during the time that the enemy was Horse-hunting.
Whatever Saddleback might have done, Tito would live in no fool's
paradise. Having finished the new den, she trotted back to the little
valley of feathers, and the first young one that came to meet her at the
door of this home was a broad-headed one much like herself. She seized
him by the neck and set off, carrying him across country toward the
new den, a couple of miles away. Every little while she had to put her
offspring down to rest and give it a chance to breathe. This made the
moving slow, and the labour of transporting the pups occupied all that
day, for Saddleback was not allowed to carry any of them, probably
because he was too rough. Beginning with the biggest and brightest, they
were carried away one at a time, and late in the afternoon only the runt
was left. Tito had not only worked at digging all night, she had also
trotted over thirty miles, half of it with a heavy baby to carry. But
she did not rest. She was just coming out of the den, carrying her
youngest in her mouth, when over the very edge of this hollow appeared
the mongrel Hound, and a little way behind him Wolver Jake.

Away went Tito, holding the baby tight, and away went the Dog behind
her.

_Bang! bang! bang!_ said the revolver.

But not a shot touched her. Then over the ridge they dashed, where the
revolver could not reach her, and sped across a flat, the tired Coyote
and her baby, and the big fierce Hound behind her, bounding his hardest.
Had she been fresh and unweighted she could soon have left the clumsy
cur that now was barking furiously on her track and rather gaining than
losing in the race. But she put forth all her strength, careered along a
slope, where she gained a little, then down across a brushy flat where
the cruel bushes robbed her of all she had gained. But again into the
open they came, and the wolver, labouring far behind, got sight of them
and fired again and again with his revolver, and only stirred the dust,
but still it made her dodge and lose time, and it also spurred the Dog.
The hunter saw the Coyote, his old acquaintance of the bobtail, carrying
still, as he thought, the Jack-rabbit she had been bringing to her
brood, and wondered at her strange persistence.

"Why doesn't she drop that weight when flying for her life?" But on she
went and gamely bore her load over the hills, the man cursing his luck
that he had not brought his Horse, and the mongrel bounding in deadly
earnest but thirty feet behind her. Then suddenly in front of Tito
yawned a little cut-bank gully. Tired and weighted, she dared not try
the leap; she skirted around. But the Dog was fresh; he cleared it
easily, and the mother's start was cut down by half. But on she went,
straining to hold the little one high above the scratching brush and the
dangerous bayonet-spikes; but straining too much, for the helpless cub
was choking in his mother's grip. She must lay him down or strangle him;
with such a weight she could not much longer keep out of reach. She
tried to give the howl for help, but her voice was muffled by the cub,
now struggling for breath, and as she tried to ease her grip on him a
sudden wrench jerked him from her mouth into the grass--into the power
of the merciless Hound. Tito was far smaller than the Dog; ordinarily
she would have held him in fear; but her [Illustration: Tito's Race For
Life] little one, her baby, was the only thought now, and as the brute
sprang forward to tear it in his wicked jaws, she leaped between and
stood facing him with all her mane erect, her teeth exposed, and plainly
showed her resolve to save her young one at any price. The Dog was not
brave, only confident that he was bigger and had the man behind him.
But the man was far away, and balked in his first rush at the trembling
little Coyote, that tried to hide in the grass, the cur hesitated a
moment, and Tito howled the long howl for help--the muster-call:

Yap-yap-yap-yah-yah-yah-h-h-h-h Yap-yap-yap-yah-yah-yah-h-h-h-h,

and made the buttes around re-echo so that Jake could not tell where it
came from; but someone else there was that heard and did know whence it
came. The Dog's courage revived on hearing something like a far-away
shout. Again he sprang at the little one, but again the mother balked
him with her own body, and then they closed in deadly struggle. "Oh, if
Saddleback would only come!" But no one came, and now she had no further
chance to call. Weight is everything in a closing fight, and Tito soon
went down, bravely fighting to the last, but clearly worsted; and the
Hound's courage grew with the sight of victory, and all he thought of
now was to finish her and then kill her helpless baby in its turn. He
had no ears or eyes for any other thing, till out of the nearest sage
there flashed a streak of grey, and in a trice the big-voiced coward
was hurled back by a foe almost as heavy as himself--hurled back with a
crippled shoulder. Dash, chop, and staunch old Saddleback sprang on him
again. Tito struggled to her feet, and they closed on him together. His
courage fled at once when he saw the odds, and all he wanted now was
safe escape--escape from Saddleback, whose speed was like the wind,
escape from Tito, whose baby's life was at stake. Not twenty jumps away
did he get; not breath enough had he to howl for help to his master in
the distant hills; not fifteen yards away from her little one that he
meant to tear, they tore him all to bits.

And Tito lifted the rescued young one, and travelling as slowly as she
wished, they reached the new-made den. There the family safely reunited,
far away from danger of further attack by Wolver Jake or his kind.

And there they lived in peace till their mother had finished their
training, and every one of them grew up wise in the ancient learning of
the plains, wise in the later wisdom that the ranchers' war has forced
upon them, and not only they, but their children's children, too. The
Buffalo herds have gone; they have succumbed to the rifles of the
hunters. The Antelope droves are nearly gone; Hound and lead were too
much for them. The Blacktail bands have dwindled before axe and fence.
The ancient dwellers of the Badlands have faded like snow under the new
conditions, but the Coyotes are no more in fear of extinction. Their
morning and evening song still sounds from the level buttes, as it did
long years ago when every plain was a teeming land of game. They have
learned the deadly secrets of traps and poisons, they know how to baffle
the gunner and Hound, they have matched their wits with the hunter's
wits. They have learned how to prosper in a land of man-made plenty, in
spite of the worst that man can do, and it was Tito that taught them
how.






WHY THE CHICKADEE GOES CRAZY ONCE A YEAR


Published September, 1893, in "Our Animal Friends," the organ of the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

A long time ago, when there was no winter in the north, the Chickadees
lived merrily in the woods with their relatives, and cared for nothing
but to get all the pleasure possible out of their daily life in the
thickets. But at length Mother Carey sent them all a warning that they
must move to the south, for hard frost and snow were coming on their
domains, with starvation close behind. The Nuthatches and other cousins
of the Chickadees took this warning seriously, and set about learning
how and when to go; but Tomtit, who led his brothers, only laughed and
turned a dozen wheels around a twig that served him for a trapeze.

"Go to the south?" said he. "Not I; I am too well contented here; and as
for frost and snow, I never saw any and have no faith in them."

But the Nuthatches and Kinglets were in such a state of bustle that at
length the Chickadees did catch a little of the excitement, and left off
play for a while to question their friends; and they were not pleased
with what they learned, for it seemed that all of them were to make a
journey that would last many days, and the little Kinglets were actually
going as far as the Gulf of Mexico. Besides, they were to fly by night
in order to avoid their enemies the Hawks, and the weather at this
season was sure to be stormy. So the Chickadees said it was all
nonsense, and went off in a band, singing and chasing one another
through the woods.

But their cousins were in earnest. They bustled about making their
preparations, and learned beforehand what it was necessary for them to
know about the way. The great wide river running southward, the moon at
height, and the trumpeting of the Geese were to be their guides, and
they were to sing as they flew in the darkness, to keep from being
scattered. The noisy, rollicking Chickadees were noisier than ever as
the preparations went on, and made sport of their relatives, who were
now gathered in great numbers, in the woods along the river; and at
length, when the proper time of the moon came, the cousins arose in a
body and flew away in the gloom. The Chickadees said that the cousins
all were crazy, made some good jokes about the Gulf of Mexico, and then
dashed away in a game of tag through the woods, which, by the by, seemed
rather deserted now, while the weather, too, was certainly turning
remarkably cool.

At length the frost and snow really did come, and the Chickadees were
in a woeful case. Indeed, they were frightened out of their wits, and
dashed hither and thither, seeking in vain for someone to set them
aright on the way to the south. They flew wildly about the woods, till
they were truly crazy. I suppose there was not a Squirrel-hole or a
hollow log in the neighbourhood that some Chickadee did not enter to
inquire if this was the Gulf of Mexico. But no one could tell anything
about it, no one was going that way, and the great river was hidden
under ice and snow.

About this time a messenger from Mother Carey was passing with a message
to the Caribou in the far north; but all he could tell the Chickadees
was that _he_ could not be their guide, as he had no instructions, and,
at any rate, he was going the other way. Besides, he told them they had
had the same notice as their cousins whom they had called "crazy"; and
from what he knew of Mother Carey, they would probably have to brave
it out here all through the snow, not only now, but in all following
winters; so they might as well make the best of it.

This was sad news for the Tomtits; but they were brave little fellows,
and seeing they could not help themselves, they set about making the
best of it. Before a week had gone by they were in their usual good
spirits again, scrambling about the twigs or chasing one another as
before. They had still the assurance that winter would end. So filled
were they with this idea that even at its commencement, when a fresh
blizzard came on, they would gleefully remark to one another that it was
a "sign of spring," and one or another of the band would lift his voice
in the sweet little chant that we all know so well:

[Illustration: Spring Soon]

Another would take it up and re-echo:

[Illustration: Spring coming]

and they would answer and repeat the song until the dreary woods rang
again with the good news, and people learned to love the brave little
Bird that sets his face so cheerfully to meet so hard a case. But to
this day, when the chill wind blows through the deserted woods, the
Chickadees seem to lose their wits for a few days, and dart into all
sorts of odd and dangerous places. They may then be found in great
cities, or open prairies, cellars, chimneys, and hollow logs; and the
next time you find one of the wanderers in any such place, be sure to
remember that Tomtit goes crazy once a year, and probably went into his
strange retreat in search of the Gulf of Mexico.

THE END