truly back in the West."
The Park authorities are making great efforts to reduce the number of Coyotes because of their destructiveness to the young game, but an animal that is endowed with extraordinary wits, phenomenal speed, unexcelled hardihood, and marvellous fecundity, is not easily downed. I must confess that if by any means they should succeed in exterminating the Coyote in the West, I should feel that I had lost something of very great value. I never fail to get that joyful thrill when the "Medicine Dogs" sing their "Medicine Song" in the dusk, or the equally weird and thrilling chorus with which they greet the dawn; for they have a large repertoire and a remarkable register. The Coyote is indeed the Patti of the Plains.
THE COYOTE'S SONG[A]
I am the Coyote that sings each night at dark;
It was by gobbling prairie-dogs that I got such a bark.
At least a thousand prairie-dogs I fattened on, you see,
And every bark they had in them is reproduced in me.
Refrain:
I can sing to thrill your soul or pierce it like a lance,
And all I ask of you to do is give me half a chance.
With a yap—yap—yap for the morning
And a yoop—yoop—yoop for the night
And a yow—wow—wow for the rising moon
And a yah-h-h-h for the campfire light.
Yap—yoop—yow—yahhh!
I gathered from the howling winds, the frogs and crickets too,
And so from each availing fount, my inspiration drew.
I warbled till the little birds would quit their native bush.
And squat around me on the ground in reverential hush.
Refrain:
I'm a baritone, soprano, and a bass and tenor, too.
I can thrill and slur and frill and whirr and shake you through and through.
I'm a Jews' harp—I'm an organ—I'm a fiddle and a flute.
Every kind of touching sound is found in the coyoot.
Refrain:
I'm a whooping howling wilderness, a sort of Malibran.
With Lind, Labache and Melba mixed and all combined in one.
I'm a grand cathedral organ and a calliope sharp,
I'm a gushing, trembling nightingale, a vast Æolian harp.
Refrain:
I can raise the dead or paint the town, or pierce you like a lance
And all I ask of you to do is to give me half a chance.
Etc., etc., etc.
(Encore verses)
Although I am a miracle, I'm not yet recognized.
Oh, when the world does waken up how highly I'll be prized.
Then managers and vocal stars—and emperors effete
Shall fling their crowns, their money bags, their persons, at my feet.
Refrain:
I'm the voice of all the Wildest West, the Patti of the Plains;
I'm a wild Wagnerian opera of diabolic strains;
I'm a roaring, ranting orchestra with lunatics be-crammed;
I'm a vocalized tornado—I'm the shrieking of the damned.
Refrain:
FOOTNOTES:
[A] All rights reserved.
II
The Prairie-dog
and His Kin
II
The Prairie-dog and His Kin
MERRY YEK-YEK AND HIS LIFE OF TROUBLES
The common Prairie-dog is typical of the West, more so than the Buffalo is, and its numbers, even now, rival those of the Buffalo in its palmiest days. I never feel that I am truly back on the open range till I hear their call and see the Prairie-dogs once more upon their mounds. As you travel up the Yellowstone Valley from Livingstone to Gardiner you may note in abundance this "dunce of the plains." The "dog-towns" are frequent along the railway, and at each of the many burrows you see from one to six of the inmates. As you come near Gardiner there is a steady rise of the country, and somewhere near the edge of the Park the elevation is such that it imposes one of those mysterious barriers to animal extension which seem to be as impassable as they are invisible. The Prairie-dog range ends near the Park gates. General George S. Anderson tells me, however, that individuals are occasionally found on the flats along the Gardiner River, but always near the gate, and never elsewhere in the Park. On this basis, then, the Prairie-dog is entered as a Park animal.
It is, of course, a kind of Ground-squirrel. The absurd name "dog" having been given on account of its "bark." This call is a high-pitched "yek-yek-yek-yeeh," uttered as an alarm cry while the creature sits up on the mound by its den, and every time it "yeks" it jerks up its tail. Old timers will tell you that the Prairie-dog's voice is tied to its tail, and prove it by pointing out that one is never raised without the other.
As we have seen, the Coyote looks on the dog-town much as a
