56 ABOUT THE CAYEUTES. 



traveller with foaming jaws and glaring eyes, and with a 

 deep harsh growl, which betrays the mingled feelings of 

 cowardice and audacity. 



It is very difficult to ensnare the cayeutes, but they are 

 frequently hunted with dogs and horses. Their skin is 

 of a dull reddish colour, mixed with white and gray hairs. 

 Such is their ordinary colour ; but, as in other animals, 

 the varieties are numerous. Their bushy tail, black at 

 the tip, is nearly as long as one-third of their whole body. 

 They closely resemble the dogs which one sees in the 

 Indian wigwams, and which are certainly descended from 

 the same species. We meet with them in the regions 

 between the Mississippi and the Pacific, and to the south 

 of Mexico. They hunt in troops, like jackals, and pursue 

 goats and bisons, and such other animals as they think 

 they can master. They do not dare to attack a herd of 

 bisons, but follow them in numerous bands until some 

 straggler falls off from the main body a young calf, for 

 example, or an old male then they pounce upon him, 

 and rend him in pieces. They accompany the caravans 

 of travellers or parties of hunters, take possession of the 

 camps which they abandon, and devour the fragments of 

 the morning or evening meal. Sometimes they steal into 

 the encampment during the night, and seize the rations 

 put aside by the emigrants for the morrow's breakfast. 

 These thefts sometimes exasperate their victims, and, 

 growing less greedy of powder and shot, they pursue them 

 with resolute anger until several of the depredators have 

 bit the dust. 



This species of wolf is the most numerous of all the 

 American carnivora, and hence the cayeutes are not in- 

 frequently decimated by famine. Then, but only then, 



