io8 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



in advance, made good its escape, as all the dogs promptly 

 tackled the rearmost, tumbling it over into a rather deep 

 pool. The scuffling and splashing told us what was going 

 on, and we reined our horses short up at the brink of 

 the cut bank. The water had hampered the dogs in kill- 

 ing their quarry, only three or four of them being in the 

 pool with him; and of those he had seized one by the 

 nose and was hanging on hard. In a moment one of the 

 cowboys got hold of him, dropped a noose over his head, 

 and dragged him out on the bank, just as the buggy came 

 rattling up at full gallop. Burnett and the general, tak- 

 ing advantage of the curve in our course, had driven 

 across the chord of the arc, and keeping their horses at a 

 run, had seen every detail of the chase and were in at the 

 death. 



In a few minutes the coyote was skinned, the dogs 

 rested, and we were jogging on once more. Hour after 

 hour passed by. We had a couple more runs, but in each 

 case the coyote had altogether too long a start and got 

 away; the dogs no longer being as fresh as they had been. 

 As a rule, although there are exceptions, if the grey- 

 hounds cannot catch the coyote within two or three miles 

 the chances favor the escape of the little wolf. We found 

 that if the wolf had more than half a mile start he got 

 away. As greyhounds hunt by sight, cut banks enable the 

 coyote easily to throw off his pursuers unless they are 

 fairly close up. The greyhounds see the wolf when he is 

 far off, for they have good eyes ; but in the chase, if the 

 going is irregular, they tend to lose him, and they do not 

 depend much on one another in recovering sight of him; 



