SAVED BY A FIDDLE.
AMONG the most rapacious and dangerous animals of North America, is the wolf, commonly called the coyote (pronounced ky-o-te) in some of the Southern and Western States. The wolves—far more numerous in the United States than in Europe—are, perhaps, more horrible in aspect than those of the old world. Along desert paths, on the prairies or in the woods, the wolf, the ghoul of the animal race, presents itself to the traveller, with its slavering jaws and flashing eyes, uttering a growl, which is the usual sign of cowardice blended with impudence. “The coyote,” says a recent writer, “is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless.”
It is very difficult to catch coyotes in a trap, but they are frequently hunted down with horses and dogs. Their coat is of a dull reddish color, mixed with gray and white hairs. Such is their ordinary condition, but like other animals they display varieties. Their bushy tail, black at the tip, is nearly as long as one third of their body. They resemble the dogs which one sees in the Indian wigwams, and which are certainly descended from this species. They are found in the regions between the Mississippi and the Pacific, and in Southern Mexico. They travel in packs like jackals, and pursue deer, buffaloes, and other animals which they hope to master. They do not venture to attack buffaloes in herds, but they follow the latter in large packs, watching till a laggard—a young calf or an old bull, for instance—may fall out; then they dart upon it and tear it to pieces. They accompany parties of sportsmen or travellers, prowl round deserted camps, and devour the fragments they find there. At times they will enter a camp during the night, and seize lumps of meat on which the emigrants calculated for their morning meal. These robberies sometimes exasperate the victims, and, growing less saving of their powder and shot, they pursue them till they have rubbed out the mess-number of several.
This breed of wolves is the most numerous of all the carnivora in North America, and it is for this reason that the coyotes often suffer from hunger. Then, but only then, they eat corn, roots, and vegetables—in short, anything that will save them from death by starvation.
The coyote is ignorant of any feeling of sympathy, and for this reason inspires none. Here is an anecdote, however, which proves that this quadruped thief of the wood is capable of feeling a certain degree of sensibility of the nerves, at any rate, if not of the heart. This story was told me under canvas, while we were hunting with the Pawnee Indians.
During the first period of the colonization of Kentucky, the coyotes were so numerous in the prairie to the south of that state, that the inhabitants did not dare to leave their houses unless armed to the teeth. The women and children were strictly confined in-doors. The coyotes by which the country was infested belonged to the herd whose coat is dark gray, a very numerous species in the northern district, in the heart of the dense forests and unexplored mountains of the Green River.
The village of Henderson, situated at the left bank of the Ohio, near its confluence with Green River, was the spot most frequented by these depredators.
The pigs, calves, and sheep of the planters paid a heavy tax to these voracious animals. Several times in the depth of winter, when the snow covered the ground, and the flocks were kept in the stalls, the starving coyotes attacked human beings; and more than one belated farmer, returning home at night, found himself surrounded by a raging pack, from whose teeth he had great difficulty in defending himself.
Among the many startling adventures I have heard narrated, not one made a greater impression on me than that of which Richard, the old negro fiddler, was the hero, and which I will tell you.
Richard was what is called a “good old good-for-nothing darky.” The whole district allowed that he had no other merit beyond that of sawing the fiddle; and this merit, which is not one in our own eyes, was highly valued, however, by all the colored people, and even by the whites who lived for a distance of forty miles round. One thing is certain—that no festival could be held without Fiddler Dick being invited to it.