The coyote has a remarkable voice. It gives him a picturesque part. Usually his spoken efforts are in the early evening; more rarely in early morning. Often a number, in a pack or widely separated, will engage in a concert. It is a concert of clowns; in it are varying and changing voices; all the breaks in the evening song are filled with startling ventriloquistic effects. The voice may be thrown in many directions and over varying distances at once, so that the sounds are multiplied, and the efforts of two or three coyotes seem like those of a numerous and scattered pack. However, the coyote uses his voice for other things than pleasure. He has a dialect with which he signals his fellows; he warns them of dangers and tells of opportunities; he asks for information and calls for assistance. He is constantly saving himself from danger or securing his needed food by coöperating with his fellows. These united efforts are largely possible through his ability to express the situation with voice and tongue. Through repetition a coyote’s signals are ofttimes relayed for miles. A leader mounts a lonely butte and proclaims his orders over the silent prairie. This proclamation is answered by repeating coyotes a mile or more away. Farther away, at all points of the compass, it is repeated by others. And so, within a fraction of a minute, most of the coyotes within a radius of miles have the latest news or the latest orders. Sometimes the stratum of air above the prairie is a mellow sounding-board; it clearly and unresistingly transmits these wild wireless calls far across the ravines and hills of the prairie. The clear notes of a single coyote often ring distinctly across a radius of two or three miles. When groups congregate in valley concerts all the air between the near and the far-off hills vibrates with the wild, varying melody. This may reach a climax in a roar like the wind, then break up into a many-voiced yelping. I love to hear the shoutings and the far-off cries of the coyote. These elemental notes are those of pure gladness and wildness. To me they are not melancholy. Their rollicking concerts remind me of the merry efforts of live boys. The calls of the coyote have a distinct place in the strangeness and wildness of the Great Plains. CHAPTER VIII THE BLACK BEAR--COMEDIAN A black bear came into a United States Survey camp one Sunday afternoon while all the men were lounging about, and walked into the cook’s tent. The cook was averse to bears; he tried to go through the rear of the tent at a place where there was no door. The tent went down on him and the bear. The bear, confused and not in the habit of wearing a tent, made a lively show of it--a sea in a storm--as he struggled to get out. All were gathered round and watched the bear emerge from beneath the tent and climb a tree. Out on the first large limb he walked. He looked down on us somewhat puzzled and inclined to be playful.