Although a stranger in the border province, Sergeant Childress had been directed with sufficient detail to realize that he had ridden a considerable distance into the Whitefoot Reservation. This fact increased the puzzle, for the sound suggested a small stampede; yet he knew that the Indians, rationed by a benevolent Dominion, ranged few cattle. After further listening he felt assured that this was an approach of horses. The alert ears of his handsome mount readily confirmed his judgment.
An excited yelp from Poison, the battle-scarred brindle hound that was the ununiformed sergeant's trail mate, soon foretold the exact cause of disquiet. Next moment the low-hung, gray body of a coyote streaked over the ridge with a pack of dogs in hot pursuit.
"Bucks must be wolf-coursing."
He spoke aloud, as he often did to four-footed companions, although he was just beginning to arrive at terms of friendship with the decidedly mismatched pair of the present expedition.
The hound evidently interpreted this observation as permission to join the chase. Perhaps he thought it was a command. Anyway he wanted to go. With a delighted yowl, he unlimbered into a speed that a rabbit-jack might have envied. He became just a brindle flash, so nearly the color of the winter-withered grass as scarcely to be discernible.
"Hell's-bells, you fool rabbit chaser, come back here!" Childress shouted. "Hyah, Poison, don't you know you're a white man's hound?"
But further commands, even had there been any forceful enough to recall that particular canine from the hunt, were smothered on his lips by surprise over the appearance of the first of the hunting party. No Whitefoot—buck or squaw—was astride the lead horse, any more than the beast itself was an Indian pony.
For the coyote Childress had no sympathy.
From more youthful experience he knew that this was far and away the worst enemy of the stock raiser, and one that is not repulsed by civilization, as are other predatory animals of the plains. While the settling of a region generally brings about the rapid extinction of all wild animals, Mr. and Mrs. Coyote welcome the coming of the homesteader, make themselves very much at home with him, raise their young right under his nose and despite bounties, poisons or traps, manage to increase with Rooseveltian litters of six to nine a year. No, for the harassed coyote sympathy was lacking!
But for the rider who led the chase——