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"There he goes, sneaking down that coulee! He'll get into one of those washouts and hide, if we don't head him off. I'll drive around so you can get another shot at him," cried Chip. He headed up the hill again until the coyote, crouching low, was fully revealed. "That's a fine shot. Throw another shell in, quick! You better kneel on the seat, this time the horses know what's coming.
Because they had no human means of knowing anything about the black automobile that bad whirled across the mesa to the southeast and left its mysterious passengers in one of the arroyos that leads into the Sandias Mountains near Coyote Springs, nine cowpuncher deputy-sheriffs bored their way steadily through sun and wind and thirst, traveling due northwest, keeping always on the trail of the six horses that traveled steadily before them Always a day's march behind, always watching hopefully for some sign of delay for an encouraging freshness in the tracks that would show a lessening distance between the two parties, Luck and his Happy Family rode from dawn till dusk, from another dawn to another dusk.
Little Geoff from the first had adopted a protecting attitude toward his smaller cousin, and had borne himself like a gallant little knight in the one adventure of their lives, when a stray coyote, wandering near the house, showed his teeth to the two babies, whose nurse had left them alone for a moment, and Geoff, only two then, had caught up a bit of a stick and thrown himself in front of Phillida with such a rush and shout that the beast turned and fled, before Roxy and the collies could come to the rescue.
The three canvas shelters of the bell type were soon erected, and then, with mesquite roots, Coyote Pete kindled a fire and put the kettle on. Supper consisted of corned beef, canned corn and canned tomatoes, with coffee, hard biscuit and cheese. "I'll bet we're the first folks that have eaten a meal here for many a long day," said Jack, looking about him, after his hunger had been satisfied.
He turned his gaze upward, and it ended with that same imprisoning barrier of rock. Then he looked down, and the cry of horror that rose in his throat died in a muffled groan. The light fell dimly on a sack two of them three a tightly packed wall of them. He knew now what had happened. He was imprisoned in the coyote, and the sacks about him were filled with powder.
"Kate," he said at last, "I've got to start on the trail." Her smile went out. She looked where she knew his eyes were staring, through the window and far out across the hills where the shadows deepened and dropped slanting and black across the hollows. Far away a coyote wailed. The wind which swept the hills seemed to her like a refrain of Dan's whistling the song and the summons of the untamed.
In the night Celia dreamed of home and the blue-grass hills and the whip-poor-wills and the mocking birds that sang through the moonlight from twilight till dawn. Sobbing in her sleep, she waked to hear the demoniacal shriek of the tireless wind and the howl of a coyote, and wept, refusing to be comforted. The next day she said to Seth firmly and conclusively: "I am goin' home."
But only the Bull-terrier dashed away toward the place whence the Coyotes had called, for the reason that he only was loose. His chase was fruitless, and he came back growling. Twenty minutes later there was another Coyote yell close at hand. Off dashed the Terrier as before. In a minute his excited yapping; told that he had sighted his game and was in full chase.
The colorful lines of the half-breed Déprez drifted through my mind: And there he lies now, and nobody knows; And the summer shines, and the winter snows, And the little gray hawk floats aloft in the air, And the gray coyote trots about here and there, And the buzzard sails on, And comes back and is gone, Stately and still like a ship on the sea; And the rattlesnake slides and glitters and glides Into his rift in a cottonwood tree.
He had brought down his light instrument from the battlemented parapet for safety, and now, pulling up his rope ladder, he coiled it on the floor. "I can drop down below if I wish to if the rain should drive me out of here," he cried as he curled up like a sleeping coyote.
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