"It was a fine, large specimen and after skinning it, which required some twenty minutes of my time, I looked it over and found that my first bullet had struck it in the right hip, breaking the bone and passing through the body diagonally, emerging at the left shoulder. It was certainly a good shot and had I been using soft point bullet cartridges instead of full metal patched, the animal would have been killed instantly. It is surprising, however, how tenacious of life these animals are. The second shot had passed through the shoulders.
"I returned to the prairie dog villages but saw no more coyotes. I did see a badger and fired at it just as it was about to enter the burrow, but missed the animal entirely. Going back to the creek bed I followed on up into the hills to a small alkali spring where I halted to eat my lunch. The water from this spring entirely disappears within two hundred yards of the place where it rises. The sun was shining fiercely hot by this time, and after eating my lunch I made a cigarette and crawled into the grateful shadow of the bank where I rested for a full hour. I had intended to make a large circle but found now that I would not have the time that such a trip would necessitate and so decided to go on northward through this range of hills and return home over the trap line.
"At the edge of the hills I found the traces of a sheep outfit and on rounding a spur so as to obtain a good view of the little valley beyond, I saw the white topped wagon of the herder at the far-side, but the sheep were farther down the hollow. Here I expected to find coyotes and I was not disappointed, for on riding through a patch of sage which covered several acres, a coyote broke cover on the opposite side. Three shots followed each other in rapid succession, throwing dirt and gravel over the fleeing animal but without harming him, and having no other effect than to increase his speed. I followed for some distance but failed to get another shot at the coyote and soon lost sight of it. Signs of coyotes were numerous here and about a mile farther I found the remains of two sheep which had been killed and eaten by the animals.
"As I rode over a small sag of a ridge and entered the head of a long narrow hollow, I saw a coyote trotting along down the draw about two hundred yards below me. The animal started to run before I could catch aim and I emptied the magazine in short order the last shot dropping the coyote, but it was not badly hurt and leaping to its feet it made off down the hollow. However, it enabled me to get quite close and putting spurs to the horse, I followed the animal, firing with my revolver. The third shot rolled it over and a fourth finished it, making two coyotes out of three shot at that day.
"Skinning the animal I mounted and hurried on to look at the traps. There were sixteen traps in the line and all but two of them had been undisturbed. Of these two, the bait was taken from one but the wary animal had apparently known just where the trap lay and had avoided it, the other held a young, female coyote. After looking at the traps, I returned home and dressed and stretched the skins of the captured animals.
"The skin of the coyote is of no value as fur, at that time of the year, but the combined state and stockmen's bounties aggregated $4 on each animal, so that I had $12 for my day's hunt. During the fall and early winter I captured by means of traps and gun, a hundred and thirty-three coyotes and four wolves. All of the unprime skins taken that fall were tanned by myself and made into robes."
CHAPTER VIII.
POISONING WOLVES.
Poisoning noxious animals is a common practice and is much used where the only object is to destroy the animals, and the finding of the carcass is of little moment, but the real hunters and trappers seldom resort to this method because of the large numbers of animals that are killed and lost. It is, indeed, a wasteful method of hunting as in all probability, three-fourths of the animals killed by the poisoned baits are not found until they have lain so long that they have become tainted, or ruined by mice and birds, so that both the bounty and the fur are lost. Anyway that is the conclusion of many of those who have practiced poisoning.