Coyotes—Wild turkeys—Lynching and Jury Trial in Texas—Pistol-shooting—Negro vitality.

I was telling a coyote story for which I cannot vouch, but I myself had an experience with a coyote one night when I was on a fishing trip on the Nueces River.

I and Ed Anderson, my pit boss, hired a wagon, and taking along a Mexican and his twelve-year-old boy (to cook and look after the horses), we drove down to the ranch, about forty miles below the mines, for a couple of weeks’ fishing. One night we were all sleeping soundly, when I was awakened by Anderson’s dog fighting with something at my feet. I sat up, and in the bright moonlight saw it was a coyote. As I jumped to my feet I instinctively lifted my blankets up with me, and I was lucky in doing so, for just then the brute made a dash at me. I threw the blankets over him, and, calling to the others, made for the wagon where my gun and rifle were. While I was hunting for them under the litter of camp stuff, Ed and the Mexican jumped up into the wagon. Then we discovered that the boy was still sleeping through the 123racket. The father kept holloaing, “Save my boy, oh, save my boy!” but not making any effort or move to get out of the wagon and do anything himself. However, by this time I had found my gun and some shells, and, waiting my chance till the dog and coyote got separated for a minute, I soon killed the latter.

In the morning we examined the coyote and came to the conclusion that it had hydrophobia, so we kept the dog tied up the rest of the trip as Ed would not let me shoot it. They told us at the ranch that quite a number of coyotes had been killed lately, one having run into a cow camp in broad daylight and attacked some of the men. But it was really funny for the rest of the trip, for, whenever a coyote howled close to the camp, out would pop four heads from the different blankets. One night I nearly scared the Mexican to death by hitting him with a clod of dirt just as he was dropping asleep. The howl he let out would have made a coyote envious. Nevertheless, we had a most enjoyable trip, and were not disturbed any more. It is a curious thing that although I have slept on the ground hundreds of times in Texas, rolled in my blankets, when hunting or fishing, I have never been bothered by tarantula, centipede, scorpion, rattlesnake, or any other of the reptiles with which the country 124abounds; and this was the sole occasion on which my sleep was disturbed in any way.

The Nueces River is so called from the immense quantities of pecan trees which line both banks from the head to the mouth, making delightful shade to camp under and a great feeding-ground for wild turkeys. The nut is something like a walnut, though about half the size. The wild turkey is probably the wildest thing to be found in the United States. I only killed three during my eight years in Texas, one with my revolver by a fluke shot, and two sitting roosting at night. Years ago they were in thousands both on the Nueces River and on Turkey Creek (the creek that ran through the mines)—were in fact so plentiful that Pinchot, who used to have a rest-house on the California trail that ran through Cline, told me he only used to bring home the breasts of the birds he killed to feed his guests. They were so plentiful on the market in San Antonio that people got tired of them and would pay a higher price for tame turkeys. A gentleman in San Antonio once asked his nigger to go out and buy him a tame turkey. “Now,” he said, "don’t you try and palm off any wild turkey on me." The man swore that he would not, and that evening the turkey arrived. When eating it the next day, the gentleman came across some shot in the turkey’s breast. 125He sent for the negro and said, “Sam, you promised you would not try and cheat me, but would bring me a tame turkey, and here I find shot in it.” "’Deed, Boss," the man replied, "dat war a tame turkey all right, but de fact is, I’se goin’ to tell you in confidence, dat dem shot war intended for me." This wholesale slaughter has made the turkey like the buffalo—very scarce where once they were to be found in thousands.

One hears a good deal about lynching, but of course it is not only negroes that get lynched. A few years ago it often happened that a town would get tired o............