n6 Life in the Open 



game which often escapes and leaves a worn-out hunt 

 and pack to file home, while he, Don Coyote, watches 

 from some elevated point with grim satisfaction, as some 

 one in that cavalcade keeps turkeys, or chickens, and 

 turn about is fair play. 



I can frequently find the tracks of coyotes in the 

 hills within rifle-shot of my house in a city of twenty 

 thousand inhabitants ; hear their insane laughing, yelping 

 cry across the arroyo, and one coyote has so penetrat- 

 ing, so ventriloquistic a laugh that innocent people have 

 been terrified, believing they were menaced by a pack of 

 wolves ; but investigation would have shown that all the 

 noise came from one small, undersized coyote which sat 

 on a rock baying after his fashion at the moon. The 

 coyote is a wild dog that breeds with domestic dogs, 

 and the big-eared issue is often seen in Mexican camps 

 in the outlying districts. Hounds will often refuse 

 to attack a female coyote. I once chased one several 

 miles and after a long run worked my hounds to within 

 twenty feet of the game and then called on them to go 

 in. They closed in, and my best hound ran alongside the 

 coyote which snapped at him refusing to attack! This 

 was entente cordiale with a vengeance. I whipped 

 the dogs aside and finally ran the animal down to dis- 

 cover the cause : the coyote was a female. There was 

 but one thing to do ; I could not be outdone in courtesy 

 by my dog, so Donna Coyote and I parted company. 



Southern California, or the best part of it, consists 

 of small valleys and foothill mesas, intersected every- 



