Saddleback thought they had won the victory. He felt secure, because the
foot-scent that he might have supposed the man to be following would be
stale by morning. Tito did not feel so safe. That two-legged beast was
close to her home and her little ones; had barely been turned aside;
might come back yet.
The wolver watered and repicketed his Horse, kindled the fire anew, made
his coffee and ate his evening meal, then smoked awhile before lying
down to sleep, thinking occasionally of the little woolly scalps he
expected to gather in the morning.
He was about to roll up in his blanket when, out of the dark distance,
there sounded the evening cry of the Coyote, the rolling challenge of
more than one voice. Jake grinned in fiendish glee, and said: "There you
are all right. Howl some more. I'll see you in the morning."
It was the ordinary, or rather _one_ of the ordinary, camp-calls of the
Coyote. It was sounded once, and then all was still. Jake soon forgot it
in his loggish slumber.
The callers were Tito and Saddleback. The challenge was not an empty
bluff. It had a distinct purpose behind it--to know for sure whether the
enemy had any dogs with him; and because there was no responsive bark
Tito knew that he had none.
Then Tito waited for an hour or so till the flickering fire had gone
dead, and the only sound of life about the camp was the cropping of the
grass by the picketed Horse. Tito crept near softly, so softly that the
Horse did not see her till she was within twenty feet; then he gave a
start that swung the tightened picket-rope up into the air, and snorted
gently. Tito went quietly forward, and opening her wide gape, took the
rope in, almost under her ears, between the great scissor-like back
teeth, then chewed it for a few seconds. The fibres quickly frayed, and,
aided by the strain the nervous Horse still kept up, the last of the
strands gave way, and the Horse was free. He was not much alarmed; he
knew the smell of Coyote; and after jumping three steps and walking six,
he stopped.
The sounding thumps of his hoofs on the ground awoke the sleeper. He
looked up, but, seeing the Horse standing there, he went calmly off to
sleep again, supposing that all went well.
Tito had sneaked away, but she now returned like a shadow, avoided the
sleeper, but came around, sniffed doubtfully at the coffee, and then
puzzled over a tin can, while Saddleback examined the frying-pan full of
"camp-sinkers" and then defiled both cakes and pan with dirt. The bridle
hung on a low bush; the Coyotes did not know what it was, but just for
luck they cut it into several pieces, then, taking the sacks that held
Jake's bacon and flour, they carried them far away and buried them in
the sand.
Having done all the mischief she could, Tito, followed by her mate, now
set off for a wooded gully some miles away, where was a hole that had
been made first by a Chipmunk, but enlarged by several other animals,
including a Fox that had tried to dig out its occupants. Tito stopped
and looked at many possible places before she settled on this. Then she
set to work to dig. Saddleback had followed in a half-comprehending way,
till he saw what she was doing. Then when she, tired with digging, came
out, he went into the hole, and after snuffing about went on with the
work, throwing out the earth between his hind legs; and when it was
piled up behind he would come out and push it yet farther away.
And so they worked for hours, not a word said and yet with a sufficient
comprehension of the object in view to work in relief of each other. And
by the time the morning came they had a den big enough to do for their
home, in case they must move, though it would not compare with the one
in the grassy hollow.