222 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
in dog town. A dog town without a coyote 
would be like Hades without Mephistopheles. 
The prairie dog likes to keep close to his hole, 
or to the hole of a neighbour into which he can 
duck and escape the surprise raids of the coyote. 
The coyote stalks patiently, hiding until a 
dog comes close or is too far from his hole to 
outrun the coyote to it. Coyotes hunt in pairs 
or fours and often while one, two, or three of them 
are holding the attention of the dogs the other 
coyote makes a sudden dash. Sometimes they 
take sheer delight in stirring up things in con- 
gested corners of dog town. 
As I stood watching them, screened by the 
cottonwood, two coyotes crossed the corner of 
dog town and set it all agog. While these 
coyotes made their way leisurely through dog 
town the dogs sat on their crater-like mounds 
and uttered rapid-fire protests, ready to drop 
into safety in case of a rush by the coyotes. 
Suddenly two old dogs wheeled and yapped at 
highest rattling speed. While the first pair 
of coyotes was attracting attention a second 
pair appeared. The old dogs violently denounced 
the second pair for this surprise. But the coyote 
is ever doing the unexpected. 
On the outskirts of Cactus Center numerous 
pairs of coyotes had enlarged prairie dog holes 
for a den. Pairs of prairie owls occupied other 
