"What coyote?" asked Jack, looking hurriedly in all directions.
"Over there," indicating a section of the horizon with a sweep of his arm.
"Can't place him," Jack confessed.
"Beside that little mound of dirt—badger-hole, I reckon; there's a tuft of grass in front of him; he's lookin' straight at us, wonderin' who the hell——"
"Oh, I got him, I got him!" Jack shouted in a loud whisper, and began to get out of the wagon, but Jake's arm restrained him.
"Don't do that. He'll run the moment you get out. Take him from here."
He slipped the rifle over Jack's arm. "She's loaded," he said, with a grin. "Set 'er fer two hundred yards."
Jack aimed long and carefully, and even as he aimed the coyote turned his broadside deliberately, as though to give him a better target. Then he fired, and a whiff of dust puffed up three hundred yards away. The coyote, however, had taken notice; perhaps the bullet didn't pass so far above him, at that. He stretched himself like a tawny ribbon and bolted with amazing speed into the wilderness. Jack sent two more wild shots into space.
"Toler'ble safe," was Jake's comment as he laid the rifle away. "Toler'ble safe."
Half an hour later he pulled up again. "How about you?" he said, turning to me.