WOLF-COURSING 121 



trict at once if they are molested. Coyotes are more or 

 less plentiful everywhere throughout the West in thinly 

 settled districts, and they often hang about in the 

 immediate neighborhood of towns. They do enough 

 damage to make farmers and ranchers kill them when- 

 ever the chance offers. But this damage is not appreci- 

 able when compared with the ravages of their grim big 

 brother, the gray wolf, which, wherever it exists in num- 

 bers, is a veritable scourge to the stockmen. 



Colonel Lyon's hounds were, as I have said, used 

 chiefly after jack-rabbits. He had frequently killed coy- 

 otes with them, however, and on two or three occasions 

 one of the big gray wolves. At the time when he did 

 most of his wolf-hunting he had with the greyhounds a 

 huge fighting dog, a Great Dane, weighing one hundred 

 and forty-five pounds. In spite of its weight this dog 

 could keep up well in a short chase, and its ferocious tem- 

 per and enormous weight and strength made it invaluable 

 at the bay. Whether the quarry were a gray wolf or 

 coyote mattered not in the least to it, and it made its 

 assaults with such headlong fury that it generally escaped 

 damage. On the two or three occasions when the animal 

 bayed was a big wolf the greyhounds did not dare tackle 

 it, jumping about in an irregular circle and threatening 

 the wolf until the fighting dog came up. The latter at 

 once rushed in, seizing its antagonist by the throat or 

 neck and throwing it. Doubtless it would have killed 

 the wolf unassisted, but the greyhounds always joined in 

 the killing; and once thrown, the wolf could never get 

 on his legs. In these encounters the dog was never seri- 



