The next morning using more hay and grain didn’t seem to help and Palomino started to panic and run the fence again as soon as he saw Monte the next morning. Making Monte just throw more hay and grain over the fence and leave so the Palomino might calm down again.
That put a little time on Monte’s hands. Because he wasn’t really just giving the Palomino time to calm down. Monte was also contemplating his next move and trying to work up the courage for it. He had decided the best way to get the halter on the Palomino and get the hobble off was to front foot him.
Meaning roping both front feet, pulling them out from under the horse to get him on the ground, run like hell to the horse before it can get back up. Then throw a couple wraps around the pastern of the top hind leg and tie it to the front legs. Which if accomplished renders the horse helpless. Sort of at least.
But that is actually a three man job and Monte was of course all alone. So he needed to think about that a little bit. But it would be more accurate to say not think about it. He already had his plan. He just needed to work up enough nerve to try it.
Instead Monte decided to eat a sandwich and not look at the floor of his pickup. Because there was something he hated and vowed he would never use again laying there. A snare.
A few snares were hanging on the wall of a P-Bench shed where they kept their coyote traps when Monte picked out a bigger selection for the two-toed coyote. He hated snares worse than any trap. But grabbed one anyway.
Snares are actually very simple. Just a thin cable about five feet long with a small metal fitting to make a loop. The little metal fifing makes the loop close fast and easy. But it only works one way. The loop closes easy but it takes a man and two hands to open it again.
Snares also work vert simply. The coyote comes along sticks his head in the loop, the loop closes, the coyote struggles against the loop and the more the coyote struggles the tighter the loop closes and strangles them to death. Snares actually work very well for trapping coyotes.
But if truth be told snares where another reason Monte quit trapping for pelts. Strangling a coyote to death was just too cruel for him and he told himself he would never set another snare again.
But since Monte was at war with the two-toed coyote just getting him was the only thing that mattered. So Monted grabbed a snare off the wall anyway hoping he would never have to set it. But nothing else had worked to get the coyote so the snare was Monte’s last option. And it didn’t help he’d already s seen the perfect place to set a snare.
The two-toed coyote had kind of a habit of crossing the creek in the same place where the willows gave him cover but had a nice opening he could just walk through unseen. It was actually the way Monte knew the two-toed coyote was still coming through. Because the new grass was kind of matted and every now and then Monte would find a track.
Monte had set both jump traps and even a box trap down there but the two-toed coyote seemed wise to all of them. He would still come through and just step around the trap. The opening was also right next to the fence and the coyote would jump through it. Which made it a perfect place for a snare and tie it off to the fence.
Monte finally stopped trying not to look at it and grabbed the snare. He also grabbed his trapping tarp out of the back of the truck which is just a piece of canvas about six feet square. Trappers carry the piece of tarp to lay on the ground before they make their set so their scent is not on the ground near the trap. They set the trap and then take the tarp with them when they leave.
Monte went down to the creek to the opening. He still had a jump trap there the two-toed coyote kept stepping around but Monte pulled the stake and reset it a little closer to the fence. And then set the snare just above his trap and tied it off to fence.