Looking from my sleeping bag just at daylight, I saw a coyote on the other side of the river step from behind a clump of willows. He showed surprise at seeing me so close.
 Arriving by starlight the night before, I had crawled into the sleeping bag without fire or noise. It is probable that this coyote had been off foraging at the time. On his return to the den neither sight or scent had warned him of my presence.
 But from his present actions he appeared to feel that he had been seen. This concerned him, because he was by the entrance to his well-con-cealed den, in which perhaps there were puppies.
 He disappeared among the trees. A minute later he reappeared a short distance up the river and moved about, plainly trying to attract my attention. I watched him but did not let him know that I saw him. After making a number of moves calculated to catch my eye, he crossed to my side of the river and, pretending to be terribly crippled, started toward me. Only a minute before he had moved with light-footed agility. He was a good actor and pretended not to know that I was there.
 But he was determined to make me notice him. He came within thirty feet but, still acting, looked away from me into the river. Evidently his keen nose must have told him that I had no gun. Coyotes are not mind readers, but they often show themselves to the hunter who is without a gun. He stopped and gave a yelp and  howl.
 Of course I had to look at him after that. Then he pretended to discover me. With show of alarm he made stumbling and vigorous efforts to escape.
 He was badly crippled. His back and two legs were barely useful. I pursued him full speed. This is what he wished—to draw me away from the den—and I was eager to follow and see his tactics and learn how far he would lead me.
 If there were puppies in the den, this would explain his boldly coming close to me and his clever manoeuvres for leading me afar.
 Crowding him closely, I caused him to plunge into the river. Desperately he struggled through the water and came out on the other side, acting the part of a wounded, exhausted animal. Had I not known his actual condition, and understood coyote cunning, I naturally should have concluded that he was badly hurt.
 He allowed me almost to catch him. When I attempted to seize him he took to the water to save himself. He went crippling across the river on cobblestones. In climbing the steep bank he stood and breathed as if about to collapse, but this was just a ruse to allow me to catch up. As I scrambled up the bank he walked into the woods and entered a den. If he was a reasoning animal, as his actions seemed to show, he probably thought that he had lured me away from the den occupied by his mate and their puppies, and that I would linger by this other, unoccupied den, instead.
 If a coyote family feel that their den is discovered they move. I hurried back to the den by the river and moved my sleeping bag. After making camp upstream I came back close to where I had slept and, concealed behind bushes, watched the entrance of the den.
 It was well hidden in the bottom of a canyon at the foot of a cliff immediately behind a clump of willows. To reach it one had either to cross the river or climb down a precipitous cliff wall. The den was beneath the loose rocks that had fallen off the cliff, and the entrance was three feet or more above the level of the river.
 Near noon the crippled coyote, completely recovered, came slipping back home. He deftly climbed down a steep place in the cliff that stood above the den. Every few steps he stopped, looked, and listened. His nose was ever open for man scent. But the air current was downstream and there was little likelihood of his scenting me.
 He slipped out of sight behind the willows. Within a minute another coyote came out from the willows into full sight, hurried part way up the cliff, and stood to look around. A look through the glasses showed her to be the mother of young puppies. Her attitude betrayed suspicion—as if she realized that a man might be near. When she moved on out of sight I hurried over a detour downstream and then up the slope, trying to follow her.
 But she had vanished, probably gone off for something to eat. Hoping to see her return, I strolled back and forth along her trail.
 Two hours later she crossed an opening close to me, evidently with the intention of attracting my attention. She could readily have slipped by and on to the den without my seeing her. From an examination of her tracks, it appeared that she had scented me and had turned aside from her course to come in sight of me.
 It was plain that she wanted to lead me away. As soon as I followed, she led up the slope—away from the den. Arriving on the edge of a thicket she smelled about this way and that with nose close to the earth, as if trailing something of importance. When I came close, she feigned surprise and darted into the thicket. I showed increased speed after her and off we hurried along a timbered slope. Finally she entered a den.
 On the way back to my camp I kept well away from the den containing the puppies. Mr. Coyote who had played cripple was on scout duty. I travelled slowly and quietly and kept out of openings so that he would not discover me.
 Suddenly his nose caught a scent that told him that I was close. He had not heard me, and as I was behind a ridge covered with numbers of trees and rocks, he had not seen me. But a little movement of air and his nose received the information that I was to the west of him and less than one hundred feet away. Scent which all animals give off, its radiation and the news this tells to receiving noses, is the marvel of outdoor life.
 He did not show himself but slipped along after me and tried to keep out of sight. Had I not been watching I should not have suspected his following. I walked on more rapidly and did nothing to indicate that I knew he was following me.
 When I crossed to the other side of the stream he stopped where he could watch me. I sat down on my sleeping bag, screened by brush, where I could watch him. For minutes he stood still waiting for me to make a move. Then he changed his position but still kept guard. We were a quarter of a mile upstream from his den, and he evidently wanted to satisfy himself as to where I was camping.  I started the campfire and went for water.
 He saw me approach the stream, and eyed me as I stood and drank. All the time he stayed within ten feet, curiously alert. Near sundown I saw him move on. Evidently he was satisfied that he knew where I was to camp that night.
 Coyotes are tireless and uncannily cunning for the care and the safety of their young, as well as for themselves. They are constantly on guard, and it appears that they are prepared with the next probable move, and the possible next two or three moves, to be made; and if danger arises they move in the right direction. Commonly a pair of coyotes have a number of dens. One of these is used regularly for time, then a change is made to another.
 The second afternoon I discovered another of these extra, camouflaged dens. A short distance up the slope from their used den I came unexpectedly upon one of the coyotes. He was surprised and ran off in a semicircle. I pursued for several minutes and he came back close to where I had discovered him, and entered a den the opening to which was not concealed.
 In trying to keep him in sight I had climbed upon a rock-pile just in time to see him enter this den. Then as I stood on these rocks, I chanced to see him slyly emerge from another exit, placed about twenty feet from the one through which he had gone in and concealed from it by a clump of trees.
 He stood for a few seconds looking and listening, but without detecting me. Then with a long leap he slunk away to the top of the cliff, whence he descended to the den in use. By mere chance I had discovered this clever trick. Ordinarily, neither dog nor man would make the discovery of the real den after seeing the deceptive outlying one. A dog that had trailed a coyote to the entrance of this or a similar den would hardly understand the sig-nificance of the other, even though he discovered it.
 I hoped that the pair were not alarmed and would not move their puppies. If they should move, it would probably deprive me of the opportunity of watching them further.
 All the next morning I watched the den entrance with my glasses, keeping well away from the entrance itself, hoping they would feel that I did not suspect the place of their used den. I had dis-covered it by mere luck but had not gone close to it.
 As neither coyote appeared during my watch of three hours I left the watching place for a time and went off exploring. Two miles upstream I came upon the track of Mr. Coyote on one side of a swamp. I walked around and explored the opposite edge. I found a den with his track in the entrance.
 On the way back to camp I had a glimpse of a coyote watching me. Just a glimpse through the trees and it was gone. It had the appearance of being Mrs. Coyote. Evidently these coyotes were vigilant in their observation of me; perhaps partly through curiosity, but more through concern for their near-by puppies.
 After a stop at my camp I went to the watching place by a triangular course. There were coyote tracks in the sand around where I had been hiding to watch. After a long wait Mrs. Coyote came down the cliff as quietly as a shadow. She entered the den and after the lapse of half an hour had not come out. The puppies were still there.
 It proved unfortunate for the coyotes that they had not moved.
 During the night a rain began falling. It seemed probable that I might have another day hunting coyotes with my eyes, for unless I had seriously alarmed them, with a rain falling they probably would not leave the old den that night.
 It was raining steadily, and there was a splendid bombardment of thunder when I set off the following morning to watch the entrance to the den. After a few minutes in position I suddenly saw both coyotes standing in front of it. He was licking her shoulder. They appeared dry, and I do not know whether they had just come out or just arrived. Presently they entered the den.
 As soon as they disappeared I went in search of a hiding-place near the top of the cliff above them. In crossing the stream, a short distance below, I noticed that the water was rising and was roily. Halfway up the cliff I came to a ledge from which I could look down on the entrance to the den, and stopped to watch from this place.
 The rising stream soon began to roar. A heavy rain had fallen on the slopes tributary to an east fork and this water was now sweeping down. The river already was many times its normal volume. With increased roaring, a wide moving cataract of a flood from above came spreading among the trees. Leaves, trash, and a scattering of logs came down in the boiling torrent. A first rush of water filled the coyote den and a second rush covered and remained above it.
 The bedraggled old coyotes came out from their flooded home each with a puppy in his mouth. In a few seconds all the puppies had been carried out and placed near by upon a ledge a foot or two above the water level.
 Six shivering puppies were curiously nosed about by the old coyotes. Each of the old ones took a puppy by the skin of the back of the neck and stepped into the stream, swimming for the opposite shore. The stream at this instant was about one hundred feet wide.
 The current midstream was swift, and both coyotes were carried downstream at least one hundred feet. On reaching the bank they hurried upstream to a point opposite the den and dropped the puppies and at once reentered the water, making toward the other puppies on the ledge. But the two puppies left behind stumbled about and mostly toward the water. Mother Coyote turned and swam back to them.
 The father went on to rescue the others. Seizing one, he swam across, dropped it by the mother, and hurriedly reentered the swift water. The fourth he brought across nicely. After picking it up he walked a short distance upstream before taking to the water. He used the same plan with the fifth one. He was tiring, however. The current, too was stronger. But he landed the puppy and went upstream again before taking to the water.
 With the advantage of the downstream current, he crossed without great effort. But he was a tired coyote. Why did not she take his place? Evidently she was needed to care for the little puppies. They perhaps were not more than a week old.
 A log jam had formed in the stream among the boulders and trees a little below me. This dammed the stream, and although a volume poured over, there was a deepening and a backing up of water.
 The sixth puppy, all alone, had become restless. Whether he fell off into the water or was swept off I know not. The old coyote dived two or three times and splashed about before he secured a hold on it.
 Tired, he climbed out on a ledge  to rest. He was breathing heavily. This time he started directly across instead of taking advantage of the current by going upstream as he had done with the two preceding trips across.
 He had gone but a little way when the log jam below broke and a section of it went out. The pouring water greatly increased the current. The swimming coyote felt this. He was not going strong, and the trash and the powerful current worried him.
 Mother Coyote, after moving the other coyotes back, came and stood at the edge of the stream to watch her mate. He was not making headway toward the shore and the current was carrying him rapidly downstream. Mother Coyote ceased looking over her shoulder at the puppies and kept her eyes upon him.
 A mass of bushes and trash came rushing down and enveloped him. He lost his hold on the puppy. But again he seized it and swam desperately for the shore. He was weak and his efforts mostly wild. The current was carrying him toward the break in the log jam.
 A rolling, rushing log pushed him aside but he caught this with his fore feet and after two attempts climbed upon it. This log might strike the jam or the bank and afford him a means of escape. But suddenly it rolled over.
 Another section of the log jam broke out and the river-wide water rushed forward, rushing the log with it. The coyote came up, struggling, with the puppy still grasped by the skin of the neck.
 In a few seconds he would either be swept through the wreck of the log jam or, possibly, would reach the bank. His fore feet caught a pole that was entangled. But the current was too strong. With his teeth he could have clung on and saved himself. But he held on to the puppy.
 Just as I was roused and started to the rescue, Mother Coyote came full speed down the bank toward him. Before she could reach him his feet slipped off the pole. Still clinging to the puppy, he was swept through the broken jam and disappeared in the roaring rush of water.
 As I climbed off the cliff I saw Mother Coyote collecting the five scattered puppies.
 
 

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