ANIMAL RENEGADES. l j^ 



with snorts that leave no doubt of their evil intentions. 

 This rancor seems to be aggravated by a sort of esprit 

 de corps, for in private life wild and tame beasts of the 

 same species agree well enough and even pair, voluntary 

 alliances between a dog and a female dingo, wild and 

 tame hogs, mares and mustangs, etc., are by no means 

 rare, but en masse their caste antagonism promptly as- 

 serts itself; just as a man may be the bosom friend of 

 a partisan whose greeting in a public assembly he would 

 hesitate to acknowledge : during the fever-heat of our 

 sectional feud more than one dweller in Dixie thought 

 it his duty to ku-klux his own brother. The only 

 animal I ever saw torn literally into shreds was a 

 Mexican butcher-dog that had followed us across the 

 Bolson de Mapimi, the rocky plateau between the plain 

 of Durango and the valley of the Rio Grande. The 

 dog's owner, a poor Chinaco, had tried hard to sell him, 

 but finally decamped with my partner's saddle-blanket, 

 leaving his mastiff in lieu of payment; and, in accordance 

 with a queer but well-known law of human nature, the 

 poor quadruped then became the target of retributive 

 attacks both verbal and practical ; but, apparently mis- 

 taking our tent-wagon for the lurking-place of his miss- 

 ing master, he followed us with the resignation of a 

 martyr. The Bolson is a ravinous country, and on the 

 day after the Chinaco's departure we passed a precipi- 

 tous gully at a place where a broken wheel and a lot of 

 scattered boards marked the scene of a recent accident. 



