Iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 109 
eatable refuse may have been left behind. But 
it cannot always find a sufficiency of animal food. 
Particularly in the fall, it feeds extensively on 
‘tufias,’ which are the juicy, soft, scarlet fruit of 
various species of prickly pear (epuntia); and in 
the winter upon berries of various sorts, particu- 
larly those of the juniper.” 
Under the pangs of excessive hunger these 
small wolves are compelled to a furtive boldness 
of which they are incapable under ordinary cir- 
cumstances. Thus I have known them to come 
repeatedly within pistol-range of my camp-fire in 
southern Colorado, and hunters tell me that they 
have been known to pull, or try to pull, the boots 
or the leather straps of a saddle, from under the 
head of a slumbering camper. Sitgreaves records 
that when, for two days and nights, his party had 
kept possession of some solitary springs in an arid 
part of Arizona, the coyotes became so desperate 
from thirst that they would come to drink while 
men and mules were at the spring. 
In the account of their habits in Nicaragua, to 
which I have already referred, is included the 
opinion of the Indian who was accompanying the 
writer, and who evidently held this wolf in higher 
respect than do those of us who know the animal 
only on the plains. 
“You see [says Manuelo] they are not like other 
beasts, afraid of fire. ... They cluster round it 
at night, and the larger your fire, the more coyotes, 
