of it. Now and again some unseen coyote signals his pack in a
long-drawn, dolorous whine that comes from no determinate point, but
nothing stirs much before mid-afternoon. It is a sign when there begin
to be hawks skimming above the sage that the little people are going
about their business.

We have fallen on a very careless usage, speaking of wild creatures as
if they were bound by some such limitation as hampers clockwork. When we
say of one and another, they are night prowlers, it is perhaps true only
as the things they feed upon are more easily come by in the dark, and
they know well how to adjust themselves to conditions wherein food is
more plentiful by day. And their accustomed performance is very much a
matter of keen eye, keener scent, quick ear, and a better memory of
sights and sounds than man dares boast. Watch a coyote come out of his
lair and cast about in his mind where he will go for his daily killing.
You cannot very well tell what decides him, but very easily that he has
decided. He trots or breaks into short gallops, with very perceptible
pauses to look up and about at landmarks, alters his tack a little,
looking forward and back to steer his proper course. I am persuaded that
the coyotes in my valley, which is narrow and beset with steep, sharp
hills, in long passages steer by the pinnacles of the sky-line, going
with head cocked to one side to keep to the left or right of such and
such a promontory.

I have trailed a coyote often, going across country, perhaps to where
some slant-winged scavenger hanging in the air signaled prospect of a
dinner, and found his track such as a man, a very intelligent man
accustomed to a hill country, and a little cautious, would make to the
same point. Here a detour to avoid a stretch of too little cover, there
a pause on the rim of a gully to pick the better way,--and it is usually