n6 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



The third day we started out as usual, the chuck 

 wagon driving straight to a pool far out on the prairie, 

 where we were to meet it for lunch. Chief Quanah's 

 three wives had joined him, together with a small boy 

 and a baby, and they drove in a wagon of their own. 

 Meanwhile the riders and hounds went south nearly to 

 Red River. In the morning we caught four coyotes and 

 had a three miles run after one which started too far 

 ahead of the dogs, and finally got clean away. All the 

 four that we got were started fairly close up, and the run 

 was a breakneck scurry, horses and hounds going as hard 

 as they could put feet to the ground. Twice the cowboys 

 distanced me; and twice the accidents of the chase, the 

 sudden twists and turns of the coyote in his efforts to take 

 advantage of the ground, favored me and enabled me to 

 be close up at the end, when Abernethy jumped off his 

 horse and ran in to where the dogs had the coyote. 

 He was even quicker with his hands than the wolf's 

 snap, and in a moment he always had the coyote by the 

 lower jaw. 



Between the runs we shogged forward across the great 

 reaches of rolling prairie in the bright sunlight. The air 

 was wonderfully clear, and any object on the sky-line, no 

 matter how small, stood out with startling distinctness. 

 There were few flowers on these dry plains ; in sharp con- 

 trast to the flower prairies of southern Texas, which we 

 had left the week before, where many acres for a stretch 

 would be covered by masses of red or white or blue or yel- 

 low blossoms the most striking of all, perhaps, being the 

 fields of the handsome buffalo clover. As we plodded 



