Collins had waited till the fur was prime and the flesh side of the
coyote pelt showed flint white before throwing out his trap line. He
made the first set three hundred yards from the cabin, choosing the spot
with care, for he knew that the last place a coyote would enter was the
one where guiding clumps of sage formed an inviting lane across the
traps. He selected an open spot instead and dismounted on a sheep pelt
spread flat upon the ground; with a hand-axe he hewed out a triangular
trap bed a foot across by three inches deep, placing every shred of
fresh earth removed from it in a canvas sack; then he fitted a heavy
Newhouse four in place with both springs bent far to the rear and drove
a slender steel pin out of sight through the swivel ring of the chain.
He smoothed a piece of canvas under the jaws and over the pan and poured
the soft earth over it all, filling it level with the surface and
tamping it firmly with his fingers except that within the six-inch
circle of the jaws. From a second sack he sifted dust over the spot till
it matched the surrounding flat, remounted and leaned from the saddle to
recover the sheep pelt on which he had knelt and used it as a fan to
whip the dust of the flat into curling eddies which settled back so
uniformly as to defy the eyes of any man to detect the location of the
trap. The surplus earth removed from the hole he carried away to be
emptied far from the spot. For Collins knew the qualities of his prey
and a good wolfer leaves no sign. He had used no foolish scent to
disguise his own, knowing that the heat of day and the frost of night
would diffuse his scent and obliterate all trace of it, the same as an
animal's trail grows cold in time, while any foreign odor lingering
longer than his own would only serve as a guide for the cunning prey he
sought.
The wisdom of the fox has furnished theme for song and legend, and only
those who have followed the trap line for both fox and coyote know that
Reynard's vaunted brain is but a dry sponge when compared to the
knowledge-soaked brain of the prairie wolf. It is the way of the coyote
to live near man, confident that his own cunning will offset that of his
arch enemy and lead him unscathed through all the contrivances men may
employ for his destruction. Collins knew that the fox was only trap-shy
while the coyote was--vast difference between the two--trap-wise; that
he would go to a bait, knowing the traps were there, and risk his life
in an effort to uncover them and so leave evidence behind that he was
keener than his foe.
At the end of a week Collins had thrown out three pear-shaped loops of
traps, each line with a length of twenty miles, the whole a clover-leaf
effect with his cabin as the base. He had used no bait until his scent
should have been blotted out round his traps, not from fear that coyotes
would not approach the bait while his scent was fresh but from certain
knowledge that they would approach too soon, locate his traps and
uncover them. When the third trap circle was complete he started back
over the first and baited the sets, then commenced the steady routine of
riding one string each day and thus covering his entire line in three
days.
Shady frequently accompanied Collins on these trips and when he made a
trap set she sat down some distance away and watched him with full
understanding of what he was about; for Shady's past experience with
traps had been large. She had seen Collins take many a coyote from his
traps. Twice she had slipped away to steal the bait from some set near
the cabin and both times had felt the sudden deadly clutch of steel jaws
on her foot, remaining in their grip till Collins had released her. She
had seen coyotes dead and bloated from eating poison baits,--and meat
was now a danger signal to Shady, not a lure. She would touch no food
except that which she obtained at the cabin.
The trap line had yielded many coyote pelts while Breed was still in the
hills and he knew nothing of the widespread mortality among the coyotes
in his absence or the dangers which lurked in wait for him on his
return.
There were two hundred sheep scattered for miles through the hills and
Breed and the coyote pack found easy killing. Winter had claimed the
lofty peaks, while but little snow had fallen below timber line.
Breed sensed the coming storm. The movements of the elk herds told him
it would be a heavy one. It was nearing the end of the elk rutting moon
but the bulls were still bugling. Breed heard the clear bugle note of an
old herd bull, the piercing sound reaching him from many miles back
among the snowy peaks. It was closely followed by others. The elk
migration had begun; the herds were evacuating the lofty basins of their
summer range and boiling out through the high passes of the peaks before
the snowfall of the coming storm should block them in,--coming down to
winter in the lower valleys of the hills.
[Illustration: The elk migration had begun. _Page 63._]
The certainty with which animals gauge a coming storm is cited as proof
of that mysterious instinct with which men credit them; yet this
information may reach them through known laws. Breed knew of it from the
elk movements, and it is probable that the elk in turn were warned from
some similarly natural source,--perhaps from atmospheric changes, more
likely from the flight of migratory birds.
A marshland may be empty of certain species of ducks in the fall; then
suddenly a flock will pitch down out of the blue, followed by another
and another till the whole sky is streaked with the oncoming horde. They
will feed and start on, the belated arrivals not even alighting but
holding straight ahead. The flight ceases as suddenly as it commenced
and inevitably a storm drives down out of the north in the wake of the
flocks. But this is not instinct. The storm strikes those birds that
have remained farthest north and as they scurry ahead of it the more
southerly ones take wing. Many ducks fly at rates of speed that are well
over a hundred miles an hour and so can distance the swiftest storms.
Even the ears of man may detect the difference between the
wing-whistlers of a flock of mallards or other slow-flying ducks and the
humming screech of redhead or canvasback hurtling through the night with
tremendous speed; and animals note such things more readily than man.
In any event Breed knew of the coming storm many hours before the first
soft flakes fell and melted on his yellow coat. He took shelter under
the low-hanging branches of a stunted spruce and slept. It snowed for
two days and throughout that time there was little sound in the hills.
Each coyote in the pack had sought out a similar shelter, the mated
pairs bedding together, the others singly. No one of them howled during
the storm. The elk and deer held to their beds without a sound. The few
stragglers who had not yet crossed out through the passes were the only
ones that moved, pushing on through the storm, and the herd bulls
traveling with them bugled to hold their cows together; but the
snow-filled air deadened these distant sounds. And for two days Breed
heard nothing but the soft hissing of the snow through the branches or
the groaning of overburdened trees. The third night a big gray owl
hooted gruffly an hour before dawn, and as if dispersed by the sound of
his voice the last gray clouds scudded past and the stars flamed from
the steel-blue sky of night.
A savage wind sprang up with the sun, shrieking along the exposed ridges
and rippling the valleys of lodgepole pine, hurling its force against
the spruce slopes. For another day Breed heard only the howl of the
gale, the snow sliding from the swaying branches and the sudden crash of
falling trees,--not a sound of life. The fury of the wind abated toward
night and an hour after dark there was a sudden lull followed by one
last rush of wind, leaving the white hills wrapped in a vast silence.
Breed heard a single bugle note of a young bull, the last he was to hear
for another ten months, for the mating time of the antlered tribes had
been ushered out with the storm. The gray owls hooted the warning that
they would soon set forth on silent wings to strike down any small
creature that moved across the white carpet under the trees. The elk
were working back up to the bald ridges that had been blown free of
snow. All the night-feeders of the wild prowled in search of food after
the fast.
Breed raised the hunting cry and the coyote pack answered roll call.
They were gaunt and their flanks were pinched up and hollowed from the
three-day famine. They ran silently and with but a single purpose,
spurred on by hunger. A coyote far out on one flank of the pack winded a
bunch of elk and headed for them. The elk accorded him scarcely a glance
as he drew near. In an earlier day, before the white man had invaded the
foothills, the elk herds had wintered there, but the coyotes had not
molested them; of late a few coyotes had invaded the high country, the
summer range, but the elk did not fear them.
The coyote howled, one short eager blast, and angled in between the herd
and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his
first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches
long. He was not alarmed,--but it was a new kind of coyote that faced
him now, one that had learned pack hunting under the leadership of the
yellow wolf.
The coyote made a swift lunge and drove his teeth in one hind leg. The
young bull whirled and aimed a sweeping slash of his polished spears,
intent upon impaling his foe; and as he turned a second coyote flashed
from behind a tree and slashed him. The bull whirled again and struck
wickedly with a smashing forefoot. The rest of the elk had stopped to
gaze in amazement at this strange scene,--at coyotes attacking an elk.
Every coyote in the pack had altered his course at that short howl,
wheeling as at a command. Yellow shapes had appeared as if by magic and
were sliding under the trees on silent feet and circling the bull. There
was something sinister and purposeful in this concerted action and the
rest of the elk milled about uneasily and at last turned and trotted
off. The spike bull fought with hoof and horn, but at every turn a
coyote slashed him from behind, striking always at the hamstring. His
rage turned to fear and he fled. He struck the heavy four-foot drifts
where the wind had scoured the snow from the ridge above and sifted it
deep in the timber. His sharp hoofs and heavier weight let him deep into
the snow while the coyotes padded easily along, their feet sinking in
but a few inches. He tired himself with desperate charges at some coyote
that always eluded him while others drove fangs in him from behind. More
coyotes joined the running fight and he was far gone before Breed drove
through the pack and struck him with all the force of a killing wolf. He
spent the last of his ebbing strength in a whirlwind of furious
fighting, then went down and the yellow horde swarmed over him. They fed
long and when they left the feast they were no longer gaunt. Flanks had
filled out and paunches sagged heavily, nearly touching the snow. The
following night they returned to the kill and finished it. Then Breed
headed back for the open sagebrush foothills. The immediate fear of
being shot had departed, leaving only the lesson as a reminder of his
narrow escape.
The pack reached the edge of the hills in the first morning light and
many of them kept on, but Breed, more averse to daylight traveling than
they, would not venture down till night. The low country lay spread out
below him, ragged patches of brown alternating with those of dirty
white, the wind having scoured the snow from open grass-country and
piled it to the tops of the sage in the heavier clumps and in long
drifts trailing away downwind behind them, or packed it in the depths of
badland washes and cracks. The powdery snow had been swept from the open
before it had time to melt and the dry air of the hill country had
sucked up what little moisture remained, leaving the flats almost as
dusty as before.
With nightfall Breed descended to the tongue of the foothills that
reached up into the notch formed by the outcropping spur where it joined
the main range at right angles. Thirty miles east along this Hardpan
Spur was his home territory and he followed along the base of it. Not
till within ten miles of Collins' cabin did he howl. The wolfer heard
it, and again he had the feeling that he could almost name that
peculiarity in Breed's note, but before he could give it expression the
solution was slipping away from him as always before. He could feel the
odd quality but it defied analysis in words.
Shady too had heard the call and answered it. Breed started toward her
but stopped abruptly and tested the wind. The scent of stale meat played
on his nostrils and he veered aside to investigate. He moved along a cow
trail and peered from the edge of the sage at a ten-pound chunk of meat
that lay in the center of an open flat. He knew what that meant.
Suspicion flooded him and every hair tingled as he realized that this
was the work of man. Traps! No coyote on the range would have found need
to look twice at the tempting morsel to know that it had not come there
by accident but had been placed by some man as a coyote lure.
Breed, springing as he did from two wise tribes, had been educated in
two schools. His coyote mother had led him to meat, knowing men had put
it there to bait her, and she had taught him to detect the most
cunningly buried trap. Later he had practiced this art himself. The old
dog wolf who was his father had followed one simple rule which served
him well. He killed each meal as he felt the need of it and would touch
no other food, not even returning to previous kills of his own. Breed
was possessed of both traits in moderation, inclining to either for long
periods as his moods varied. Breed moved to within ten feet of the meat
and extended one forepaw, feeling cautiously through the carpet of dust,
then pushed it two inches ahead. For a solid hour that paw was not once
lifted from the ground except when the other was pushed forward to
replace it. He moved ahead an inch at a time, the edging forepaws
feeling through the dust for the least sign of loosened earth beneath.
He knew that the crushing jaws of a trap yawned beneath the surface
somewhere near the meat. His eyes swept every inch of ground for a sign
that differed from the rest and his nose quested for a spot which held
the taint of man. A faint trace of it pervaded the place, coming mainly
from the bait itself and almost blotted by the meat scent.
Cripp and Peg watched every move from a distance of ten feet. Two young
coyotes had come to the spot and one of them worked in toward the bait
from the opposite side, using the same tactics as those employed by
Breed. At the end of an hour Breed stood within three feet of his goal
and the out-stretched paw suddenly touched yielding earth. He scratched
gently along the edge of this softened spot; a claw scraped some solid
substance and the moonlight glinted on a point of naked steel. Breed
pushed his paw beneath it and gently lifted till half of a deadly
four-pound trap showed above the dust. He looked long at it, then veered
past it to the bait; and the young coyote edged in from the other side.
Breed's feet did not shift an inch as he tore a mouthful from the meat,
but the young coyote across from him strained to drag the whole of it
from the spot. It was wired solidly to a stake and he shifted far to
either side in his vain efforts to dislodge it. There was a hissing
grate of loosened springs and the young coyote felt the bone-shattering
snap of a trap as it closed on his foot. Breed whirled and leaped ten
feet away, from which point he watched the struggles of his ill-fated
friend. In his desperate struggles to free himself the young coyote
leaped clear across the meat and the trap that Breed had unearthed
closed on another foot. Breed circled uneasily round the spot, powerless
to help the coyote that was stretched full length between two traps, yet
he lingered till an hour before dawn.
This experience quickened old fears in Breed. Memories of past horrors,
long dormant but not forgotten, welled up out of his mind to increase
his caution, and fresh pangs were added by similar discoveries on each
succeeding night. The whole range seemed studded with fearsome traps and
the odor of stale meat was borne on every breeze. There were few nights
when he did not find some animal fast in one of these man-made snares.
Each new victim acted differently, according to the characteristics of
its kind. Breed found a badger in a trap and the animal ceased his
struggle long enough to wrinkle his nose and hiss at Breed with a thick
snakelike sound. The badger's forepaws were more than twice the size of
his hind feet, and were fitted with heavy two-inch claws, while those of
the hind feet measured but half an inch. He was caught by one hind foot,
leaving the powerful spading forks of the forepaws free to work. He had
always found safety by burrowing in the ground and so now, in his last
extremity, he turned to digging and plowed every inch of the surface
within reach. He settled on one spot at last and burrowed from sight.
Breed watched the heaving dirt till it ceased to move as the badger
settled comfortably in fancied security, buried to the full limit of the
trap chain.
Some nights later Breed passed a cross fox that had strayed down from
the high country and had stepped into one of Collins' traps. The fox was
never still, weaving in and out, looping and turning round the pin that
held the trap; lashed into constant movement by his native nervousness
but making no strenuous efforts to break loose. Later the same night he
found a bobcat. The big cat made no move save a slight creasing of his
facial muscles preparatory to a snarl if the wolf drew near. The first
pain had dulled and he rested quietly, lacking the hardihood to stretch
his own flesh and bones in a struggle against the trap.
But Breed always found a trapped coyote fighting,--fighting silently and
gamely to the last heartbeat. Coyotes are high in the scale of
intelligence and so each one has an individuality of his own. One would
surge time after time against the chain, driving savagely to the end of
it. Another would grind his teeth against the cold steel till his jaws
dripped blood, while a third would amputate the mangled foot. But
whatever the method, the basic fact was the same,--no coyote waited
submissively for his fate but waged a ceaseless, desperate fight for
freedom.
All these things heightened Breed's suspicions. He felt the reassertion
of wolfish caution within him, driving out the coyote desire to outwit
man. Three times he unearthed the traps and stole the bait. Then he
refused to go near stale meat. He was nauseated by the smell of it and
merely avoided instead of investigating the spots from which the scent
came to him. And this was not through fear of traps--he retained full
confidence in his ability to detect them--but from the fact that
wherever he had found traps in the past he had also found poison and so
these two were associated together in his mind.
Throughout a whole month of accustoming himself to these new conditions,
Breed had visited Shady but twice. He had the companionship of coyotes
to fill his time and the lonesome howls of the she-wolf were unanswered.
It is the stock dog without steady occupation that reverts to the wild.
Mere inactivity, even if coupled with kindness, is insufficient to still
his natural restlessness and fill his life; he must have careful
training and active employment to be content,--and Shady was half wild.
The mating time of wolves was drawing near and Breed caught the new note
in Shady's voice. He dropped all other business to hurry to her. Though
the season was yet some time ahead they knew its nearness and each
recognized in the other a possible future mate.
Collins thought of Shady more as a pet than as a dog and so had not
troubled to train her. The wild traits in her were as apparent in
maturity as they had been in infancy--even more pronounced--and chief
among these was her natural aptitude for stealing. She pillaged Collins'
stores and even sneaked food from the table when his back was turned, as
her wild ancestors for many generations had stolen his bait. Collins
curbed this propensity, not by judicious training which would eliminate
it, but by the simple process of chaining her to the cabin wall when he
left for a trip and did not wish her to accompany him. So it was not
strange that Shady viewed thieving from the standpoint of expediency.
Those who came to Collins' cabin predicted a bad end for Shady.
That insistent note in her voice was more pronounced as the season
neared and Breed tingled to the sound of it. The frequency of his visits
increased till they were of nightly occurrence instead of semi-monthly.
He used every wolfish inducement to lure her away from the vicinity of
the twinkling lights that marked the abode of man. She longed to follow
him into the wild but could not bring herself to face its terrors. Breed
longed to follow her when she left him but could not bring himself to
face the horrors which must lurk near the haunts of men. These clashing
outlooks upon life held them apart. The wild represented safety for
Breed, its dangers known to him and accepted as a part of it and not to
be greatly feared. Those dangers were the work of man, and by natural
consequence Breed assumed that their numbers and deadliness increased in
proportion as he drew nearer the homes of men, the house itself the most
dangerous of all. Shady's mode of life had taught her the reverse of
this; that complete safety lay in the cabin and its immediate vicinity,
the known and unknown terrors of the wild increasing in ever-widening
circles dependent upon the distance from the refuge of the cabin that
was home to her.
The season had started and some few coyotes had paired, yet Breed could
not induce Shady to follow him. The preceding winter her desire for
motherhood had been thwarted. Collins had chained her to the cabin for a
month. Coyotes are without the wolf suspicion which fills their larger
cousins with fear of human habitations, and they are prone to
investigate them at night while a wolf will not approach. Several dog
coyotes had braved the dangers of Collins' cabin in answer to Shady's
howls. Her soft whimpering had roused the wolfer each time this occurred
and every new admirer had been greeted with a charge of buckshot as he
slipped toward the house, three dog coyotes having paid for their
temerity with their lives.
The Coyote Prophet intended the same imprisonment for Shady the present
season but he neglected it one day too long. He came from the cabin, a
collar and chain in his hand, only to see Shady slip away into the dusk.
A minute later she howled.
Breed heard it. Every fiber of him quivered to the sound. It was the
mating call!
Collins whistled in vain. There was no answering whimper from Shady. But
the habit of obedience was strong in her and she lingered within sound
of it. Breed came nearer than ever before, his fears dulled by the
message she had sent him. Collins came from the house again and whistled
shrilly. Breed shrank from the sound and drew back as Shady trotted a
short distance toward the house; she answered the whistle with an uneasy
whine and Collins moved in the direction from which it came, coaxing as
he advanced.
Fear flooded Breed. It spurred him to sudden rushes of flight which were
halted in a few stiff bounds as the longing for Shady cried out against
his leaving her. Then came the clanking of the chain in Collins' hand.
It was the clank of a trap chain to Breed,--and he was off. That same
sound, its meaning so different for each of them, resulted in flight for
both. Shady ran with him through the night, and once started it was not
so hard to keep on. And as she ran she transferred her trust from
Collins to Breed, giving herself entirely into his keeping to lead her
through the unknown perils which lay ahead,--and she ran close to him,
her nose almost touching his flank.