Mud hens

Usage examples of coots.

Stone's helper-of-all-work was called Coots, a gruff old mixed-blood, part Black, part Cherokee, who kept to himself and was rumored to be a dangerous man to fool with because he had been a gunfighter.

I wouldn't even be able to afford old Coots here, if he wasn't willing to work for just bed, vittles, and my eternal gratitude.

He looked over at Coots, who shrugged and said, "He used to be a schoolteacher.

Stone and Coots scratched up for him never occupied more than five or six hours a week.

Stone and Coots had any chores for him, but he was still uncomfortable about them, and he was afraid that something in his manner might reveal that he knew their secret.

And tomorrow morning Coots will be coming back, and we'll have an armed man they don't even know about.

Then at first light she could start up the trail, and when she meets Coots, she warns him to make his way down as quiet as he can.

That way she'd be out of town and safe, and Coots would be warned, and—"

And when I see Coots come around Shinbone Cut, I'll go over to the hotel and have a few words with the boss.

But one way or another I'll make a diversion to give Coots a chance to get down to the Livery unnoticed.

He thought of Ruth Lillian, who must have gone up to the Livery before dawn, then started climbing the trail toward Coots as soon as it was light enough to find her footing.

Stone controlled his impulse to walk away from this rancorous blend of hatred and ignorance, but it was his task to hold Lieder's attention while Coots got into town, so he continued to argue, "But everyone in America is an immigrant, even the Indians, if you go back far enough.

The strain of facing up to Lieder and distracting his attention while Coots descended into town, then having to witness Mr.

It had been a steep, unnerving descent, and the donkeys were skittish because they could smell the incoming thunderstorm that Coots had seen roiling angrily all along the northern horizon when he was up at the Lode, but that was not yet visible in the sky above Twenty-Mile.

She met up with Coots and warned him, but there's a terrible storm on its way in, and Coots thought it would be too dangerous for her to try to make it up the trail.