CHAPTER VI
THE COYOTES
YES, sir! Fuzzy was a mighty frightened bear cub as the cougar’s cry chilled the night. He waited in his tree top with straining ears. The cry had ceased, but he dare not climb down, for what might not lurk in the rustling darkness?
Colder and colder grew his airy perch. Fuzzy curled up tight in the crotch of the limb. The lion was away off on the mountainside, and after awhile, when nothing happened, the little bear fell asleep.
His dreams were broken by a weird, wailing, high-pitched howl. He sprang awake in the instant. Peering through the gray darkness of the starry night, he tried to see what was causing that sound.
On a rock ridge half way down the slope stood two animals that any one might havetaken for yellow dogs, or perhaps for small-sized wolves. As an actual fact, they were cousins to both dog and wolf. They were coyotes, in search of their supper,—and Fuzzy-Wuzz had not forgotten the old coyote that used to howl below his mother’s den.
These coyotes, as it happened, had a family of fourteen little ones hidden in a cave on the hillside. That meant that they had to bring home a great many mice and rabbits for their family, which was still too young to go hunting with them.
Had the Ranger known about them, he would have made an end to them; for many a time they had robbed his chicken house, or harried a new-born colt, for their meat was anything too young and helpless to escape their jaws.
Even had Mother Brown Bear not taught her cubs to keep still and hide when the coyote cried, Fuzzy would have been afraid, with that weird cry in his ears. As it was, he shivered into a still tighter ball of fur and wished he were back in the Ranger’s cabin.
The coyotes must have got his scent with their wonderful doggy noses, as the wind blew down over his tree top to them, for they came circling nearer, and stood howling right up at his hiding-place. But none of the dog family can climb, and the cub was safe.
After awhile they saw a rabbit and went loping after it with all the speed of their slender feet. Again Fuzzy fell asleep, and when he awoke, it was a bar of silver sunlight shining in his eyes that woke him.
The woods now looked as green and peaceful as they had the afternoon before, and it did not seem possible that he could have been so frightened in the night. But he was hungry.