Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

They left the horses in a little hollow, and creeping up to the top of the hill, carefully looked over it. At first they could see nothing living, but after a moment Hugh said, "Look out! keep close! there's a coyote coming out of the gulch over there." They watched the cunning animal as it trotted out into the flat where the grass was up to its belly, and there it began to quarter the ground, just like a hunting dog, yet every moment or two it would pause and look up toward the hills, as if it were afraid of something that was coming. What this something was they soon saw, for presently a doe antelope came galloping over the hills toward the flat, and when she saw the coyote she ran faster, directly toward it. As soon as it saw the doe, the coyote dropped its head and tail and started to run away, at first slowly, but, as the antelope drew nearer to it, much faster, until presently it was running nearly as fast as the doe. Before it had crossed the flat the antelope had nearly caught it, and now the coyote was running as fast as it could, with its tail tucked between its legs, like a frightened cur. As the little wolf ran up to the hill on which they were lying, the antelope caught up with it, and several times struck it with her hoof, and each time she did so, the wolf yelled with pain, just as a dog would yell when struck with a whip. Wolf and antelope passed close by the watchers and soon disappeared over the next hill.

Then Hugh said to Jack, "Look out, now! that coyote has a partner somewhere about, and, unless I am mistaken, he will show up in two or three minutes." Sure enough, when they turned around and looked at the flat, there was a coyote just beginning to search through the grass, as the other one had done. It was evident that these two wolves were working together, and that while one led the doe away from the neighbourhood of her young ones, the other searched to try to find out where they were hidden. However, the old doe seemed to be pretty wise and did not chase the first coyote far; so that the one left on the ground had hardly time to begin his hunt before the antelope made her appearance again on the flat, and drove him off. As she began to do this, Hugh said to Jack, "Now, turn around and keep a good look-out for the other coyote; you may get a chance to kill him as he comes back." They had not been watching very long when the little wolf that had just been chased away came trotting unconcernedly around the base of the knoll, only a short distance from them. They sat quite still and he did not notice them, but went on until he reached the top of the rise from which he could see the flat. Here he stopped only about forty yards from Jack, and a careful shot dropped him in his tracks.

"Well," said Hugh, "that's a good shot, and a good job too. That other coyote will have to go now and hunt up another partner. I reckon we've saved them kids. Maybe if we lie here a little longer and watch, the old doe will go up to her young ones, and we'll see where they are hidden; then, if you like, we can catch them and take them home."

"Let's wait and see if we can find them," said Jack. "I'd like awfully well to see them and see what they look like, but I don't want to take them away from the old one; she's had trouble enough with these coyotes; let's leave her young ones with her."

"That suits me to a T," said Hugh. "Let's move down a little bit from the top of the hill and skin this coyote, and we can look at the old doe every little while, and if she isn't bothered, likely before long she will go to her young ones."

They skinned the wolf, and every now and then either Hugh or Jack went to the top of the hill and looked over at the antelope. The coyotes bothered her no more; she fed about in the flat, and at length went up on a little side hill and lay down for an hour or two. Then she rose and began to feed again, and after wandering about in rather an aimless fashion for half an hour, she walked over to a bare hillside, where nothing seemed to be growing, and in a moment they saw two tiny kids standing by her side.

"Now," said Hugh, "you notice well where those kids are, and we'll go and get the horses and ride over to them. You will see that just as soon as we show ourselves, the kids will disappear and the old one will run off. You won't be able to see the kids until you're right on top of them."

Sure enough, when they rode over the hills, and the old doe saw them, she cantered away and no young ones were to be seen, but when they reached the spot, two small grey objects looking at a little distance like stones, lay on the ground there. Jack dismounted and picked one up; its legs and head hung down as if it were dead; it made no movement and uttered no sound, but its bright little eye was full and round.

"That's the way it is with them," said Hugh. "Until they are a week or ten days old they act just like that. I expect it's born in them to act like they are dead until their mother tells them it's safe to seem to be alive."

It was a little hard for Jack to leave the kids here. They were such queer-looking little beasts that his wish to possess them almost overcame the sympathy he had felt for their mother, but after what he had said to Hugh he was ashamed to change; and so, rather regretfully, he left the kids lying there on the hillside, for their mother to find when she came back.