Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/151

140 140. LA SUBTILE CXJYOTB. is a fact that now it is the habit of the coyote, (prairie ■wolves), to sneak around where a buzzard, eagle or hawli is perched upon a fence-post, limb or hedge, and just as soon as a bird swoops down on a rabbit, or bird of any ^ind "la subtile coyote" will spring upon the bird of prey and take whatever it may have discovered and captured. Cbronado states that the coyotes were very numerous and called them white, but his "white" must have been cream color, for that is nearer it. Of course, the color of their hair may have been changed in 367 years, for Htsst is a long time. Has not the Negro changed from black to nearly white in only 225 years, since Sit John Hawkins brought the first cargo of them to America? By the by, Negro is a Spanish name and means black and "Niger" is Latin, also signifying black. While the three were chatting upon various mat- ters relating to their command, Coronado changed the trend of conversation by asking the others if they could remember in history any expedition which resetobled tlieirs. "Wh.y Moses and the Children of Israel were in the wilderness for forty years, so ours don't amount to anything in comparison," spoke up Jaramillo, who had education sufBcieht to keep a record of the expedition, but was not a college bred man like the other two. He naturally thought if the Israelites were forty years going through the wild- erness it must have been very extensive to require so long a time. The commander explained that notwith- standing it took so long, yet from the Nile to the Red Sea is only about seventy -iive miles, and from there to the Philistine country is only about another hun-