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

by George Bird Grinnell

As they rode toward the house, talking of the animals they had been watching, Jack was loud in his sympathy for the antelope, and declared that if he could do so, he would kill every coyote in the country. "Well, I don't know, son," said Hugh, "Coyotes are mean and do right smart of mischief, but they've got feelings, just like folks. Did ye ever think of that?"

"How do you mean, Hugh?" asked Jack.

"Why, I mean that they've got to eat and drink, and sleep, just like the antelope, or, for the matter of that, just like us. They've got little ones to look out for and feed, and I make no doubt the old mother coyote thinks just as much of her young ones as the antelope does of hers. I don't mean to say that I like coyotes; they're pesky critters, and often I get mad with them and feel, like you do, that I'd like to kill 'em all; but what I say is that it ain't no more cruel for a coyote to kill an antelope, than it is for an antelope to take a bite of grass."

"I never thought of it in that way, Hugh, but that is so. But you can't help feeling sorry for the little kids and for the old ones, too."

"That's all right enough, but what I say is, if you are going to feel sorry for one thing, you've got to feel sorry for all. And what's more, talking about coyotes, they're so almighty smart, that you can't help admiring them, and thinking they earn all they get."

Talking about these things, they rode over the low hills till they had come to the edge of the valley leading up to the house. Here Hugh checked his horse and pointed to a small animal, walking about in an aimless way near the gully through which the creek flowed. "There's a badger," he said. "Now, if you like, we can get down into the creek bed and creep up close to him and watch him for a spell. What do you say?"

"That'll be bully; let's do it; but can we get close enough to see him well?"

"There won't be any trouble about that, but we'll have to go back a little ways," said Hugh. "Come on."

They rode back a short distance, and around a little hill, and dismounting, walked down into the bed of the stream. The banks of the narrow water-course were eight or ten feet high, and of course hid them from anything on the level of the valley. After they had gone some little distance, Hugh signed with his hand to Jack to wait, and slowly raising his head above the bank, looked through a bunch of grass growing on its edge. After a moment he motioned Jack to come up beside him, and whispered to him, "He's right close, not twenty feet away;" and he pointed. Jack looked carefully over the bank and saw a queer short-legged grey animal with white stripes on his face, walking about and smelling at some little piles of earth. The long hair on either side of its body almost swept the ground, its face had an expression of great cunning, and its nose was long and pointed. It was a heavy, thickset animal, only about two feet long and very broad, but it stepped lightly enough from place to place, snuffing at each lump of earth or tuft of grass that it came to, not as if it were very much interested in it, but as if it felt that it would not do to pass by anything without examining it. Sometimes it would scrape away a little dirt, and smell the ground, and then move on. Often it lifted its head high and sniffed the air, moving its nose about and wrinkling it, as if to catch the faintest scent.

Now and then it sat up on its haunches and looked about, as if to see if any danger were near. When it did this, it held itself much as Jack had seen a woodchuck. "He keeps a pretty good look-out, don't he?" whispered Hugh.