The Philipsburg mail., 1897-02-26
HUNTING COYOTE.
Novel Plan of N. B. Ringeling for
Capturing the Willy Beasts With


Dogs.
That queer looking rig which passes
through town about once week. and
having the appearance of a prairie
schooner, is simply the device of N.
B. Ringeling for successfully hunting
coyotes. Mr.. Ringeling is the possess
or Of several fine and swift-footed
greyhounds and his recreation once Il
week consists of taking the entire band
of dogs out to the foothills and chase
down coyotes. Until recently the dogs
were allowed to follow after the team
in whicl their master was riding and
the always ''leary' coyote soon learned
the mountains where the dogs could
not not follow to any advantage Now
Mr. Ringeling leads his dogs inside
the prairie schooner, arranging and
driving through the valleys and along
the foothills, the coyote does not real
lze nay danger until he is closely ap-
preached by the queer looking rig. and
then suddenly from hole IN the end
several dogs are turned loose upon him
and before he can reach the safety of
the hills the hounds are upon him and
he is their prey, and with this ar
rangement it rarely occurs that Mr..
Ringeling returns without one or two
coyote pelts.
Mr.. Ringeling might now do well by
securing patent On his device for out
whiting the coyote, and it would most
likely furish some food for thought
to Mark Twain, whose description of
the coyote pictures that beast most ac
curately when he says:
The coyote of the farther plains is a
long, slim, sick and sorry looking
skeleton with a grey wolf-skin
stretched over it, tolerably bushy tail
that forever sags down with desparing
expression Of forsakedness and misery.
furtive and evil eye, and a long,
sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and
exposed teeth. He has a general stink
ing expression all over. The coyote is
living, breathing allegory Of want.
He is always hungry. He is always
poor, out Of luck, and friendless. The
meanest creatures despise him, and
even the feas would desert him for a
ve.ocipede. He is SO spiritless and
cOwardly that, even while his exposed
teeth are pretending threat, the rest
Of his face is apologizing for it. And
he is so homely, so scrawny, and rib
by and coarse-haired and pitiful !!
When he sees you he lifts his lip and
let's a flash of his teeth out. and then
turns little out of the course he was
pursuing, depresses his head bit, and
strikes long, oft-footed trot through
| hr,,ch u1oncinfp N ! =
shoulder at you from time to time, till
he is about out of easy pistol range,
and then he stops and takes deliber
ate survey of you. He will trot fifty
yards, and stop again; another fifty,
and stop again and, finally, the grey
of his gliding body blends with the
grey of the brush and he d1sap-
pears. But, if you start a swiftfooted
dog after him. you will enjoy it ever
SO much-especially if it is a dog that
has good opinion of himeslf, and has
been brought up to think that he
knows something about speed. The
coyote will 80 swinging gently on in
that deceitful trot of his, and every
little while he will smile a fraudful
smile over his shoulder that will fill
that dog entirely full of encourage
ment and worldly ambition, and make
him lay his head still lower to the
ground, and stretch his neck farther
to the front, and pant more fiercely,
and move his furious legs with yet
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 level
plain. All this time the dog is only
a short twenty feet behind the coyote,
aud, to save the life Of him, he cannot
understand why it is that he can not
get preceptibly closer, and he begins to
get aggravated, and it makes him
madder and madder to see how gently
the coyote glldes along, and never
pants or sweats, or ceases to smile
and he grows still more and more in
censed to see how shamefully he has
been taken in by an entire stranger,
What an ignorable swindle that long,
calm, soft-f footed trot is. And next
the dog notices that he is getting fag
ged. and that the coyote actually has
to s]acken speed a little, to keep from
running away from him. And then
that dog is mad in earnest, and he
begins to strain, ana sweep, and
swear, and paw the sand higher than
ever. and reach for the coyote with
concentrated and desperate energy.
This squirt finds him six feet behind
the gliding enemy, and two miles
from his friends. And then, in the
instant that wild new hope is light
ing up his face, the coyote turns and
smiles blandly upon him once more and
with a something about it which
seems to say: "Well. 1 shall have to
tear myself away from you, but-busi
ness is business, and it will not do for
me to be fooling along this way all
day And forthwith there is a rush
ing sound and the sudden splitting
of long crack through the atmos-
phere, and, hehold, the dog is solitary
and alone in the midst of a vast soli-
tude.