584 



DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



being careful to securely fasten the flap of the tents after 

 we had entered. It was still light when we retired, and 

 it was light when we got up in the morning. If it is 

 ever dark there I have no personal knowledge of the 

 fact, but I suppose some time during our slumbers dark- 

 ness must have spread over the prairie. There were in- 

 sects around our camp in plenty. There were crickets 

 as large almost as the field mice of the East (see page 



The Voice of the Coyote 



359), which ate tobacco and everything in reach, but if 

 they sang at night I did not hear them. The music 

 which soothed us to slumber on the Flathead Reserva- 

 tion was the sound of rushing and gurgling water, the 

 distant lowing of wild cattle, and the yap, yap, yap of 

 the coyote. 



I am not a musician and hence can give you no musical 

 scale of the -coyote's voice, but here is a diagram of it 

 which may convey to the reader some idea of the song 

 of this prairie ventriloquist. A single coyote can throw 



