40 TJie Wilderness Hunter. 



one whereon the house itself stands, there are a good many 

 whitetail yet left. 



When we take a day's regular hunt we usually wander 

 afar, either to the hills after blacktail or to the open prairie 

 after antelope. But if we are short of meat, and yet have 

 no time for a regular hunt, being perhaps able to spare 

 only a couple of hours after the day's work is over, then all 

 hands turn out to drive a bottom forwhitetail. We usually 

 have one or two trackhounds at the ranch ; true southern 

 deer-hounds, black and tan, with lop ears and hanging lips, 

 their wrinkled faces stamped with an expression of almost 

 ludicrous melancholy. They are not fast, and have none 

 of the alert look of the pied and spotted modern foxhound ; 

 but their noses are very keen, their voices deep and mel- 

 low, and they are wonderfully staunch on a trail. 



All is bustle and laughter as we start on such a hunt. 

 The baying hounds bound about, as the rifles are taken 

 down ; the wiry ponies are roped out of the corral, and each 

 broad-hatted hunter swings joyfully into the saddle. If 

 the pony bucks or " acts mean " the rider finds that his rifle 

 adds a new element of interest to the performance, which 

 is of course hailed with loud delight by all the men on quiet 

 horses. Then we splash off over the river, scramble across 

 the faces of the bluffs, or canter along the winding cattle 

 paths, through the woods, until we come to the bottom we 

 intend to hunt. Here a hunter is stationed at each runway 

 along which it is deemed likely that the deer will pass ; and 

 one man, who has remained on horseback, starts into the 

 cover with the hounds ; occasionally this horseman himself, 

 skilled, as most cowboys are, in the use of the revolver, 



