142 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



Having satisfied myself that there were no 

 javalinas left on the Frio ranch, and being 

 nearly at the end of my holiday, I was about 

 to abandon the effort to get any, when a 

 passing cowman happened to mention the fact 

 that some were still to be found on the Nueces 

 River thirty miles or thereabouts to the south- 

 ward. Thither I determined to go, and next 

 morning Moore and I started in a buggy 

 drawn by a redoubtable horse, named Jim 

 Swinger, which we were allowed to use be- 

 cause he bucked so under the saddle that 

 nobody on the ranch could ride him. We 

 drove six or seven hours across the dry, 

 waterless plains. There had been a heavy 

 frost a few days before, which had blackened 

 the budding mesquite trees, and their twigs still 

 showed no signs of sprouting. Occasionally 

 we came across open spaces where there was 

 nothing but short brown grass. In most 

 places, however, the leafless, sprawling mes- 

 quites were scattered rather thinly over the 

 ground, cutting off an extensive view and 

 merely adding to the melancholy barrenness of 

 the landscape. The road was nothing but a 

 couple of dusty wheel-tracks ; the ground was 

 parched, and the grass cropped close by the 

 gaunt, starved cattle. As we drove along 

 buzzards and great hawks occasionally soared 

 overhead. Now and then we passed lines of 

 wild-looking, long-horned steers, and once we 

 came on the grazing horses of a cow-outfit, 

 just preparing to start northward over the 

 trail to the fattening pastures. Occasionally 



