Iv THE HOUND OF THE PLAINS 103 
night, that a band of coyotes was on the hunt in 
the neighborhood ; and were aroused before day- 
light next morning by the sudden outburst from 
their clamorous throats. 
“Their musical cry, reckless and unguarded 
now, resounded from hill to hill, and echoed in the 
deep forest. All at once it burst upon the ear, as 
if some messenger from the front had just arrived. 
Past the lower ridge, down the forest to our left, 
swept the pack, each hound seeming to rival the 
other in noisy glee. Across the wind they gal- 
loped, and the rising gusts bore to us that cheery 
music long after they had passed far away through 
the long glades and green savannahs.” 
It is plain that an Englishman wrote that para- 
graph. No one but a fox-hunter could take and 
communicate such enjoyment from a chorus of 
wolfish notes. 
Expecting their return, the hunter placed himself 
at sunrise on a ridge overlooking Lake Nicaragua, 
and makes us envy him by his description of the 
scene, ‘‘of a grandeur and variety and loveliness,” 
he exclaims, “not to be surpassed in any Eden 
of the world.” . 
“ At length,” he continues, “I fancied the breeze 
brought a faint clamor, as of dogs upon the scent. 
Five minutes more and a tall buck, his coat all 
staring and wet, his tongue hanging low, bounded 
across a rocky stream choked with big-leaved plants, 
which intersected one of the glades within my sight. 
