Besides, on the open range, the coyotes howl and whine all night, keeping everybody in camp awake; so the cowboys have a strong dislike for Mr. Coyote and have not a single good word to say for him. Indeed, the coyote seems to possess few good traits.
But Rose Bunker called the creature that had startled her a dog.
"If I could run I know that dog would chase me!" she sobbed. "I wonder who it belongs to? It must be a runaway dog, to be away out here where there are no houses. I'm afraid of that dog."
For this Rose was not to be much blamed. This was a strange country to her, and almost everything she saw was different from what she was used to back in Pennsylvania. Even the trees and bushes were different. And she never had seen a dog just like that tawny one that dragged itself behind the hedge of bushes.
The strange part of it was—the thing that frightened Rose most—was that the animal seemed trying to hide from her. And yet she felt that it must be dangerous, for it was big and had long legs. She was quite right in supposing that if she had undertaken to run, under ordinary circumstances, the animal could have overtaken her.
But Rose's ankle throbbed and ached, and she cried out whenever she rested that foot upon the ground. She just couldn't run! So she began cajoling the supposed dog, hoping that it was not as savage as she really feared it was. One thing, it did not growl as bad dogs often did, as Rose Bunker very well knew.
"Come, doggy! Nice doggy!" she cooed. And then she was suddenly afraid that it really would come! If it had leaped up and started toward Rose the little girl would have fallen right down—she knew she would!
But the yellow-looking creature only tried to creep farther under the scrubby bushes. Rose began to think that maybe it was more afraid of her than she was of it.
"Poor doggy!" she said, hobbling around the end of the hedge of scrubby bushes.
There she saw its head and forepaws. And it was not until then that she discovered what was the matter with the coyote. Its right fore paw was fast in a steel trap. A chain hung from the trap. It had broken the chain and hobbled away with the trap—no knowing how far it had come.