35 6 The Wilderness Hunter. 



but the man himself and the goats were off in the forest, 

 and it took us three or four hours' search before we found 

 him. Then it was nearly noon, and we lunched in his 

 hut, a square building of split logs, with bare earth floor, 

 and roof of clap-boards and bark. Our lunch consisted of 

 goat's meat and pan de mais. The Mexican, a broad- 

 chested man with a stolid Indian face, was evidently quite 

 a sportsman, and had two or three half-starved hounds, 

 besides the funny, hairless little house dogs, of which 

 Mexicans seem so fond. 



Having borrowed the javalina hound of which we 

 were in search, we rode off in quest of our game, the two 

 dogs trotting gayly ahead. The one which had been 

 living at the ranch had evidently fared well, and was very 

 fat ; the other was little else but skin and bone, but as 

 alert and knowing as any New York street-boy, with the 

 same air of disreputable capacity. It was this hound 

 which always did most in finding the javalinas and bring- 

 ing them to bay, his companion's chief use being to make 

 a noise and lend the moral support of his presence. 



We rode away from the river on the dry uplands, where 

 the timber, though thick, was small, consisting almost 

 exclusively of the thorny mesquites. Mixed among them 

 were prickly pears, standing as high as our heads on horse- 

 back, and Spanish bayonets, looking in the distance like 

 small palms ; and there were many other kinds of cactus, 

 all with poisonous thorns. Two or three times the dogs 

 got on an old trail and rushed off giving tongue, whereat 

 we galloped madly after them, ducking and dodging 

 through and among the clusters of spine-bearing trees 



