"You can dig up my traps, an' smell out my strych-nine, but you can't dodge these buckshot if ever I lays th' sights on you. Dawg-gone you, I owes you a-plenty!" he growled. Striking a match he looked in the coop and around it. "Had two dozen as nice pullets as anybody ever saw, only three weeks ago; an' now I only got sixteen left. _There_, blast you!" he swore, as the second match revealed the telltale tracks. "There they are! O, Lord! Just let me get my gun on that thievin' ki-yote! Just once!" He stared around belligerently and went slowly back to the house, swearing and grumbling under his breath. It is the cook's fate to be the sworn enemy of all coyotes, and let it be said without shame to him that he seldom is a victor in that game of watchfulness and wits. And also let it be said that often with tears of rage and mortification, and words beyond repetition, he pays unintentional tribute to the uncanny cunning of the four-legged thieves. With guns, dogs, traps, and poison is he armed, but it availeth him naught. And as bad as the defeat are the knowing grins of the rest of the outfit who, while openly cheering on the doughty cook, are ready to wager a month's wages on the coyote. The man on the ground moved again, this time toward the canyon, and soon was feeling his way along the great eastern wall. Reaching the other end, he stopped a moment to listen, and then went on again, groping along by the edge of the stream until he stumbled over a dead branch, which he picked up. Then feeling for and finding a certain rock, he stepped on it and with his foot felt for and found another, which was partly submerged in the creek; and by means of this and others he crossed dry-shod to the opposite bank, using the branch as a staff. Daylight was near when Johnny wriggled to the edge of the cliff opposite the houses and hid behind a fringe of grass on the rim. An hour passed and then his keen ears caught distant sounds. Below him the cook was rearranging his traps and swearing at the cleverness of his four-footed enemy. Suddenly he arose and hastened to the kitchen to serve a hot breakfast to the men who soon drove a bunch of cattle out of the canyon and into the small corral. While the others hastened in for their breakfast, Quigley and Ackerman loitered at the corral. "Purty good for five men, with one of 'em playin' sentry," said Quigley. "We'd do better if we didn't have to scout around first." "Scoutin's necessary," replied Ackerman. "It's too wide open. This bunch ain't worth gettin' wet for. That river's cussed cold!" Quigley chuckled. "Huh! I've swum it when th' ice was comin' down." "You did," retorted Ackerman. "That was th' night Logan burned our houses. You had to swim an' freeze, or stay out an' get shot. You went in _pronto_, that night!" "You beat me in by forty yards, an' out by sixty!" snapped Quigley.