IIO WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



worthy relative exhibited. The house was enormously 

 large half ruinous and all, within and without, wild, 

 rackety, and irregular. There was a troop of idle and 

 slatternly servants of both sexes, distracting every part 

 of the establishment : and a pack of useless dogs 

 infesting the premises, and crossing you at every turn. 

 Between the biped and quadruped nuisances an eternal 

 war was carried on, and not an hour of the day elapsed, 

 but a canine outcry announced that some of those 

 unhappy curs were being ejected by the butler, or 

 pelted by the cook. 



" So common-place was this everlasting uproar, 

 that after a few days I almost ceased to notice it. I 

 was dressing for dinner, when the noise of dogs quarrel- 

 ling in the yard, brought me to the window ; a terrier 

 was being worried by a rough, savage-looking fox- 

 hound, whom I had before this noticed and avoided. 

 At the moment my host was crossing from the stable ; 

 he struck the hound with his whip, but, regardless of 

 the blow, he continued his attack upon the smaller 

 dog. The old butler, in coming from the garden, 

 observed the dogs fighting, and stopped to assist in 

 separating them. Just then, the brute quitted the 

 terrier, seized the master by the leg, and cut the servant 

 in the hand. A groom rushed out on hearing the 

 uproar, struck the prongs of a pitchfork through the dog's 

 body, and killed him on the spot. This scene occurred 

 in less time than I have taken in relating it. 



" I hastened from my dressing-room ; my host had 

 bared his leg, and was washing the wound, which was 

 a jagged tear from the hound's tooth. Part of the 

 skin was loose, and a sudden thought appeared to strike 

 him. He desired an iron to be heated ; took a sharp 



