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 racket. 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 abounds; and this was the sole occasion on which my sleep was disturbed in any way.