“Chug-a-rum!” he began, as he always does.  “The great-great-ever-so-great grandfather of Old Man Coyote, who lived long, long ago when the world was young, was very much as Old Man Coyote is to-day.  He was just as smart and just as clever.  Indeed, he was smart enough and clever enough not to let his neighbors know that he was smart and clever at all.  Those were very peaceful times at first, and everybody was on the best of terms with everybody else, as you know.  There was plenty to eat without the trouble to steal, and everybody was honest simply because it was easier to be honest than it was to be dishonest.  So Old King Bear ruled in the Green Forest, and everybody was happy and contented.

“But there came a time when food was scarce, and it was no longer easy to get plenty to eat.  It was then that the stronger began to steal from the weaker, and by and by even to prey upon those smaller than themselves.  The times grew harder and harder, and because hunger is a hard and cruel master, it made the larger and stronger people hard and cruel, too.  Some of them it made very sly and cunning, like old Mr. Fox.  Mr. Coyote was another whom it made sly and cunning.  He was smart in the first place, even smarter than Mr. Fox, and he very early made up his mind that if he would live, it must be by his wits, for he wasn’t big enough or strong enough to fight with his neighbors such as his big cousin, Mr. Timber Wolf, or Mr. Lynx, or Mr. Panther or Old King Bear, who was king no longer.  And yet he liked the same things to eat.

“So he used to study and plan how he could outwit them without danger to himself.  ’A whole skin is better than a full stomach, but both a whole skin and a full stomach are better still,’ said he to himself; as he thought and schemed.  For a while he was content to catch what he could without danger to himself, and to eat what his bigger and stronger neighbors left when they happened to get more than they wanted for themselves.  Little by little he got the habit of slyly following them when they were hunting, always keeping out of sight.  In this way, he managed to get many meals of scraps.  But these scraps never wholly satisfied him, and his mouth used to water as he watched the others feast on the very best when they had had a successful hunt.  He knew it wouldn’t be of the least use to go out and boldly ask for some, for in those hard times everybody was very, very selfish.

“The times grew harder and harder, until it seemed as if Old Mother Nature had wholly forgotten her little people of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest.  Mr. Coyote still managed to pick up a living, but he was hungry most of the time, and the less he had to put in his stomach, the sharper his wits grew.  At last one day, as he stole soft-footed through the Green Forest, he discovered Mr. Lynx having a great feast.  To keep still and watch him was almost more than Mr. Coyote could stand, for he was so hungry that it seemed as if the sides of his stomach almost met, it was so empty.