Hunting with Hounds 185 



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. Cow- 

 ley, 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 hunt 

 ing field but in the startling political conven 

 tions of the place and period. He was quite 

 well off, but he was above the niceties of per 

 sonal 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 discon 

 certing way of suddenly tip-toeing across the 

 room to some unfamiliar object, such as a pea 

 cock screen or a vase, feeling it gently with one 

 forefinger, and returning with noiseless gait 

 to his chair, unmoved and making no comment. 

 On the morning of a hunt he would always ap 

 pear on a stout horse, clad in a long linen 

 duster, a huge club in his hand, and his trousers 

 working half-way up his legs. He hunted 

 everything on all possible occasions; and he 

 never under any circumstances shot an animal 

 that the dogs could kill. When a skunk got 

 into his house, with the direful stupidity of its 



