not only of familiar surroundings, but also of the tension and fear
generated by human minds and emotions levels above. A pointed nose
raised, and there was a growling deep in a throat covered with thick
buff-gray hair.

The growl aroused another similar captive. Knowing yellow eyes met
yellow eyes. An intelligence, which was certainly not that of the animal
body which contained it, fought down instinct raging to send both those
bodies hurtling at the fastenings of the twin cages. Curiosity and the
ability to adapt had been bred into both from time immemorial. Then
something else had been added to sly and cunning brains. A step up had
been taken--to weld intelligence to cunning, connect thought to
instinct.

More than a generation earlier mankind had chosen barren desert--the
"white sands" of New Mexico--as a testing ground for atomic experiments.
Humankind could be barred, warded out of the radiation limits; the
natural desert dwellers, four-footed and winged, could not be so
controlled.

For thousands of years, since the first southward roving Amerindian
tribes had met with their kind, there had been a hunter of the open
country, a smaller cousin of the wolf, whose natural abilities had made
an undeniable impression on the human mind. He was in countless Indian
legends as the Shaper or the Trickster, sometimes friend, sometimes
enemy. Godling for some tribes, father of all evil for others. In the
wealth of tales the coyote, above all other animals, had a firm place.

Driven by the press of civilization into the badlands and deserts,
fought with poison, gun, and trap, the coyote had survived, adapting to
new ways with all his legendary cunning. Those who had reviled him as
vermin had unwillingly added to the folklore which surrounded him,
telling their own tales of robbed traps, skillful escapes. He continued
to be a trickster, laughing on moonlit nights from the tops of ridges at
those who would hunt him down.

Then, close to the end of the twentieth century, when myths were
scoffed at, the stories of the coyote's slyness began once more on a
fantastic scale. And finally scientists were sufficiently intrigued to
seek out this creature that seemed to display in truth all the abilities
credited to his immortal namesake by pre-Columbian tribes.

What they discovered was indeed shattering to certain closed minds. For
the coyote had not only adapted to the country of the white sands; he
had evolved into something