400 The Wilderness Hunte7\ 



Usually, as soon they came across it, they would growl, 

 bristle up, and then retreat with their tails between their 

 legs. But one of his dogs ever really tried to master a 

 wolf by itself, and this one paid for its temerity with its 

 life ; for while running a wolf in a canebrake the beast 

 turned and tore it to pieces. Finally General Hampton 

 succeeded in getting a number of his hounds so they 

 would at any rate follow the trail in full cry, and thus 

 drive the wolf out of the thicket, and give a chance to the 

 hunter to get a shot. In this way he killed two or three. 

 The true way to kill wolves, however, is to hunt them 

 with greyhounds on the great plains. Nothing more 

 exciting than this sport can possibly be imagined. It is 

 not always necessary that the greyhounds should be of 

 absolutely pure blood. Prize-winning dogs of high pedi- 

 gree often prove useless for the purposes. If by careful 

 choice, however, a ranchman can get together a pack 

 composed both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the 

 rough-haired Scotch deer-hound, he can have excellent 

 sport. The greyhounds sometimes do best if they have 

 a slieht cross of bulldoof in their veins ; but this is not 

 necessary. If once a greyhound can be fairly entered to 

 the sport and acquires confidence, then its wonderful 

 agility, its sinewy strength and speed, and the terrible 

 snap with which its jaws come together, render it a most 

 formidable assailant. Nothing can possibly exceed the 

 gallantry with which good greyhounds, when their blood 

 is up, fling themselves on a wolf or any other foe. There 

 does not exist, and there never has existed on the wide 

 earth, a more perfect type of dauntless courage than such 



