154 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



packs, including perhaps a couple of grey- 

 hounds, a wire-haired deer-hound, and two or 

 three long-legged mongrels. However, we 

 generally had at least one very fast and sav- 

 age dog a strike dog in each pack, and the 

 others were of assistance in turning the game, 

 sometimes in tiring it, and usually in helping 

 to finish it at the worry. With such packs I 

 have had many a wildly exciting ride over 

 the great grassy plains lying near the Little 

 Missouri and the Knife and Heart rivers. 

 Usually our proceedings on such a hunt were 

 perfectly simple. We started on horseback 

 and when reaching favorable ground beat 

 across it in a long scattered line of men and 

 dogs. Anything that we put up. from a fox 

 to a coyote or a prong-buck, was fair game, 

 and was instantly followed at full speed. The 

 animals we most frequently killed were jack- 

 rabbits. They always gave good runs, though 

 like other game they differed much individu- 

 ally in speed. The foxes did not run so 

 well, and whether they were the little swift, or 

 the big red prairie fox, they were speedily 

 snapped up if the dogs had a fair showing. 

 Once our dogs roused a blacktail buck close 

 up out of a brush coulie where the ground was 

 moderately smooth, and after a headlong chase 

 of a mile they ran into him, threw him, and 

 killed him 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. 



