im
before he could rise. (His stiff-legged bounds sent him along at a
tremendous pace at first, but he seemed to tire rather easily.) On two
or three occasions we killed whitetail deer, and several times antelope.
Usually, however, the antelopes escaped. The bucks sometimes made a good
fight, but generally they were seized while running, some dogs catching
by the throat, others by the shoulders, and others again by the flank
just in front of the hind-leg. Wherever the hold was obtained, if the
dog made his spring cleverly, the buck was sure to come down with a
crash, and if the other dogs were anywhere near he was probably killed
before he could rise, although not infrequently the dogs themselves were
more or less scratched in the contests. Some greyhounds, even of high
breeding, proved absolutely useless from timidity, being afraid to take
hold; but if they got accustomed to the chase, being worked with old
dogs, and had any pluck at all, they proved singularly fearless. A
big ninety-pound greyhound or Scotch deer-hound is a very formidable
fighting dog; I saw one whip a big mastiff in short order, his wonderful
agility being of more account than his adversary's superior weight.
The proper way to course, however, is to take the dogs out in a wagon
and drive them thus until the game is seen. This prevents their being
tired out. In my own hunting, most of the antelope aroused got away,
the dogs being jaded when the chase began. But really fine greyhounds,
accustomed to work together and to hunt this species of game, will
usually render a good account of a prong-buck if two or three are
slipped at once, fresh, and within a moderate distance.
Although most Westerners take more kindly to the rifle, now and then
one is found who is a devotee of the hound. Such a one was an old
Missourian, who may be called Mr. Cowley, whom I knew when he was living
on a ranch in North Dakota, west of the Missouri. Mr. Cowley was a
primitive person, of much nerve, which he showed not only in the hunting
field but in the startling political conventions of the place and
period. He was quite well off, but he was above the niceties of personal
vanity. His hunting garb was that in which he also paid his rare formal
calls--calls throughout which he always preserved the gravity of an
Indian, though having a disconcerting way of suddenly tip-toeing across
the room to some unfamiliar object, such as a peacock screen or a vase,
feeling it gently wit
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