The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1872-07-18
From "ROughing ri
The Coyote.

! The coyote is long, slim, sick and
sorry looking skeleton, with O gray
wolf-skin stretched over it, n tolerably
bushy tail that forever says down with
a despairlng expression of fOrsaken-
ness and misery; furtive and evil
eye, and a long, sharp face, with
/ slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth.
! he has a general Sinking expression
all over. The coyote is q living,
breathing allegOTy of want. He is
always hungry; he is always poor,
out of luck and fTiendless. The mean
est creatures despise him, and even
the fieas would desert him for velo-
cipede. He is so spiritless and cow
ardly that even while his exposed
teeth are pretending threat, the rest
of his face is apOlOgising for it. And
he is 80 hOmely $50 scrawny, and
ribby, and cOarsed haired, and pitiful
When he sees you he lifts his lip and
lets flash of his teeth out, and then
turns u little out of the course he was
pursuing, depresseshis head a bit, and
then strikes into long, ,sOft-fOoted trOt
through the sage brush, giancing over
his shoulder from time to time, till he
is about out of easy pistol range, and
tnen lie stops and takes deliberate
survey OfyOu; trots fifty yards and
stops again-anOther fifty and stops
again; and finally the gray of his
gliding body blends with the gray of
the sage bush, and disappears. And
this is when you make no demonstra-
ton against him; but If you do, hede-
velOps q lively interest in his journey,
and electrifies his heels and puts such
q deal of real estate between himself
and your weapon, that by the time
you have raised the hammer you see
that you need a minnie rifle, and by
the time you have got him in line
you need a rifle cannon, and by the
time you haYe "drawn bead" you
see that nothing but an unusually
long-winded streak of lightning could
reach him where he is now.
"But if you start swift-footed dog
after him, you will enjoy it ever so
much-especially if it IS dog that has
a good opinion of himself, and has
been brought up to think he knows
something about speed. The coyote
will go swinging gently off on that de-
ceitful trot of his, and every little
while he will smile fraudful smile
over his shoulder that will fill that
dog entirely full of encouragement and
worldly ambition, and make him low
er his head still lower to the ground,
ane stretch his neck still further to
the front, and stick his tail out straight
behind and move his furious legs with
a still wilder frenzy, and leave a
broader and broader, and higher and
denser cloud of desert sand smoking
behind, and marking his long wake
across the plain. And all this time
the dog is only a short twenty feet be-
hind the coyote, and to save the soul
of him he cannot understand. why it
is that he cannot get perceptibly clos
er; and he begins to get aggravated,
and il makes him madder and mad |
der to see how gently the coyote glides |
along and never pants or sweats or
ceases to smile; and he grows still |
more and more incensed to see how |
he has been taken in by |
an entire stranger, and what an ignO- |
ble swindle that long, calm, soft-fOOt-
ed foot is and next he notices that |
he is getting tagged and that the
coyote actually has to slacken speed !
a little to keep from running away /
from him-and then that town dog is |
mad in earnest, and he begins to /
strain and swear, and paw the sand |
higher than ever, and reach for the /
coyote with concentrated and desper- |
ate energy. This "spurt" finds him /
six feet behind his gliding enemy, and |
two miles from his friends. And then, /
in an instant that wild new hope is |
lighting up his countenance, the |
coyote turns and smiles blandly upon /
him once more, and with something |
about it which seems to say: "Well, |
[ shall have to tear myself away from |
you, bub-business is business, and it /
will not do for me to be fOOling along |
this way all day-and forthwith there |
is a rushing sound, and the sudden /
splitting of long crack through the 1
and behold that dog is /
solitary and alone in the midst of that |
vast solitude. 1t makes his head /
swim. He stops and looks all around; I
climbs the nearest sandmOund, and |
gazes into the distance; shakes his /
head reflectiYely, and then without a
word, he turns and jogs along back to /
his train, and takes a humble position |
under the hindmOst wagon, and feels /
unspeakably mean, and looks asham-
ed and hangs his tail at half mast for |
q week.