"Is it always fatal, Abe?"
"Not often, lad, either to man or horse, though I have known horses die when they have been bit in the head when they have been grazing. The best thing is to tie a bandage tightly above the place, and to clap on a poultice of fresh dung—that draws out the poison; and then, if you have got it, drink half a bottle of spirits. It ain't often we get bit, because of these high boots; but the Injins get bit sometimes, and I never heard of thar dying. The only thing as we are regular feered of out in these plains is a little beast they call the hydrophobia cat."
"I never heard of that. What is it like, Abe?"
"It is a pretty little beast, marked black and white, and about the size of a big weasel. It has got a way of coming and biting you when you are asleep, and when it does it is sartin death; thar ain't no cure for it; the best plan is to put your Colt to your head and finish it at once."
"What horrible little beasts!" Frank said; "I hope they are not common."
"No, they ain't common, and there's more danger from them down south; if you sleeps in an old Mexican hut that's been deserted, or places of that sort, it's best to look sharp round afore you goes to sleep."
The game most commonly met with were the black-tailed and white-tailed deer. These were generally met with in parties of from six to twelve, and were usually stalked, although sometimes, by dividing and taking a wide circle, they could manage to ride them down and get within shot. This could seldom be done with the antelope, which ran in much larger herds, but were so suspicious and watchful that there was no getting within shot, while, once in motion, they could leave the horses behind with ease. The only way in which they could get them would be by acting upon their curiosity. One or two of the hunters would dismount, and crawl through the grass until within three or four hundred yards of the herd; then they would lie on their backs and wave their legs in the air, or wave a coloured blanket, as they lay concealed in the grass. The herd would stop grazing and look on curiously, and gradually approach nearer and nearer to investigate this strange phenomenon, until they came well within shot, when the hunters would leap to their feet and send their unerring bullets among them.
"You would hardly believe, now," Peter said, one day when he and Frank had brought down two fine antelopes by this man[oe]uvre, "that the coyotes are just as much up to that trick as we are. They haven't got a chance with the deer when they are once moving, although sometimes they may pick up a fawn a few days old, or a stag that has got injured; but when they want deer-meat they just act the same game as we have been doing. Over and over again have I seen them at their tricks; two of them will play them together. They will creep up through the grass till they can get to a spot where the antelope can see them, and then they will just act as if they were mad, rolling over on their backs, waving their legs about, twisting and rolling like balls, and playing the fool, till the antelope comes up to see what is the matter. They let them come on till they are only a few yards away, and then they are on one like a flash, before he has time to turn and get up his speed. One will catch him by a leg, and the other will get at his throat, and between them they soon pull him down. They will sham dead too. Wonderful 'cute beasts is them coyotes; they are just about the sharpest beasts as live."
"Do they live entirely upon deer?"
"Bless you, no; they will eat anything. They hang about behind the great buffalo herds, and eat them as drops; where there are such tens of thousands there is always some as is old or injured and can't keep up; besides, sometimes they get scared, and then they will run over a bluff and get piled up there dead by hundreds. The coyotes pick the bones of every beast as dies in the plains. The badgers helps them a bit; there are lots of those about in some places."