As they came up on the scene of the fight, they found their dog mauled almost to ribbons, but he was still clinging gamely and worrying at the throat of the dead coyote.
Jim spoke a word of praise to that remnant of a dog and separated it from its late antagonist.
The excitement over, it wagged its stump of a tail, staggered for a little, trembled, then lay down on the ice with a little whimper, in absolute exhaustion.
The coyote was a huge brute of its kind and its coat was in perfect condition.
Phil’s shot of the previous night had passed through a fleshy part of its hind quarters, without breaking any bones on its journey, but the coyote had evidently bled almost to death before the terrier got at it. This alone accounted for its inability to beat the old dog at the very first turn of the encounter. The shot which killed it had gone clean through its eye and out behind its ear.
Jim got out his knife and started in to skin the animal, while Phil did what he could in the matter of lending first aid to the wounded terrier.
On glancing casually along the surface of the ice, then away toward their ranch, Phil noticed a vehicle drawn up at the front door.
“Jim,––there’s a rig of some kind at our door. Looks as if we had visitors!”
“Now who the Dickens can it be?” queried Jim, scratching his head as he knelt beside the carcass of the coyote. “It’s a sleigh. Christmas Day and nobody to welcome them! Phil, you beat it back. I’ll finish this job and follow after you with the dog. He won’t be able to go fast and it is no use both of us waiting.”