Travis Coates is the protagonist of Old Yeller and its sequel, Savage Sam.
Role in the film
Travis is Jim and Katie's older son and Arliss' brother. Originally, he was the first-person character in the book. Likewise, he has to be the man of the house for the summer while Jim is out selling steers for current money, as where they live used to be part of the Confederate States, but when it became part of the United States, their money turned useless. To do this, he has to take care of his family and do a man's work.
When Travis sees his father out, he asks him not to forget the horse he promised to bring back for him from Kansas. But his father also tells him that he could also use a good dog as well.
Shortly after, when Travis is plowing the the field he notices Old Yeller chasing a jackrabbit in the field, but when the dog chases it into the garden, it spook's Travis' mule Jumper and Travis end up getting dragged across the garden. As Yeller begins to chase after Jumper, Travis yells at the dog to leave the mule alone, as the dog ends up accidentally ends up destroying the fence. Outraged, Travis tells the dog to get out and begins throwing rocks at him as the dog runs away.
Later that evening during supper, Katie brings up Travis' dog Belle he had when he was little and how she always protected him. Travis states there never was a dog like Old Belle.
The next morning Travis notices a piece of middling meat is gone and sees Old Yeller laying on the ground by the door. Travis is outraged at the dog for coming back and eating their meat. Arliss comes out overjoyed to see the dog, but just as Travis is about to scare the dog off, Arliss gets involved and Katie quickly rushes out to break it up. When she decides to let Arliss keep the dog, Travis objects after what the trouble it had caused, but Katie states that he's not being fair to his little brother, because Travis had a dog when he was little, but Arliss hasn't.
Later on after returning from the woods with a newly shot deer, Travis sees Arliss and Old Yeller in the pond they get their water from and is angrily tells him get out of there and it soon escalates into a fight where Arliss begins throwing rocks at him, until Katie intervenes. That evening while hanging up the new meat Travis tells Old Yeller that if he touches it he'll shoot him right between the eyes and even lowers the meat closer to the ground for the dog to get. The next morning Travis sees the meat has not been touched and is surprised, put also puzzled.
Then when Travis and Katie see Arliss has a hold of a black bear cub, they see the cub's mother charging towards Alriss. As Travis rushes to scare off the bear with his axe, Old Yeller quickly rushes in and attacks the bear, driving her off much to Travis' amazement. Travis begins to love and respect Old Yeller, who comes to have a profound effect on the boy's life.
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