Johnny Bear by E. T. Seton
E >>
E. T. Seton >> Johnny Bear
There was one little trick that she had developed which was purely
instinctive--that is, an inherited habit. In the back end of her kennel
she had a little _cache_ of bones, and knew exactly where one or two
lumps of unsavoury meat were buried within the radius of her chain, for
a time of famine which never came. If anyone approached these
hidden treasures she watched with anxious eyes, but made no other
demonstration. If she saw that the meddler knew the exact place, she
took an early opportunity to secrete them elsewhere.
After a year of this life Tito had grown to full size, and had learned
many things that her wild kinsmen could not have learned without losing
their lives in doing it. She knew and feared traps. She had learned to
avoid poison baits, and knew what to do at once if, by some mistake,
she should take one. She knew what guns are. She had learned to cut her
morning and evening song very short. She had some acquaintance with
Dogs, enough to make her hate and distrust them all. But, above all, she
had this idea: whenever danger is near, the very best move possible is
to lay low, be very quiet, do nothing to attract notice. Perhaps the
little brain that looked out of those changing yellow eyes was the
storehouse of much other knowledge about men, but what it was did not
appear.
[Illustration]
The Coyote was fully grown when the boss of the outfit bought a couple
of thoroughbred Greyhounds, wonderful runners, to see whether he could
not entirely extirpate the remnant of the Coyotes that still destroyed
occasional Sheep and Calves on the range, and at the same time find
amusement in the sport. He was tired of seeing that Coyote in the yard;
so, deciding to use her for training the Dogs, he had her roughly thrown
into a bag, then carried a quarter of a mile away and dumped out. At the
same time the Greyhounds were slipped and chivvied on. Away they went
bounding at their matchless pace, that nothing else on four legs could
equal, and away went the Coyote, frightened by the noise of the men,
frightened even to find herself free. Her quarter-mile start quickly
shrank to one hundred yards, the one hundred to fifty, and on sped the
flying Dogs. Clearly there was no chance for her. On and nearer they
came. In another minute she would have been stretched out--not a doubt
of it. But on a sudden she stopped, turned, and walked toward the Dogs
with her tail serenely waving in the air and a friendly cock to her
ears. Greyhounds are peculiar Dogs. Anything that runs away, they are
going to catch and kill if they can. Anything that is calmly facing them
becomes at once a non-combatant. They bounded over and past the Coyote
before they could curb their own impetuosity, and returned completely
nonplussed. Possibly they recognized the Coyote of the house-yard as
she stood there wagging her tail. The ranchmen were nonplussed too.
Every one was utterly taken aback, had a sense of failure, and the real
victor in the situation was felt to be the audacious little Coyote.
The Greyhounds refused to attack an animal that wagged its tail and
would not run; and the men, on seeing that the Coyote could _walk_ far
enough away to avoid being caught by hand, took their ropes (lassoes),
and soon made her a prisoner once more. The next day they decided to try
again, but this time they added the white Bull-terrier to the chasers.
The Coyote did as before. The Greyhounds declined to be party to any
attack on such a mild and friendly acquaintance. But the Bull-terrier,
who came puffing and panting on the scene three minutes later, had no
such scruples. He was not so tall, but he was heavier than the Coyote,
and, seizing her by her wool-protected neck, he shook her till, in a
surprisingly short time, she lay limp and lifeless, at which all the
men seemed pleased, and congratulated the Terrier, while the Greyhounds
pottered around in restless perplexity.
[Illustration]
A stranger in the party, a newly arrived Englishman, asked if he might
have the brush--the tail, he explained--and on being told to help
himself, he picked up the victim by the tail, and with one awkward chop
of his knife he cut it off at the middle, and the Coyote dropped, but
gave a shrill yelp of pain. She was not dead, only playing possum, and
now she leaped up and vanished into a near-by thicket of cactus and
sage.
With Greyhounds a running animal is the signal for a run, so the two
long-legged Dogs and the white broad-chested Dog dashed after the
Coyote. But right across their path, by happy chance, there flashed a
brown streak ridden by a snowy powder-puff, the visible but evanescent
sign for Cottontail Rabbit. The Coyote was not in sight now. The Rabbit
was, so the Greyhounds dashed after the Cottontail, who took advantage
of a Prairie-dog's hole to seek safety in the bosom of Mother Earth, and
the Coyote made good her escape.
[Illustration]
She had been a good deal jarred by the rude treatment of the Terrier,
and her mutilated tail gave her some pain. But otherwise she was all
right, and she loped lightly away, keeping out of sight in the hollows,
and so escaped among the fantastic buttes of the Badlands, to be
eventually the founder of a new life among the Coyotes of the Little
Missouri.
Moses was preserved by the Egyptians till he had outlived the dangerous
period, and learned from them wisdom enough to be the saviour of his
people against those same Egyptians. So the bobtailed Coyote was not
only saved by man and carried over the dangerous period of puppyhood:
she was also unwittingly taught by him how to baffle the traps, poisons,
lassoes, guns, and Dogs that had so long waged a war of extermination
against her race.
III
Thus Tito escaped from man, and for the first time found herself face to
face with the whole problem of life; for now she had her own living to
get.
A wild animal has three sources of wisdom:
First, _the experience of its ancestors_, in the form of instinct, which
is inborn learning, hammered into the race by ages of selection and
tribulation. This is the most important to begin with, because it guards
him from the moment he is born.
Second, _the experience of his parents and comrades_, learned chiefly by
example. This becomes most important as soon as the young can run.
Third, _the personal experience_ of the animal itself. This grows in
importance as the animal ages.
The weakness of the first is its fixity; it cannot change to meet
quickly changing conditions. The weakness of the second is the animal's
inability freely to exchange ideas by language. The weakness of the
third is the danger in acquiring it. But the three together are a strong
arch.
Now, Tito was in a new case. Perhaps never before had a Coyote faced
life with unusual advantages in the third kind of knowledge, none
at all in the second, and with the first dormant. She travelled rapidly
away from the ranchmen, keeping out of sight, and sitting down once in a
while to lick her wounded tail-stump. She came at last to a Prairie-dog
town. Many of the inhabitants were out, and they barked at the intruder,
but all dodged down as soon as she came near. Her instinct taught her
to try and catch one, but she ran about in vain for some time, and then
gave it up. She would have gone hungry that night but that she found a
couple of Mice in the long grass by the river. Her mother had not taught
her to hunt, but her instinct did, and the accident that she had an
unusual brain made her profit very quickly by her experience.
In the days that followed she quickly learned how to make a living;
for Mice, Ground Squirrels, Prairie-dogs, Rabbits, and Lizards were
abundant, and many of these could be captured in open chase. But open
chase, and sneaking as near as possible before beginning the open chase,
lead naturally to stalking for a final spring. And before the moon had
changed the Coyote had learned how to make a comfortable living.
Once or twice she saw the men with the Greyhounds coming her way. Most
Coyotes would, perhaps, have barked in bravado, or would have gone up to
some high place whence they could watch the enemy; but Tito did no such
foolish thing. Had she run, her moving form would have caught the eyes
of the Dogs, and then nothing could have saved her. She dropped where
she was, and lay flat until the danger had passed. Thus her ranch
training to lay low began to stand her in good stead, and so it came
about that her weakness was her strength. The Coyote kind had so long
been famous for their speed, had so long learned to trust in their legs,
that they never dreamed of a creature that could run them down. They
were accustomed to play with their pursuers, and so rarely bestirred
themselves to run from Greyhounds, till it was too late. But Tito,
brought up at the end of a chain, was a poor runner. She had no reason
to trust her legs. She rather trusted her wits, and so lived.
During that summer she stayed about the Little Missouri, learning the
tricks of small-game hunting that she should have learned before she
shed her milk-teeth, and gaining in strength and speed. She kept far
away from all the ranches, and always hid on seeing a man or a strange
beast, and so passed the summer alone. During the daytime she was not
lonely, but when the sun went down she would feel the impulse to sing
that wild song of the West which means so much to the Coyotes. It is not
the invention of an individual nor of the present, but was slowly built
out of the feelings of all Coyotes in all ages. It expresses their
nature and the Plains that made their nature. When one begins it, it
takes hold of the rest, as the fife and drum do with soldiers, or the
ki-yi war-song with Indian braves. They respond to it as a bell-glass
does to a certain note the moment that note is struck, ignoring other
sounds. So the Coyote, no matter how brought up, must vibrate at the
night song of the Plains, for it touches something in himself.
[Illustration]
They sing it after sundown, when it becomes the rallying cry of their
race and the friendly call to a neighbour; and, they sing it as one boy
in the woods holloas to another to say, "All's well! Here am I. Where
are you?" A form of it they sing to the rising moon, for this is the
time for good hunting to begin. They sing when they see the new camp-
fire, for the same reason that a Dog barks at a stranger. Yet another
weird chant they have for the dawning before they steal quietly away
from the offing of the camp--a wild, weird, squalling refrain: Wow-wow-
wow-wow-wow-w-o-o-o-o-o-o-w. again and again; and doubtless with many
another change that man cannot distinguish any more than the Coyote can
distinguish the words in the cowboy's anathemas.
Tito instinctively uttered her music at the proper times. But sad
experiences had taught her to cut it short and keep it low. Once or
twice she had got a far-away reply from one of her own race, whereupon
she had quickly ceased and timidly quit the neighbourhood.
One day, when on the Upper Garner's Creek, she found the trail where
a piece of meat had been dragged along. It was a singularly inviting
odour, and she followed it, partly out of curiosity. Presently she came
on a piece of the meat itself. She was hungry; she was always hungry
now. It was tempting, and although it had a peculiar odour, she
swallowed it. Within a few minutes she felt a terrific pain. The memory
of the poisoned meat the boy had given her, was fresh. With trembling,
foaming jaws she seized some blades of grass, and her stomach threw off
the meat; but she fell in convulsions on the ground.
The trail of meat dragged along and the poison baits had been laid the
day before by Wolfer Jake. This morning he was riding the drag, and on
coming up from the draw he saw, far ahead, the Coyote struggling. He
knew, of course, that it was poisoned, and rode quickly up; but the
convulsions passed as he neared. By a mighty effort, at the sound of the
Horse's hoofs the Coyote arose to her front feet. Jake drew his revolver
and fired, but the only effect was fully to alarm her. She tried to run,
but her hind legs were paralysed. She put forth all her strength,
dragging her hind legs. Now, when the poison was no longer in the
stomach, will-power could do a great deal. Had she been allowed to lie
down then she would have been dead in five minutes; but the revolver
shots and the man coming stirred her to strenuous action. Madly she
struggled again and again to get her hind legs to work. All the force of
desperate intent she brought to bear. It was like putting forth tenfold
power to force the nervous fluids through their blocked-up channels as
she dragged herself with marvellous speed downhill. What is nerve but
will? The dead wires of her legs were hot with this fresh power,
multiplied, injected, blasted into them. They had to give in. She felt
them thrill with life again. Each wild shot from the gun lent vital
help. Another fierce attempt, and one hind leg obeyed the call to duty.
A few more bounds, and the other, too, fell in. Then lightly she loped
away among the broken buttes, defying the agonizing gripe that still
kept on inside.
[Illustration]
Had Jake held off then she would yet have laid down and died; but he
followed and fired and fired, till in another mile she bounded free from
pain, saved from her enemy by himself. He had compelled her to take the
only cure, so she escaped.
And these were the ideas that she harvested that day: That curious smell
on the meat stands for mortal agony. Let it alone! And she never forgot
it; thenceforth she knew strychnine.
Fortunately, Dogs, traps, and strychnine do not wage war at once, for
the Dogs are as apt to be caught or poisoned as the Coyotes. Had there
been a single Dog in the hunt that day Tito's history would have ended.
IV.
When the weather grew cooler toward the end of Autumn Tito had gone far
toward repairing the defects in her early training. She was more like an
ordinary Coyote in her habits now, and she was more disposed to sing the
sundown song. One night, when she got a response, she yielded to the
impulse again to call, and soon afterward a large, dark Coyote appeared.
The fact that he was there at all was a guarantee of unusual gifts, for
the war against his race was waged relentlessly by the cattlemen. He
approached with caution. Tito's mane bristled with mixed feelings at
the sight of one of her own kind. She crouched flat on the; ground and
waited. The newcomer came stiffly forward, nosing the wind; then up the
wind nearly to her. Then he walked around so that she should wind him,
and raising his tail, gently waved it. The first acts meant armed
neutrality, but the last was a distinctly friendly signal. Then he
approached and she rose up suddenly and stood as high as she could to
be smelled. Then she wagged the stump of her tail, and they considered
themselves acquainted.
[Illustration]
The newcomer was a very large Coyote, half as tall again as Tito, and
the dark patch on his shoulders was so large and black that the cow-boys
when they came to know him, called him Saddleback. From that time
these two continued more or less together. They were not always
close together, often were miles apart during the day, but toward
[Illustration: They Considered Themselves Acquainted] night one or the
other would get on some high open place and sing the loud
Yap-yap-yap-yow-wow-wow-wow-wow,
and they would forgather for some foray on hand.
The physical advantages were with Saddleback, but the greater cunning
was Tito's, so that she in time became the leader. Before a month a
third Coyote had appeared on the scene and become also a member of this
loose-bound fraternity, and later two more appeared. Nothing succeeds
like success. The little bobtailed Coyote had had rare advantages of
training just where the others were lacking: she knew the devices of
man. She could not tell about these in words, but she could by the aid
of a few signs and a great deal of example. It soon became evident that
her methods of hunting were successful, whereas, when they went without
her, they often had hard luck. A man at Boxelder Ranch had twenty Sheep.
The rules of the county did not allow anyone to own more, as this was a
Cattle-range. The Sheep were guarded by a large and fierce Collie. One
day in winter two of the Coyotes tried to raid this flock by a bold
dash, and all they got was a mauling from the Collie. A few days later
the band returned at dusk. Just how Tito arranged it, man cannot tell.
We can only guess how she taught them their parts, but we know that she
surely did. The Coyotes hid in the willows. Then Saddleback, the bold
and swift, walked openly toward the Sheep and barked a loud defiance.
The Collie jumped up with bristling mane and furious growl, then, seeing
the foe, dashed straight at him. Now was the time for the steady nerve
and the unfailing limbs. Saddleback let the Dog come near enough
_almost_ to catch him, and so beguiled him far and away into the woods,
while the other Coyotes, led by Tito, stampeded the Sheep in twenty
directions; then following the farthest, they killed several and left
them in the snow. In the gloom of descending night the Dog and his
master laboured till they had gathered the bleating survivors; but next
morning they found that four had been driven far away and killed, and
the Coyotes had had a banquet royal.
[Illustration] The shepherd poisoned the carcasses and left them. Next
night the Coyotes returned. Tito sniffed the now frozen meat, detected
the poison, gave a warning growl, and scattered filth over the meat, so
that none of the band should touch it. One, however, who was fast and
foolish, persisted in feeding in spite of Tito's warning, and when they
came away he was lying poisoned and dead in the snow.
[Illustration]
V.
Jake now heard on all sides that the Coyotes were getting worse. So he
set to work with many traps and much poison to destroy those on the
Garner's Creek, and every little while he would go with the Hounds and
scour the Little Missouri south and east of the Chimney-pot Ranch; for
it was understood that he must never run the Dogs in country where traps
and poison were laid. He worked in his erratic way all winter, and
certainly did have some success. He killed a couple of Grey Wolves, said
to be the last of their race, and several Coyotes, some of which, no
doubt, were of the Bobtailed pack, which thereby lost those members
which were lacking in wisdom.
Yet that winter was marked by a series of Coyote raids and exploits; and
usually the track in the snow or the testimony of eye-witnesses told
that the master spirit of it all was a little Bobtailed Coyote.
One of these adventures was the cause of much talk. The Coyote challenge
sounded close to the Chimney-pot Ranch after sundown. A dozen Dogs
responded with the usual clamour. But only the Bull-terrier dashed away
toward the place whence the Coyotes had called, for the reason that he
only was loose. His chase was fruitless, and he came back growling.
Twenty minutes later there was another Coyote yell close at hand. Off
dashed the Terrier as before. In a minute his excited yapping; told that
he had sighted his game and was in full chase. Away he went, furiously
barking, until his voice was lost afar, and nevermore was heard. In the
morning the men read in the snow the tale of the night. The first cry
of the Coyotes was to find out if all the Dogs were loose; then, having
found that only one was free, they laid a plan. Five Coyotes hid along
the side of the trail; one went forward and called till it had decoyed
the rash Terrier, and then led him right into the ambush. What chance
had he with six? They tore him limb from limb, and devoured him, too, at
the very spot where once he had worried Coyotito. And next morning,
when the men came, they saw by the signs that the whole thing had been
planned, and that the leader whose cunning had made it a success was a
little Bob-tailed Coyote.
The men were angry, and Lincoln was furious; but Jake remarked: "Well, I
guess that Bobtail came back and got even with that Terrier."
[Illustration]
VI.
When spring was near, the annual love-season of the Coyotes came on.
Saddleback and Tito bad been together merely as companions all winter,
but now a new feeling was born. There was not much courting. Saddleback
simply showed his teeth to possible rivals. There was no ceremony. They
had been friends for months, and now, in the light of the new feeling,
they naturally took to each other and were mated. Coyotes do not give
each other names as do mankind, but have one sound like a growl and
short howl, which stands for "mate" or "husband" or "wife." This they
use in calling to each other, and it is by recognizing the tone of the
voice that they know who is calling.
The loose rambling brotherhood of the Coyotes was broken up now, for
the others also paired off, and since the returning warm weather was
bringing out the Prairie-dogs and small game, there was less need to
combine for hunting. Ordinarily Coyotes do not sleep in dens or in any
fixed place. They move about all night while it is cool, then during the
daytime they get a few hours' sleep in the sun, on some quiet hillside
that also gives a chance to watch out. But the mating season changes
this habit somewhat.
As the weather grew warm Tito and Saddleback set about preparing a den
for the expected family. In a warm little hollow, an old Badger abode
was cleaned out, enlarged, and deepened. A quantity of leaves and grass
was carried into it and arranged in a comfortable nest. The place
selected for it was a dry sunny nook among the hills, half a mile west
of the Little Missouri. Thirty yards from it was a ridge which commanded
a wide view of the grassy slopes and cottonwood groves by the river. Men
would have called the spot very beautiful, but it is tolerably certain
that that side of it never touched the Coyotes at all.
Tito began to be much preoccupied with her impending duties. She stayed
quietly in the neighbourhood of the den, and lived on such food as
Saddleback brought her, or she herself could easily catch, and also on
the little stores that she had buried at other times. She knew every
Prairie-dog town in the region, as well as all the best places for Mice
and Rabbits.
[Illustration]
Not far from the den was the very Dog-town that first she had
crossed, the day she had gained her liberty and lost her tail. If she
were capable of such retrospect, she must have laughed to herself to
think what a fool she was then. The change in her methods was now shown.
Somewhat removed from the others, a Prairie-dog had made his den in the
most approved style, and now when Tito peered over he was feeding on the
grass ten yards from his own door. A Prairie-dog away from the others
is, of course, easier to catch than one in the middle of the town, for
he has but one pair of eyes to guard him; so Tito set about stalking
this one. How was she to do it when there was no cover, nothing but
short grass and a few low weeds? The White-bear knows how to approach
the Seal on the flat ice, and the Indian how to get within striking
distance of the grazing Deer. Tito knew how to do the same trick, and
although one of the town Owls flew over with a warning chuckle, Tito set
about her plan. A Prairie-dog cannot see well unless he is sitting up
on his hind legs; his eyes are of little use when he is nosing in
the grass; and Tito knew this. Further, a yellowish-grey animal on a
yellowish-grey landscape is invisible till it moves. Tito seemed to
know that. So, without any attempt to crawl or hide, she walked gently
up-wind toward the Prarie-dog. Upwind, not in order to prevent the
Prairie-dog smelling her, but so that she could smell him, which came to
the same thing. As soon as the Prairie-dog sat up with some food in his
hand she froze into a statue. As soon, as he dropped again to nose in
the grass, she walked steadily nearer, watching his every move so that
she might be motionless each time he sat up to see what his distant
brothers were barking at. Once or twice he seemed alarmed by the calls
of his friends, but he saw nothing and resumed his feeding. She soon
cut the fifty yards down to ten, and the ten to five, and still was
undiscovered. Then, when again the Prairie-dog dropped down to seek more
fodder, she made a quick dash, and bore him off kicking and squealing.
Thus does the angel of the pruning-knife lop off those that are heedless
and foolishly indifferent to the advantages of society.
[Illustration: Their Evening Song.]
VII.
Tito had many adventures in which she did not come out so well. Once she
nearly caught an Antelope fawn, but the hunt was spoiled by the sudden
appearance of the mother, who gave Tito a stinging blow on the side of
the head and ended her hunt for that day. She never again made that
mistake--she had sense. Once or twice she had to jump to escape the
strike of a Rattlesnake. Several times she had been fired at by hunters
with long-range rifles. And more and more she had to look out for the
terrible Grey Wolves. The Grey Wolf, of course, is much larger and
stronger than the Coyote, but the Coyote has the advantage of speed, and
can always escape in the open. All it must beware of is being caught in
a corner. Usually when a Grey Wolf howls the Coyotes go quietly about
their business elsewhere.