A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 145 



We started after breakfast, riding powerful 

 cow-ponies, well trained to gallop at full speed 

 through the dense chaparral. The big black 

 hound slouched at our heels. We rode down 

 the banks of the Nueces, crossing and recross- 

 ing the stream. Here and there were long, 

 deep pools in the bed of the river, where 

 rushes and lilies grew and huge mailed garfish 

 swam slowly just beneath the surface of the 

 water. Once my two companions stopped to 

 pull a mired cow out of a slough, hauling 

 with ropes from their saddle horns. In places 

 there were half-dry pools, out of the regular 

 current of the river, the water green and fetid. 

 The trees were very tall and large. The 

 streamers of pale gray moss hung thickly from 

 the branches of the live-oaks, and when many 

 trees thus draped stood close together they 

 bore a strangely mournful and desolate look. 



We finally found the queer little hut of the 

 Mexican goat-herder in the midst of a grove 

 of giant pecans. On the walls were nailed 

 the skins of different beasts, raccoons, wild- 

 cats, and the tree-civet, with its ringed tail. 

 The Mexican's brown wife and children were 

 in the hut, 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 

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