404 The Wilderness Hunter. 



guided aright by the baying of the hounds, and their pres- 

 ence would give confidence to the latter and make them 

 ready to rout the wolves out of the thicket, which they 

 would probably have shrunk from doing alone. There was 

 a moment's pause of expectation after the Judge entered 

 the thicket with his hounds. We sat motionless on our 

 horses, eagerly looking through the keen fresh morning 

 air. Then a clamorous baying from the thicket in which 

 both the horseman and dogs had disappeared showed that 

 the hounds had struck the trail of their quarry and were 

 running on a hot scent. For a couple of minutes we could 

 not be quite certain which way the game was going to 

 break. The hounds ran zigzag through the brush, 

 as we could tell by their baying, and once some yelping 

 and a great row showed that they had come rather closer 

 than they had expected upon at least one of the wolves. 



In another minute, however, the latter found it too 

 hot for them and bolted from the thicket. My first notice 

 of this was seeing the cowboy, who was standing by the 

 side of his horse, suddenly throw up his rifle and fire, 

 while the greyhounds who had been springing high in the 

 air, half maddened by the clamor in the thicket below, for 

 a moment dashed off the wrong way, confused by the 

 report of the gun. I rode for all I was worth to where 

 the cowboy stood, and instantly caught a glimpse of two 

 wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which having been turned 

 by his shot had started straight over the hill across the 

 plain toward the mountains three miles away. As soon 

 as I saw them I saw also that the rearmost of the couple 

 had been hit somewhere in the body and was lagging 



