28 SUMMER 



leans as inhabitants, seemed the last place that a 

 pot-hunter would frequent. What could a pot-hunter 

 find here? I wondered. 



We were pulling the boat up on the sand at a 

 narrow neck in the peninsula, when the warden 



touched my arm. " Up there near the sky-line among 

 the sage! What a shot!" 



I was some seconds in making out the head and 

 shoulders of a coyote that was watching us from 

 the top of the ridge. 



"The rascal knows/' went on the warden, "I 

 have no gun; he can smell a gun clear across the, 

 lake. I have tried for three years to get that fellow. 

 He's the terror of the whole region, and especially 

 of the Point; if I don't get him soon, he'll clean 

 out the pelican colony. 



"Why don't I shoot him? Poison him? Trap 

 him? I have offered fifty dollars for his hide. Why 

 don't I? I'll show you. Now you watch the critter 

 as I lead you up the slope toward him." 



We had not taken a dozen steps when I found 

 myself staring hard at the place where the coyote 

 had been, but not at the coyote, for he was gone. 



