At last he was rewarded. A stick he rolled over touched the spring, and the steel jaws leaped together with a clash. He proceeded to dig all around the trap until it was wholly exposed, after which he gave a disdainful sniff and jumped over it. Thirty seconds later he emerged from the pen bearing a fine, fat gobbler, and away he went, careless of the trail of feathers his dragging prey made.
“You-all kin see for yourself what he done,” cried the cook, gloriously profane, next morning. “He knowed that was there all the time and simply sprung it. Got that lil’ ol’ gobbler, too; last one I had.”
“Ki-yotes is shore smart,” the straw boss agreed. “Smart as humans, I reckon.”
“Smart as humans?” the cook retorted contemptuously. “Why, ol’ Dick is a human.”
“That’s so,” said the straw boss thoughtfully. “Well, they’s smarter, then; smart as a good hoss.”
“That ol’ ki-yote and me’s been fighting for three years. I near had him once; but he done chawed his foot off--they’s that treacherous. Only last week I done set a rooster in that mesquite tree there, and put traps all around. He had to step in one to git that bird. Know what he done?” The cook’s voice rose to a howl. “I’ll eat my shirt if he didn’t go off and git a friend, who sprung the trap and got caught. Yes, sir. Then ol’ Scartoe, he done jump in and got the rooster.”
“Ever try poison?”
“Won’t touch it. He kin smell strych-nine farther’n he kin see. Ate some once and near died, I reckon, for I seen the place where he was took sick. Every trap I set, he just scratches stones or sticks on to it until he springs the thing.”
The straw boss, riding to a division camp the next day, came upon Scartoe trying to imitate a rock as he slept on the brow of a hill. The rider had no gun, but got down his rope and rode toward the sleeper carelessly, so as not to alarm him. The coyote let him approach within thirty yards, then awoke to yawn; but he was wrong in his estimate of the straw boss, because that worthy gentleman, hot with the memory of the recent indignity, let out a whoop and gave chase. Before he could warm up into anything like his usual form, a rope sped through the air and encircled Scartoe’s neck.
Now, there are three rules to observe in roping coyotes. The first is not to rope them, and the other two do not matter. A noose was nothing new to Scartoe and he knew the parry. Before it could tighten and jerk him into eternity, he took one slashing bite at it and the rope parted, cut clean. Next moment the coyote had mingled with the scenery.