"My people come often to the valley of Corn Water," said she, "but it is never as it is now except in dreams. Now we must go quickly." Far up the trail they saw a grayness in the eastern sky where the day was about to come in.
"Hark," said the Basket Woman, "they will sing together the coyote song. It is so that they sing it when the coyote goes home from his hunting, and the morning is near.
"The coyote cries ...
He cries at daybreak ...
He cries ...
The coyote cries" ...
sang the Basket Woman, but all the spaces in between the words were filled with long howls,—weird, wicked noises that seemed to hunt and double in a half-human throat. It made the hair on Alan's neck stand up, and cold shivers creep along his back. He began to shake, for the wild howls drew near and louder, and he felt the bed under him tremble with his trembling.
"Mother, mother," he cried, "what is that?"
"It is only the coyotes," said she; "they always howl about this time of night. It is nothing; go to sleep again."
"But I am afraid."
"They cannot hurt you," said his mother; "it is only the little gray beasts that you see trotting about the mesa of afternoons; hear them now."
"I am afraid," said Alan.
"Then you must come in my bed," said she; and in a few minutes he was fast asleep again.