60 THE COW-CATCHER, 



At Altoona, then, I took up my quarters for a couple 

 of days, and, for the first time during my visit to the 

 United States of America, my baggage at that time not 

 having overtaken me, I borrowed a serviceable-looking 

 double shot-gun of mine host, ordered my setter and 

 retriever to be got ready, and prepared for sport. 



On the morning after my arrival at Altoona, and after 

 a very good bed, splendid cold bath, and a breakfast 

 very well waited on, accompanied by a lad from the 

 hotel, and my two favourite dogs, Brutus and Chance, I 

 set forth to wander in the Land of Liberty wheresoever 

 the leg listeth. In the cloudless sky the sun shone with 

 intensity, and to escape the haunts of men I had to walk 

 up the railway, through the cottages of the town 

 children, pigs, and dogs playing on the line between the 

 rails, and not a fence on either side to keep off the 

 cattle. Some of the cornfields abutting on the line were 

 protected with the usual zigzag pile of wooden rails, so 

 put up for the want of nails ; but these fields were not so 

 much fenced with an idea to the retention of their own 

 cattle as to keep out the cattle of others straying upon 

 the line a waif-and-stray custom which suggested to 

 the go-a-head mind of the locomotive maker or engineer 

 that admirable appendage to the front of the engine in 

 America, called the " cow-catcher," which so far sur 

 passes the two irons that are supposed to clear the rail 

 for the wheels in England. The " cow-catcher" is a 

 strong iron fence, or set of bars, springing out from the 

 engine in front of both fore wheels, and projecting in a 

 sort of continuous half circle in front of the carriage; 

 and the advantage that it has over the English projec 

 tion is, that when it catches any of the larger animals, 

 or horse or cow, for whom it is specially designed, it 



