84 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



seen the timber wolf at home, nor ever heard his 

 " hunting song," but those who have tell me that 

 it is one of the fearful sounds of the forest, sinister 

 and savage. The little red fox that trots across my 

 fields daily, and that frequently "barks" outside 

 my window, has a voice as wild as the wolf's, a 

 raucous, raw, uncultivated, untrained yap which I 

 doubt if even the dogs of the neighboring farms 

 recognize as belonging to one of their tribe, so 

 indescribably alien does it sound, breaking in upon 

 the faint puff, puff of the engine off beyond the 

 woods, or the muffled passing of an automobile on 

 the distant highway, or the murmur of church bells 

 rising and falling over the fields. The coyote is 

 more wolf than fox, but more dog than wolf, and 

 his lonesome baying beneath the desert moon, so 

 strangely touched with sentiment, so filled with 

 longing, would blend better with the human 

 sounds of my twilight than it does with the sav- 

 age silence of the plains. It is a brute voice, but 

 so nearly human, as it calls to me across the sage 

 and shadows, that I could answer and, it seems, 

 be almost understood. 



The coyote became a denizen of the desert, no 

 doubt, by necessity, the larger gray wolf, whose 



