“It’s Coyote’s third expedition into town, an’ he’s hoverin’ about the New York store waitin’ for ’em to figger up his wolf pelts an’ cut out his plunder so he freights it back to his dug-out.  Dan an’ Texas is also procrastinatin’ ‘round, an’ they sidles up allowin’ to have their little jest.  Old Coyote don’t know none of ’em—­quiet an’ sober an’ p’lite like I relates, he’s slow gettin’ acquainted—­an’ Dan an’ Texas, as well as Doc Peets, is like so many onopened books to him.  For that matter, while none of them pards of mine knows Coyote, they manages to gain a sidelight on some of his characteristics before ever they gets through.  Doc Peets later grows ashamed of the part he plays, an’ two months afterwards when Coyote is chewed an’ clawed to a standstill by a infooriated badger which he mixes himse’f up with, Peets binds him up an’ straightens out his game, an’ declines all talk of recompense complete.

“‘It’s merely payin’ for that outrage I attempts on your feelin’s when you rebookes me so handsome,’ says Peets, as he turns aside Coyote’s dinero an’ tells him to replace the same in his war-bags.

“However does Coyote get wrastled by that badger?  It’s another yarn, but at least she’s brief an’ so I’ll let you have it.  Badgers, you saveys, is sour, sullen, an’ lonesome.  An’ a badger’s feelin’s is allers hurt about something; you never meets up with him when he ain’t hostile an’ half-way bent for war.  Which it’s the habit of these yere morose badgers to spend a heap of their time settin’ half in an’ half outen their holes, considerin’ the scenery in a dissatisfied way like they has some grudge ag’inst it.  An’ if you approaches a badger while thus employed he tries to run a blazer on you; he’ll show his teeth an’ stand pat like he meditates trouble.  When you’ve come up within thirty feet he changes his mind an’ disappears back’ard into his hole; but all malignant an’ reluctant.

“Now, while Coyote saveys wolves, he’s a heap dark on badgers that a-way.  An’ also thar’s a badger who lives clost to Coyote’s dug-out.  One day while this yere ill-tempered anamile is cocked up in the mouth of his hole, a blinkin’ hatefully at surroundin’ objects.  Coyote cuts down on him with a Sharp’s rifle he’s got kickin’ about his camp an’ turns that weepon loose.

“He misses the badger utter, but he don’t know it none.  Comin’ to the hole, Coyote sees the badger kind o’ quiled up at the first bend in the burrow, an’ he exultin’ly allows he’s plugged him an’ tharupon reaches in to retrieve his game.  That’s where Coyote makes the mistake of his c’reer; that’s where he drops his watermelon!

“That badger’s alive an’ onhurt an’ as hot as a lady who’s lost money.  Which he’s simply retired a few foot into his house to reconsider Coyote an’ that Sharp’s rifle of his.  Nacherally when the ontaught Coyote lays down on his face an’ goes to gropin’ about to fetch that badger forth the latter never hes’tates.  He grabs Coyote’s hand with tooth and claw, braces his back ag’in the ceilin’ of his burrow an’ stands pat.