THE COYOTES
YES, sir! Fuzzy was a mighty frightened bear cub as the cougar’s cry
chilled the night. He waited in his tree top with straining ears. The
cry had ceased, but he dare not climb down, for what might not lurk in
the rustling darkness?
Colder and colder grew his airy perch. Fuzzy curled up tight in the
crotch of the limb. The lion was away off on the mountainside, and
after awhile, when nothing happened, the little bear fell asleep.
His dreams were broken by a weird, wailing, high-pitched howl. He
sprang awake in the instant. Peering through the gray darkness of the
starry night, he tried to see what was causing that sound.
On a rock ridge half way down the slope stood two animals that any one
might have taken for yellow dogs, or perhaps for small-sized wolves.
As an actual fact, they were cousins to both dog and wolf. They were
coyotes, in search of their supper,--and Fuzzy-Wuzz had not forgotten
the old coyote that used to howl below his mother’s den.
These coyotes, as it happened, had a family of fourteen little ones
hidden in a cave on the hillside. That meant that they had to bring
home a great many mice and rabbits for their family, which was still
too young to go hunting with them.
Had the Ranger known about them, he would have made an end to them; for
many a time they had robbed his chicken house, or harried a new-born
colt, for their meat was anything too young and helpless to escape
their jaws.
Even had Mother Brown Bear not taught her cubs to keep still and hide
when the coyote cried, Fuzzy would have been afraid, with that weird
cry in his ears. As it was, he shivered into a still tighter ball of
fur and wished he were back in the Ranger’s cabin.
The coyotes must have got his scent with their wonderful doggy noses,
as the wind blew down over his tree top to them, for they came circling
nearer, and stood howling right up at his hiding-place. But none of the
dog family can climb, and the cub was safe.
After awhile they saw a rabbit and went loping after it with all the
speed of their slender feet. Again Fuzzy fell asleep, and when he
awoke, it was a bar of silver sunlight shining in his eyes that woke
him.
The woods now looked as green and peaceful as they had the afternoon
before, and it did not seem possible that he could have been so
frightened in the night. But he was hungry.