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 



