The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-11-06
OUR NEIGHBORS.

Go where you will in Southwestern
Kansas, there is almost always cayote
or two not far away. And wien one OF
these animals begins bowling at night
or just before daybreak in the morning,
a person not accustomed to their noise
would think there were a dozen of
them; for every cayote cur is SO gifted
that he can howl in two or three differ
emit voices; first yelp, then falsetto
howl, then dog-like bark, and then all
three at once, blended in one wild out
CRY.
The sudden bursting forth of these
4raTies in the silence of the night is at
Ell ONCE startling and incomparably doleful.
-Ihe first time / heard them, the wild,
'NTll8aomant, doieful sounds fairly made
.. my heart sink. 1t was the night after
We moved on to our new stock farm,
. and, being little homesick, the wild
howlings depressed me all the more.
But one gets used to their noise, and,
a*xtrange as it may seem, sometimes
actually comes to enjoy it. If one of
these animals is about, you always know,
at least, when to get up in the morning;
for at day break Mr.. Cayote is pretty
sure to lift up his many melodious
voices in long polyglot howl. It is
the cock-crow of the plains.
The Kansas cayotes-and cayotes are
much alike all through the West, I am
Goid- always seemed to me to be inter
mediate between the gray fox and the
timber wolf. They remind one of the
fox. not only in their rusty gray coats,
but in their movements and habits !;
and yet they seem somewhat wolfsh.
The peaked nose, prick ears and
bushy tail are much like those of the
fox; and the dark and dusky markings
round tie jowls and on the legs look
foxy. In their yapping and bowling,
they are fox and wolf combined. In
size they are about halfway between
the two. Nature, in getting up a ma
rauder for the open plains. appears to
have struck mean betwixt UAlpes and
I1tDUS.
The first year of our herding, we had
our main cattle-pen OF ''crick" pretty
we'll down to the Indian lands, and the
cattle ranged over the line. Nothing
was then said of trespass, though there
has since been trouble about it.
We started in business with eighty
seven young COWS, thirty-four 2-year-
old steers, and twenty-six yearlings, and
that first fall we mustered seventy-six
calves. These made considerable
herd, about as large as my brother and
could comfortably look after.
We did not build house the first
year, nor even make "dig-out," but
hved in our schooner" or large COW
cred wagon. It was a good place to
sleep, and we picketed our ponies round
it.
We had small stove, with funnel
ten or twelve feet high, and big stone
set on it, to keep the wind from blow.
ling it over. We should never have
made "dig-out" at all, but for tor
nado, which tore the schooner" in
pieces,I toward the last of the second
spring we were there.
About hundred rods farther up the
creek, in the bluff-like bank, a cayote
had his burrow. It was hole some.
what like that made by fox, little
larger, perhaps, and there were three o,
four entrances leading into it.
One of these entrances, or outlets
was on the very top of the bank, where
the creature could poke his head ul
and take survey CT the vicinity. An
other was down the side of the bluff
kind of back-door, opening toward