WILD BULLS. 189 



" beef" when they wanted meat, and when we went to a 

 settler who owned several thousand head of cattle and asked 

 if we might kill an old bull now and then for our dogs, he 

 said we were the first men who had ever come to ask leave, 

 everyone killing what he thought proper. Some of the bulls 

 are very dangerous to a man on foot at certain seasons of 

 the year, and no Texan will go among them unless he is 

 mounted. 



F was stalking some fine turkeys one day, when he 



heard a noise behind him, and found a bull working himself 

 up for a charge, pawing the ground and lashing his sides with 

 his tail, and he had to shoot the bull instead of the turkeys. 

 I was once charged by one a white one, I remember ; he came 

 straight at me when I was snipe-shooting, and I had to kill 

 him with snipe shot, firing both barrels at once, and making a 

 hole in his forehead into which I could have put three fingers ; 

 he fell so close to me that he threw the mud all over me, 

 and I had to jump back to avoid being knocked down. 



Having so many dogs in camp, we could consume a great 

 deal of meat, and very little was wasted. The cattle were 

 small, and one lasted us only about three days. The Texans 

 kept a great number of large dogs, of no particular breed, 

 using them for holding their hogs by the ear while they were 

 either branded or killed, and these being very fierce caused us 

 a great deal of trouble, fighting with our pointers and setters 

 and laming them. To prevent this we bought a large dog, 

 part bull, as a sort of guardian for the others. He rejoiced 

 in the name of " Booze," so christened by his late master 

 Billy Breeze, of whom we bought him. This dog was the best 

 fighter I ever saw, as he would face any number of other 



