Arizona republican., 1892-01-13
COYOTE-THAT-BITE

riotously, tumultuously happy. With what keen delight he had drawn his sharp blade across the throats of Jose Sanchez and his wife, after he had stolen into their wagon in the gray dawn, and what thrills of joy shot through his breast when he silenced the yells of their two little children with the butt end of their fathers own rifle. And then, when he had taken what gold was in the Mexi- cans bag, what mescal was in his demi- john, and had strapped Jose's rather loose fitting cartridge belt about his sun brown belly, with what fierce pleasure he stole away from the scene of his bloody work, and with the Mexican's rife on his shoulder had wandered far down the dry arroyo, slipping from the demijohn the stupefying juice of the agave from time to time until he felt that he was growing drowsy.
 Then he hal dragged his uncertain way along until he had come to the rail road track. He stared stupidly at the bright steel rails and looked up at the humming wires in an awed sort of way. He would like to lie there behind the rocks, he thought, until some one should come along tho track, and then try shot at him with his newly acquired weapon. The demijohn was growing light and the rife was growing heavy. Well, it was getting toward noon and rather warm, even for an Apache, and he would lie down in the shade of the rocks over there and rest.
 The humming of the wires is a sooth- ing sound, and no sooner had his head touched the earth than sleep took a mighty hold upon him and wiped out his realizing sense of joy, as sleep has a way of doing with everybody that has anything to be joyful for. And so he lay, with the rife by his side, and his unspeakably hideous face turned up to- ward the blue that arched the desert.
 It was quiet there and restful-no sound save the music of the wires. Stay, there were other sounds; but they came some time after Coyote-That- Bites had thrown himself upon the san and gone off to the land of Nod. They came faintly at first, and mingled with the murmurings of the wires. Surely they were the voices of children.
 Hal the red beast been awake he might have imagined that they were the haunting voices of the wee Mexican children whose blood he had so ruthless ly shed that morning. but he heard them not. They were very far from being ghostly voices anyway-those tones that now piped forth so merrily as Dubs and Gay trudged down the line. They were walking to the scoopout along the road bed--not on the track, for that was for bidden.
 There were other things that were for bidden, too, and one of them was stray ing So far away from the station, but Dubs was taking good care" of his three year-old sister, and in the pride of his six full years he was equal to the care of half dozen such as Gay.
 To give Dubs all due credit, he did not know he was half a mile from home, and he really was going to turn back pretty soon. But the children had found many interesting and beautiful things to claim their attention. First there had been Q chase after young owl that could not fly, and that made its way along in the most haphazard manner imaginable Then horned toad had been captured, and Dubs had dragged the disgusted prisoner along by string until he had tired of the sport and had let him go again. Then, always keeping close to the railroad, they had entered a great field of cacti, where Dubs had tried very hard to pick "toonies" without getting the insidious, needlelike spines in his fingers. He was fairly successful, but he would not let the fruit of the cactus go into his sisters chubby hands until it had been stripped of its dangers by his ready jackknife.
 "'F on'y had sum matches to build a fire wiv," sighed Dubs, "Pd burn off vese prickles jus like ve Injuns does."
 "O-or came suddenly from under Gays sunbonnet. "Wot's dat?'
 "W'y, it's a jug" and Dubs left the "toonies" and started toward the pile of \ rocks where lay the Coyotes demijohn, and where also lay the Coyote himself.
 The two trudged up the little slope, and Dubs grasped the handle of the demijohn, only to let it drop again and spring back quickly with Gay in his arms, for he had caught sight of the Coyote, and he was smitten with a sud- den desire to go home.
 But he saw the Indian did not move, 1 ,,d eo Ina up1daplv hppama vary braya He was certainly sound asleep and nc more to be feared than papa when he lay on the lounge in his midday repose. Then, too, Dubs was quite sure he was "worky Injun," like the Yaquis, whc shoveled and picked on the railroad, and 50 his mind became wholly at ease.
 The Coyotes cartridge belt, which had been so loosely strapped, had fallen off and lay by his side. There were hundred very interesting bits of brass sticking in it, and the children soon had these scattered all about in the sand by the snoring Coyote. In the scramble fol her share of the innocent toys, Gay lei one of them drop on the Coyotes leg Perhaps the mescals influence was or the wane, for big brown knee wal thrust quickly up from the sand, and a big brown hand clutched the ugly knife at the Coyotes side, but the hand fell and the noble red man snored on.
 Dubs tried on the cartridge belt and became an Indian, all but the indispens- able knife, and he concluded to borrow