Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1879 — OUR NEIGHBORS. [ARTICLE]

OUR NEIGHBORS.

Go where you will in Southwestern Kansas, there is almost always a cayote or two not far away. And when one of these animals begins howling at night, or just before daybreak in the morning, a person not accustomed to their noise would think there were a dozen of them; for every cayote cur is so gifted that he can howl in two or three different voices; first a yell', then a falsetto howl, then a dog-like bark, and then all three at once, blended in one wild outcry. The sudden bursting forth of these cries in the silence of the night is at once startling and incomparably doleful. The first time I heard them, the wild, dissonant, doleful sounds fairly made my heart sink. It was tho night after we moved on to our new stock farm, and, being a little homesick, tho wild bowlings depressed me all the more. But one gets used to their noise, and, strange as it may seem, sometimes actually comes to enjoy it. If one of these animals is about, you always know, at least, when to get up in the morning; for at daybreak Mr. Cayote is pretty sun' to lift up his many melodious voices in a long polyglot howl. It is the cock-crow of tho plains. I’he Kansas cayotes—and cayotes are much alike all through the West, I am t 1 >)d always seemed to me to be intermediate between the gray fox and the timber wolf. They remind one of the fox, not only in their rusty gray coats, but in their movements' and habits; and vet they seem somewhat wolfish. The peaked nose, prick ears and bu-by tail are much like those of the iox; and the dark and dusky markings round the jowls and on the legs look foxy. In tiieir yapping and howling, they are fox and wolf combined. In size they are about half-way between the two. Nature, in getting up a marauder for the open plains, appears to have struck a mean betwixt vulpes and lupus. The first year of our herding, we had our main cattle-pen on a “crick” pretty well down to the Indian lands, and the cattle ranged over the lino. Nothing was then said of trespass, though there has since been trouble about it.

We started in business with eightyseven young cows, thirty-four 2-year-uld steers, and twenty-six yearlings, and that lirst fall wo mustered seventy-six calves. These made a considerable herd, about as large as my brother and I could comfortably look after. Wo did not build a house the lirst year, nor even make a “dig-out,” but lived in our “schooner,” or large covered wagon. It was a good place to sleep, and wo picketed our ponies round it. We had a small stove, with a funnel ton or twelve feet high, and a big stone set on it, to keep the wind from blow ing it over. We should never have made a “dig-out” at all, but for a tornado, which tore the “schooner” in toward the last of the second spring we were there. About a hundred rods farther up the crock, in the bluff-like bank, a cayote had his burrow. It was a hole somewhat like that made by a fox, a little larger, perhaps, and there were three or four entrances leading into it. One of these entrances, or outlets, was on the very top of the bank, where the creature could poke his head up and take a survey of the vicinity. Another was down the side of the bluff—a kind of back-door, opening toward the water; and still another emerged beside a rock, twenty yards or more farther up the bank. We afterward surmised that this last was a sort of secret portal, whence the animal could escape in case any one tried to “corner” him in his burrow. Then there was a fourth hole, the purpose of which was best known to the proprietor himself. For, no doubt, he had his dig-out arranged in a manner best to suit his own style of living. Judging from the piles of yellow dirt which he had thrown out, the burrow must have been quite commodious. Here < ur fellow-settler spent his daytimes, m slumbering, it is likely. Nearly every night, after dark, we could hear his evening salutatory of yelps, snarls, and barks. That meant that his hunt foi jack rabbits was about to begin—for this was his customary business in the night. He was a bad neighbor. Anything lett about the stove, in the way of* bacon or fat, was bure to be gone in the morning. Once the brute carried off nearly a whole ham. My brother shot at it two or three times after that, and notched one of its ears with a bullet. . Very early in the morning, we would sometimes see the cayote, sitting up like a dog, near his hole, looking with

a wistful expression at the cattle in the corral chewing their cuds. This was probably after a poor night for jacks. Going to bed on an empty stomach with so much good nico beef in sight was “hard lines.” Edward (my brother) would sometimes send a ball up that way. If tbe cayote saw him about to shoot, he would instantly disappear. Sometimes Ed wonld fire from the wagon. At the puff of smoke, the animal would duck, there would be a momentary glimpse of its bushy tail, and that would be last of him for that day. The sheep-herders sometimes lose heavily by wolves. But even in packs, cayotes never attempt to pull down horned-cattle—except sometimes young calves.. The second spring we were there one of our 3-year-old heifers Btole away with her calf into a run or ravine, two or three miles from the yard. Toward night we set off in search of her, and, as evening drew on, we were attracted to this run by the bellowing of the heifer. On riding to the top of the bank we could see the cow rushing about in frantic attempts to drive off six or seven cayotes that were trying to drag off her calf, which they hail already worried to death. But the cow was so resolute and savage that they could none of them get more than a taste of the veal before she would chase them off, first one and then another. This was the first time we had ever seen our friend of the notched ear in company with others. We concluded that he had summoned them to his aid to help kill the calf and beat off the cow. On our riding into the run they all skulked. Ed now declared our cayote neighbor a nuisance, too long endured already, and that he must die. We had with us that spring a young fellow named Zofe Whiting. Zopher, I think, was his given name. He said he was from New Jersey. He had come West to seek his fortune—as many others dc—and, not having found it, he stopped with us six or eight weeks and worked for his board. Next morning, Ed, Zofe and I started to drown out the cayote, carrying with us three tin buckets and our iron stovepot. Ed took along a bat-stick, for since Zofe had come to us, we had solaced our spare hours with a threehanded game of ball. After a good look at the place, we decided to put water in at the uppermost of the holes —the one on the crest | of the bluff. One of the other holes we stopped with stones, and at the . lower one Ed took his place, bat in hand, to knock the cayote on the head when the water should force him out. Ed also took the precaution to place his gun, loaded and cocked, close at his hand. But the joke of it was, we did not see the other hole, out by the rock, for it was partially under the rock, and no dirt had been thrown out there. The distance down to the creek was not more than 100 feet. The bank, however, was rather steep. But Zofe and I got to work, at a trot, up and back, with our buckets and pot, sending water down the hole, while Ed lay, with drawn bat-stick, ready to strike. We had carried up eight or ten buckets of water apiece, when suddenly the animal popped his head out at the lower hole, but caught sight of Ed in the act of striking, and instantly drew back. The bat came down with a tremendous whack across the hole, buA didn’t hit the cayote. “Keep it up, boys!” he shouted, “I’ll fetch him next time!” We kept it up for six or eight turns more— Ed crouching, with his eye intently fixed on tho hole, when, hearing a slight noise out by the rock, Zofe and I looked round, and io! the cayote was just taking leave! We yelled to Ed. He jumped up, and for a moment acted as if he could not believe his own eyes, then snatched the gun and fired after the creature. But it had got too far away to be hurt. The cayote did not come back to this hole. Perhaps we had made it too damp for his health. He used still to call on us nights, however, and take what was left unprotected. We got glimpses of him now and then, and, after a time, found that he had settled at another hole, on the opposite side of the creek, half a mile farther on.

Late that fall we met with a loss. The winter rain-storms are cold and chilling on these unsheltered plains. We thought it too cold for our cattle, and were foolish enough to build a long shed, to break the force of the “northers.” We made the roof of this shed of oiled cloth, nailed to light rafters, and the back, or north side, we made of brush, twined in pretty closely. The cattle liked it; that was the trouble. They took to it so nicely that when the first really severe storm came, in December, they stacked at one end of it; and the result was that next morning we took out six dead steers! They had crowded and trampled each other, to death. We hauled down, our shed directly. It is far safer to let tiie cattle shift for themselves and get into the runs and hollows when the storms come. Texan herders are now agreed that it is better for their stock to go unhoused. These six 2-year-olds made a fine feast for the cayotes and Indian dogs, after we had hauled the carcasses on to the prairie. If we had had strychnine we might, no doubt, have destroyed numbers of them.

Many herders keep strychnine to poison the wolves with. Sometimes, however, they will not pick up bait thus seasoned; and the cayote is not a creature easily caught in a trap. But we hit on a method of ridding ourselves of our cayote neighbors, less laborious than drowning them out. Or rather it was Zofe Whiting who hit on the new plan. I will give the fellow his due, for he was not worth much to us in any other way, Zofe left us in the latter part of June. Where he went we did not know; nor did he know where he was going. But we learned afterward that he went to Las Animas, and after a time got a job digging holes for telegraph-posts, along the new railway, not very far from that place. They had a way of digging these holes that may be new to one. Instead of putting an Irishman to work with a spade, they sent one man along with an iron crow, to punch holes in the ground three feet and a half deep, at the places where the poles were to be set. Behind the man with the crowbar came a second man with a bucketful of dynamite cartridges. On coming to a bar-hole, he lighted the fuse of a cartridge, dropped it to the bottom of the hole—and moved on. Presently there came an explosion, which blew out the earth all about the hole, leaving a pit as big as a flour barrel. The men with the posts had now only to heel them in and fill in the dirt. Two men with those cartridges could sink 260 holes in a day, whereas two men with spades could not dig more than fifty holes. Zofe had the job of carrying and lighting the cartridges, at S4O a month. 11 was a rather dangerous business, but it had this advantage—it was light work and nobody imposed upon him, or came fooling around while he was in discharge of his duty. Zofe had rather liked ftftd the

next spring, in March, he came along one day with his old glazed-cloth valise stuffed full of his togs; the same old Zofe. That evening, as we sat round the fire, he inquired for our old friend, the cayote. “ I’ve got something,” said he, “that’ll h’ist him.” We, of coarse, wanted to know what it was. He said he would tell us in the morning. The next morning, after breakfast, he undid his valise, and pulled out ten or fifteen of these dynamite cartridges. They were lying loose in the bottom of the bag, together with specimens of ore, an old revolver and three or four stubs of matches. The foolish, careless fellow had been carrying those about in that manner for weeks, on the cars and in stages, and his old valise had set within six feet of our open fire all night 1 That was Zofe. We had a crowbar for setting corralposts, and Zofe told us to take it and come on. We crossed over the creek and went up to the cayote’s hole. This burrow was much like the first one, having two or three entrances. Zofe looked it over, and, choosing a point about midway of the entrances, told Ed. to punch a hole. Ed worked the bar down, till at length it broke through into the burrow and went down nearly the whole length of it. “That’s just the thing,” said Zofe; “pull it cut.” He struck a match, remarking that we httd better go off “a few steps.” We were already going—making good time, too. He lighted a cartridge, dropped it into the hole, then sauntered away. It did not make as much noise as we thought it would. There came a kind of heavy bunk in the ground, and the smoke and dirt flew up. But it tore out a pretty large hole, and showed the cayote’s nest, down in the burrow. There was a den as large as a bathtub, half-full of dry grass. We could discover nothing of the cayote; but we always supposed the explosion killed the creature, for we never saw him afterward. Zofe said the idea of blowing out cayotes came to him one day while he was making telegraph post-holes, and he had put aside some cartridges to try the experiment with. We blew out ten or a dozen holes. At one, the cartridge blew the cayote out and sent him heels over head in the air for fifteen or twenty yards. We picked him up, quite dead. At some of the other burrows, the cayotes would dash out, after the blast, their hair full of smoke and dirt, and run for life. Ed generally popped those with a heavy charge of deer shot. One in particular, I remember, which seemed to clear a space of a dozen feet from the mouth of his hole at the first jump, as if the cartridge had blown him out. Then he whirled round to look and sneeze. At that, Ed shot him. If any one lias cayotes to kill, this is a more merciful way than poisoning with strychnine. It is almost certain to do its work.