m
cork--plup--whee--phizz--he jump out all over and he run allee way
down stair before you catchem.

"Feed'm chicken cleam soda. No good Chinaman!"

"Yes,--you slit eyed Mongolian! That reminds me," exclaimed Jim, his
mouth half-full of apple-pie. "Talking about chickens,--what you do
with all our chickens?"

"Chickens? No savvy!" innocently commented Sing, as he replaited and
tied the black silk cords at the end of his pig-tail.

"You savvy all right,--you son-of-a-gun!

"Phil,--when we came here there were thirty-six chickens in our pen.
We've had two to eat ourselves. I counted only fourteen there to-day.
That's twenty chickens gone somewhere."

Ah Sing still shook his head.

"I know, I savvy!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Coyote catchem!"

"Coyote hell!" shouted Jim.

"Ya,--you bet! Coyote hell evely night. You hear'm?"

"Sure we hear them. The darned brutes howl and laugh and keep us off
our sleep every night the moon is up."

"Well!--coyote catchem," was all Sing would say.

"Yes!--and I suppose coyote leave bones in the garbage heap at your
back door? Look here, Sing!--next time Chinese coyote take any more
chicken, I fill him up buck shot out of that gun. No more chicken for
you,--see!"

"All light!" conciliated the wily Chinaman, rising to go now that the
discussion had come a bit too near home for his comfort. "I tell you
quick next time coyote come--you fill him belly buck shot, heap
plenty."

Two hours later, when the moon came up, the coyotes certainly provided
entertainment. They howled and laughed, taunting an old terrier dog
which belonged to the ranch and had neither the speed nor the
inclination to try its mettle against its vicious enemies. It growled
and barked a-plenty, but the coyotes sensed their safety and ventured
the closer and yelped the louder in sheer deviltry.

Jim and Phil got down their guns, in the hope of bagging at least one
of the brutes, but before they got outside, a wild frightened
squawking and a tremendous to-do of fluttering told its own story.
They raced round, but by the time they got to the rear of the house
the squawking was quite a bit away, and the moon, ere it shot behind a
cloud, showed two distant, shadowy forms scurrying quickly over the
hill with their kill.

Phil fired a shot, but it did not seem to take any effect.

"I guess we put too much blame on poor old Sing after all," said Jim,
"but I could have sworn he was meddling with these hens. I never