The independent., 1907-03-28
Coyote, Master of STRATEGY

thieves that had played no part in the
skirmish would creep in from the pro-
lection of the long grass, glide through
the fence, enter the pens and work
havoc. Each coyote would leave the
yard with small pig, a lamb, or a
turkey in his mouth, and away the
whole band would troti across the
prairie, making detour to escape the
baffled dogs on their painting home
ward journey. The Mexican told me
that it~was known fact that after
each performance such as / have de-
scribed the two bands of coyotes
would meet in some secluded spot and
share in the feast which the labor and
sagacity of all had provided.
The dogs proving unequal to the
task, Strange stationed cowboys each
night around the yard as guards, but
while this served for the time it was
practiced, it proved too expensive to
keep up. and there being only a linn
tied force on the ranch, the vigilance
was of necessity relaxed, the boys
unable to stand two watches.
Strange next tried feeding the coy
otes on poisoned meat but this trick
was the flattest failure of all and the
coyotes gave the whole outfit the
merry haw-haW Choice pieces of ven
ison well doped up with strychnine-
and you know strychnine is deadly to
the whole canine, family-were placed
in different parts of the yards night
after night, but nothing was doing in
the poisoning line, although, lambs,
sheep and pigs continued to disappear.
The ranchmen argued that perhaps
the meat wasn't doctored properly,
that the bitterness Of the drug was
too near the outer surface, and to OBJ
viate this possible obstruction to the
success of his scheme, he did a whole
lot Of very scientific cutting and slic-
ing and slowed the poison away in
the very center of the pieces. He set
the doctored venison out one cold au-
tumn evening, and that night from the
house we heard the wolf pack snarling
and fighting in the inclosure, and the
big dogs confined for the time in an
other yard barking angrilys Strange
rubbed his hands and said that his
plan was working all right, and that
at least some of the coyotes wouldn't
be in the land of the living when
morning came.
I'VE knew that the beasts were eat
ing from the noise they made. First
would come a grumbling chorus of
short snarls, to be followed by babel
of wierd howls. and those sounds al
ways go hand in hand with a prairie
wolf feast; they are as inevitable as
the speeches and toast makings at a
public banquet.
Early in the morning we rode over
the yard, and what do you suppose
we discovered? A dozen or so dead
coyotes? Not on your life; there
wasn't single corpse of any sort ly-
ing around loose waiting burial, but
greater portion of the venison had
been devoured. 4 How is it the wolves
weren't poisoned? Why the ate just
deep enough to escape the strychnine,
and left, for manners sake, that por-
ton of the meat which contained the
dope.
Strange tried to poison the coyotes
for one solid week, without single
result The meat would be gnawed
and eaten about the edges and almost
to the strychnine, but the real dan
gerous article was never sampled
Peculiar isn't it, that beasts of such
low intelligence should have such keen
The cowboys thought it
nothing unusual, they were familiar
with the coyote nature, and informed
Strange from the first that the pois-
oned meat racket would never work 1
But Strange thought he knew best
and wasted lot of time and money
on the business. As | understand it,
the ranchman had to go to the very
great expense of putting up an en-
tirely new line of fences about his
pens, before he solved the problem of
how to keep the coyotes out"