that will save them from death by
starvation.

The coyote is ignorant of any feeling of sympathy, and for this reason
inspires none. Here is an anecdote, however, which proves that this
quadruped thief of the wood is capable of feeling a certain degree of
sensibility of the nerves, at any rate, if not of the heart. This
story was told me under canvas, while we were hunting with the Pawnee
Indians.

During the first period of the colonization of Kentucky, the coyotes
were so numerous in the prairie to the south of that state, that the
inhabitants did not dare to leave their houses unless armed to the
teeth. The women and children were strictly confined in-doors. The
coyotes by which the country was infested belonged to the herd whose
coat is dark gray, a very numerous species in the northern district,
in the heart of the dense forests and unexplored mountains of the
Green River.

The village of Henderson, situated at the left bank of the Ohio, near
its confluence with Green River, was the spot most frequented by these
depredators.

The pigs, calves, and sheep of the planters paid a heavy tax to these
voracious animals. Several times in the depth of winter, when the snow
covered the ground, and the flocks were kept in the stalls, the
starving coyotes attacked human beings; and more than one belated
farmer, returning home at night, found himself surrounded by a raging
pack, from whose teeth he had great difficulty in defending himself.

Among the many startling adventures I have heard narrated, not one
made a greater impression on me than that of which Richard, the old
negro fiddler, was the hero, and which I will tell you.

Richard was what is called a "good old good-for-nothing darky." The
whole district allowed that he had no other merit beyond that of
sawing the fiddle; and this merit, which is not one in our own eyes,
was highly valued, however, by all the colored people, and even by the
whites who lived for a distance of forty miles round. One thing is
certain--that no festival could be held without Fiddler Dick being
invited to it.

Marriages, christenings, parties prolonged till dawn, which are called
"break-downs" in the United States, could not take place without the
aid of his fiddle; and though the negro minstrel was old, and a good
deal of his black wool was absent from the place where the wool ought
to grow, still Richard was no less welcome wherever he presented
himself, with his instrument wrappe