WITH HOUND 
or four thousand feet. In color they 
are uniformly gray, spotted and mar- 
bled to some extent with black and 
darker gray, the whole shading into a 
sort of roan on the back, but nowhere 
approaching the rufous markings of the 
lowland lynx. This animal is more 
often seen than any other of the West- 
ern cats, not excepting the mountain 
lion, and is the better game for the 
sportsman, either on horseback after 
hounds or at the sport of still-hunting 
—which is and always will be the 
crowning test of the hunter’s art. 
Some day, when I get a little more time 
and can go out and make some pictures 
to show just what kind of conditions 
we outdoors dwellers have to go 
against here in the Southwest, I am 
going to tell about two or three trips 
I have made still-hunting those little 
wolves of the mesas hereabout, the 
coyotes. But for now, to the cats! 
I doubt if anywhere else in the Union 
but in southern California is the hunt- 
ing of wild-cats with hounds regularly 
carried on as a sport. At Santa Ana, 
Orange county, California, however, 
there is a club of more than two score 
members organized for this purpose, 
holding their meetings in April, I be- 
lieve, at the Orange County park, in 
the mouth of the beautiful Santiago 
cafion, wherein lies Helena Modjeska’s 
delightful home, Arden. Practical ex- 
perience among the members of this 
club and among scattering outside 
hunters as well, has shown that the 
country and the game make peculiar 
demands on both dogs and horses. In 
some localities where the cats run, 
whole townships will be covered with 
jagged rocks of various sizes; in other 
sections the underbrush will be so 
thick that it is impossible even for the 
trained cow-ponies to force their way 
through it. This makes the running of 
the dogs much harder than it ever is 
over the grain fields and the fallow 
lands of the South. Dogs of the very 
best of hound blood, brought here from 
famous breeders in Kentucky, have 
been totally unable to keep up with 
AND WILD-CAT 
567 
very mediocre country-bred dogs of 
the local breed. In coursing coyotes, 
which run over more open country, I 
have no doubt that these Eastern dogs 
would pick up more of the little wolves 
than our dogs, but they cannot even 
disturb the calm way of the average 
wild-cat’s life, let alone make him take 
to a tree. 
The ideal dog of this country is 
short and stout of limb, built close to 
the ground; muscular yet not too 
heavy, with powerful jaws, able to kill 
his cat once treed; and not afraid of the 
“sassiest’’ wild-cat that ever breathed. 
To a dog who has been in the habit of 
running helpless foxes all his life, the 
business end of one of the larger Cali- 
fornia lynxes must look very bad, and 
I have known more than one good 
trailer to turn tail at sight of it. I 
think a wounded lynx, cornered, is the 
worst fighter out of doors. 
These dogs of the Southwest are 
deeper throated than the Eastern 
hounds. Not that their notes are more 
sweet, but they are more strong, they 
seem to have. greater carrying power. 
And they must have, for much of their 
baying is done from the depths of 
steep-sided cafions where no ordinary- 
voiced hound could make an impression 
on the silence. Oftentimes a bulldog 
is carried by one or more members of 
the hunt, so he may be in to do the 
killing, but there has lately been bred 
up a pack of dogs whose lineage I do 
not exactly know, and whose beginning 
is said to have been quite accidental. 
They are good, steady runners, not 
quite so strong of nose as the regular 
hounds, but much more skilled fighters. 
I am showing a picture of these, and 
they seem to have Great Dane blood in 
them as well as some hound. My 
friend who has them is some miles 
away at the present writing, but I hope 
to learn from him later the crossing of 
these, that is, provided he himself 
knows. In many ways they seem to 
fill the bill exactly, and, with the addi- 
tion of two, or three experienced 
hounds to do the actual trailing, would 
