WOLF-COURSING 



103 



scattered out, the wonderfully quick cow-ponies, brought 

 up in this country and spending all their time among the 

 prairie-dog towns, were able, even while running at 

 headlong speed, to avoid the holes with a cleverness that 

 was simply marvellous. During our hunt but one horse 

 stepped in a hole; he turned a complete somerset, though 

 neither he nor his rider was hurt. Stunted mesquite 

 bushes grew here and there in the grass, and there was 

 cactus. As always in prairie-dog towns, there were bur- 

 rowing owls and rattlesnakes. We had to be on our 

 guard that the dogs did not attack the latter. Once we 

 thought a greyhound was certainly bitten. It was a very 

 fast blue bitch, which seized the rattler and literally 

 shook it to pieces. The rattler struck twice at the bitch, 

 but so quick were the bitch's movements that she was not 

 hit either time, and in a second the snake was not merely 

 dead, but in pieces. We usually killed the rattlers with 

 either our quirts or ropes. One which I thus killed was 

 over five feet long. 



By rights there ought to have been carts in which the 

 greyhounds could be drawn until the coyotes were sighted, 

 but there were none, and the greyhounds simply trotted 

 along beside the horses. All of them were fine animals, 

 and almost all of them of recorded pedigree. Coyotes 

 have sharp teeth and bite hard, while greyhounds have 

 thin skins, and many of them were cut in the worries. 

 This was due to the fact that only two or three of them 

 seized by the throat, the others taking hold behind, which 

 of course exposed them to retaliation. Few of them 

 would have been of much use in stopping a big wolf. 



