“Run him down, fellers—watch out for prairie dog holes!” snorted Big John, swerving the wild, white horse to the left to cut across the coyote’s trail. The two Arizonans had fanned out in a wide bend; Sid and Scotty jounced along together, pawing at their revolvers which were tightly jammed in the saddle holsters; the horses streaked along with a rapid clatter of hoof beats on the vast level floor of the desert, which was the stage setting for their coyote run.
Sid yelled with glee. What a lot of room there was in this country! Bare mountains and mesas ringed the horizon, but for miles the flat, gray sage and green greasewood dotted the red sand. The dogs looked like little black specks, leaping and twisting through the low bushes. The whole plain was flat as a floor, and the horses under them reached out with flying hoofs in the unrestrained joy of racing. Then a jack rabbit jumped from behind a sage bush, and the three pups dropped their hot coyote trail and started after him.
“Wa—hoo! Stop them, boys!” roared the Colonel from his huge roan. “Break ’em of that!”
He kept on after the coyote and Ruler. Sid tugged out his revolver and fanned the air ahead of the jack rabbit. His bullets threw up spats of white dust, and Pepper and Bourbon, who were yipping and squealing in hot pursuit, nearly turned somersaults as a bullet threw a splash of sand right before their faces. The dogs leaped back, falling all over each other, and then the swift ponies wheeled around in front of them. Scotty leaned far out of his saddle with swinging quirt.
“Back, Pep! Out of that, Bourbon! Nix on rabbit!—Skip!—VAMOOSE!” he barked, lashing at them with his quirt. Sid thundered up on Pinto and they headed the pups and drove them back, whimpering and cringing, to where they had left the coyote track. The men were now at least a mile away across the level basin, stringing along with Big John’s white horse in the lead and Ruler far ahead of them all. The coyote was evidently headed for some craggy red sawteeth where he could make his escape from the horses uphill.
The boys called off the pups and headed across the flat, hoping that the men would succeed in turning the coyote. Then little puffs of white smoke came from the Arizonans. They could not hear the rifle shots, but they saw the coyote turn, bewildered, heading down their way in what looked like an easy lope. He saw them start their ponies into a gallop and again turned like a flash, evidently intending to cross the sage between the two parties. Pepper rose on his hind legs, got a sight of the coyote, and started in long bounds over the sage, with Lee and Bourbon at his heels.
“Now!” gritted Sid. “Head him off, Scotty!” They raced across the coyote’s line. He was coming like the wind. Sid hauled Pinto up abruptly on his haunches and aimed his long-barreled Officer’s Model carefully. A spurt of dust sprang up just in front of the coyote. Sid held the round white bead, well down in its notch, just ahead of the flying, twisting animal, swung two yards ahead and fired. The coyote slid to his haunches, snapping savagely at a wound in his side, and then Pepper, Lee and Bourbon fell on him in a riot of howls and barks.
Sid whooped with joy as they rode down. This was fine medicine for those houn’-dawg pups! It was impossible to shoot; the whirling mass of black, tan and gray was too swift and intricate to risk a shot into it. Came a rapid clatter of paws and a great, deep-voiced bray, as Ruler charged down the slope and pitched headlong into the fray. Out of it rose the coyote, borne aloft by the great bony jaws of Ruler about his throat. There was a savage shake, a worrying and growling from the pups, and then Red Jake clattered up, leaped off his pony, booted the dogs aside and finished the gasping coyote with a single revolver shot as it lay on its side.
“That’s the stuff!” yelled Colonel Colvin, galloping up on the roan. “Mind the dogs—they’ll be at each other next—they’re wild with fight!” He had scarcely spoken before Pepper flew jealously at Ruler with bared fangs, while Bourbon turned and pitched into Lee where he was worrying gleefully at the carcass. The boys dismounted with howls of laughter and grabbed the belligerents by their collars.
“Some pups, Dad! Hang on to him, Scotty!” laughed Sid, slinging Bourbon into the sage and aiming a kick at Lee. “First trophy of the desert, fellers!”