156 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



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 

 peacock screen or a vase, feeling it gently 

 with one forefinger, and returning with noise- 

 less gait to his chair, unmoved, and making 

 no comment. On the morning of a hunt he 

 would always appear 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 occa- 

 sions ; and he never under any circumstances 

 shot an animal that the dogs could kill. Once 

 when a skunk got into his house, with the 

 direful stupidity of its perverse kind, he turned 

 the hounds on it ; a manifestation of sporting 

 spirit which aroused the ire of even his long- 

 suffering wife. As for his dogs, provided 

 they could run and fight, he cared no more 

 for their looks than for his own ; he preferred 



