FOREST AND STREAM. 
426 
load of antelope brought into the post at Fort Concho. 
Spot had got them all, not a shot being fired. 
I had been told that no hound would run a prairie 
wolf. Few hounds will, but 1 thought I had one that 
would, and sent Spot after them. He would hunt them 
if I sent him, but never went of his own accord. When 
passing them in sight, he would look at me, and if I 
stopped and said go, he went, but not before. But for a 
rabbit or deer he never had to be told to go. He caught 
and held the wolf just as he did the antelope, only taking 
care in case of the wolf to get hold of it close to its head, 
where it could not bite him. Then i would ride up and 
release the wolf. I did not want his skin, and made it a 
rule not to kill anything, even a non-poisonous snake or a 
'coon, that was harmless when alive and no use to me 
when dead; and when I had any authority over enlisted 
men, as 1 often had, I would not let one of them shoot a 
coyote if the skin was not wanted. I have poisoned my 
share of them when I coitld use their skins. 
With the big timber or loper wolf it is different. I shot 
them on sight if I could get within range of them. I 
killed a big loper once after I had run him two miles; 
then finding that I could not get in close enough to him 
without hurting my horse, I let him go, or he thought I 
did. Then, while he was busy watching for me to come 
the way he had gone, I rode around on his flank and 
shot him, , _ ,,,-'48 
The coyotes would come into camp after nighi and eat 
the kraps off of any saddle that did not have a man sleep - 
ing on it. We had to keep men sleeping on our packs 
at night to keep the wolves away from them. 1 was 
wakened up one night by having my saddle dragged from 
under my head, and I got up just in time to claim it; a 
coyote had it and I could not shoot him here. I wanted 
to do it badly enough, but did not want to raise an alarm 
in camp. 
S'pot would catch a buffalo as fast as he would any 
other animal ; he began on them himself before I thought 
of sending him after them. Then I would send him when 
I wanted a laugh. He caught them where he did the rab- 
bit, and an old bull when he found himself caught would 
whirl around to charge; but Spot would not be there 
then, and after the bull had got tired chasing him and 
had resumed his line of march, Spot would grab h'm 
again in the old place, then let go and get back and datice 
around just out of the buffalo's reach, and keep this up 
all day if 1 did not call him off.- 1 often thought the dog 
was laughing as hard as I was ; he looked as if he were. 
When he was two years old my time in this troop was 
up, and I got ready to leave. I meant to take service as a 
cowboy down the country, and was going to take Spot 
with me; but the men had begged me to leave him, and i 
did so on their promise never to part with him. I should 
not have left him even then, but I did not really know 
when leaving here where I was going to. I might go 
north, and could not take him if I did, and did not want to 
leave him among strangers. Being a cowboy did not suit 
me, and I was only one for two months, then enlisted in 
another troop of this same regiment. I never got out of 
the regiment in ray twenty years. 
Two years after leaving Spot I was on escort dut^" on 
a mail route, the mail being carried on buckboard wagons 
drawn by two mules. The man on escort and the driver 
were the only two occupants of the wagon. We drove 
into the mail station a mile from Fort Concho one after- 
noon, the first time I had been here since two years be- 
fore. I noticed about a dozen greyhounds in the stabk 
yard here, one of them a big white one, and as I got down 
off the wagon, this one making a rush at me, got on his 
hind legs, then placing a paw on eacli of my shoulders 
began to lick my face, an old trick of Spot's. It was he, 
and he knew me the instant he saw me again. He had 
not seen me for two years now. 
"That dog seems to know you," the manager said, 
"'He ought to; I raised him. How came he here?" 
"Colonel Ficklin has him; he paid a cavalry troop $2$ 
for him ; he would not take one hundred for him now." 
"Well, if I had him again he would not get him for a 
Inmdred dollars," I told him. 
A hundred dollars for a dog might seem a big price to a 
man who only earned $i8 a month, his board and clothes 
tnd medical attendance in case of sickness, to quote from 
the i^ecruiting office hand bills, and I never needed that 
medical attendance either, but when I said I would not 
take that hundred dollars for him now if I had him, I 
meant every word of it. 
Colonel Ficklin was a large mail contractor; he had 
about all there was in that line in tliis country then. He 
was a fine old fellow whom I knew very well. He made 
his headquarters in W'ashington, and died there some 
years ago suddenly, at a hotel dining table, I was told. 
He paid regular visits here, bringing his friends with 
him, and kept Spot to hxmt wolves for him. They would 
go out on horseback after night, and when Spot pulled the 
wolf down the colonel would put his brand on tiim, cut 
the wolf's tail off, then let him go. The country here was 
full of wolves carrying Ficklin's brand. 
I afterward found out, when it was too late, that he 
had not paid a cent for Spot. The dog and half a dozen 
others had been given him by the troop when they left the 
Concho. The troop had a whole pack of them then, Nel- 
lie, Spot's mother, was to blame for the most of them 
being there. She contributed from three to half a dozen 
every year. The captain was absent when his troop left 
the Concho or Ficklin would not have got many grey- 
hounds. The captain thought as much of a dog as I did, 
and knew a great deal more about one than 1 did; but 
he was away oft' in his estimate of Spot, and said so after- 
ward. 
Spot and I put in all this afternoon hunting jack rab- 
bits, both of us on foot, and when we were ready to leave 
next morning Spot sat at the corral gate here looking on. 
1 knew why he was here. "You had better tie that dog 
up," I told the manager, "he will follow roe" 
"You could not get that dog to follow you now, and 
.^tay with you if you tried. There is no danger of his 
following you." 
"You will have another guess in about ten minutes," I 
thought. I took my seat and we started. These bronco 
mules were supposed lo be half broken, some were, others 
of them were not. To get them harnessed and hooked 
to a wagon they would have to be lashed to a post; then 
when all was ready, one rope was taken off the mule's 
neck, the rope on the other mule passed to the escort to 
help choke them down if needed, and the mules taking the 
road now, would strike a tei'-mile gait and never atop 
short of the next station, thirty or forty miles away. 
There was thirty miles between some, forty between oth- 
ers. They could not be stopped ; but they could be driven 
in a circle, and when one of us had occasion to get out of 
the wagon, he fell off behind, then the other man drove in 
a circle until the first one had caught on behind and got in 
again. I have driven one of those teams half a dozen 
times in a circle before I could pick up the driver, when 
he had got off. These drivers were worked half to death, 
and finding that I could drive, they often would hand 
me the lines when clear of the station, then lie down on 
the mail sacks, after telling me not to hurry the mules, 
and go to sleep. 
1 would not hurry them until we struck a sandy road, 
tlien hauling in on the lines hard enough to stop any de- 
cent mule. It only made them run faster, and I would 
send them through that sand at a iS-mile-an-hour clip. 
This is the kind of a team we had to-day, and as soon 
as they struck the road they were oft'. So was Spot. 
The men ran after him, calling him, but he paid no 
attention to them. 
"Keep on," 1 told the driver, "Never mind those men. 
I want that dog. He will follow me to Chadbourne, 
now." 
He would follow me to the place the preachers tell us 
about, if there is such a place, and 1 were going there. 
"i dare not go on, I would be discharged if 1 did," he 
told me. 
"Then circle, of course. I don't want you to suffer." 
He made a circle of a quarter of a mile, and as we 
swept past the corral gate again they got Spot. 
Even after that, when I was there. Spot was always 
tied up before I left. 
When Spot was six years old I heard from him again. 
There was a troop of ours at the Concho, and I corre- 
sponded with a sergeant in it. He told me that Spot paid 
regular visitis to the post and that he had been out with 
them on a scout for two weeks. Fie would always follow 
a mounted party and remain with it. 
This troop was about to change stations and come to 
us~ at Fort Richardson, half-way across the State. I 
saw a way now to get Spot, and wrote to this sergeant 
telling him if he could possibly get Spot to bring him, and 
I would pay him %20 tor his trouble. 
Spot came mto the Concho a day or two before this 
troop left, and the sergeant tied him up in the stable; 
J;hen when they were ready to leave, turned him loose 
to follow. When half way up to our post they marched all 
day in a cold rain storm, and lay over next day, it being 
Sunday, to dry out. Here Spot took sick and in an hour 
was dead. , . 
The sergeant had a grave dug for him, and haa a cairn 
of loose stones built over his grave to keep the wolves 
from him. I got the location of his grave from the ser- 
geant, and a few months afterward, when down here in 
charge of a wagon train and its escort, I camped here, and 
finding that the grave was in a spot that could never be 
used tor any purpose — it was on the bank of a creek at 
the foot of a rocky hill — I cleaned the loose stones off 
the grave, then had a heavy fiag stone carried down oft' 
the hill and put it on top of his grave. Then, while at 
the Concho, I made a small chisel, and when camping 
here on our return, with this chisel and a small hatchet 
that I always carried in my saddle pocket, I cut on the 
SPOT. 
Born January, 1867. 
Died March, 1873. 
I was about to cut a cross on the stone to prevent any 
stray Indian from digging here to see what was under 
it, for a Comanche will not disturb a grave that is 
marked with a cross ; and about the only Indians that ever 
came here were Comanches; and we had them pretty 
well cleared out now. But a friend here objected; he 
was a- Catholic and did not want to see the cross on a 
dog's grave. , • 
"I would not put it on every dog's grave," I told him, 
"but you knew Spot." Nearly every man who had been 
in the regiment in the last six years knew him. He still 
objected, and I left the cross off. 
I always thought that Spot understood every word I 
said and that he could count. These dogs, while they are 
very gentle, I never knew one which was ill tempered, 
are not credited with having much intelligence, and have 
little sense of smell. I had always given Spot the credit 
of being a cross and not a full blooded hound; his size 
and the shape of his head made me think so ; he had a 
hound's nose but his head was higher and wider. 
I had a doctor who was a good naturalist, a correspon- 
dent for the Smithsonian Institution, examine him. He 
told me that Spot was not a mongrel at all, but a full 
greyhound, and that he had brains enough for two dogs. 
I saw him do a trick once that gave me a higher re- 
o-ard for his intelligence. It will hardly be believed, but 
I will give it. In the field he always slept at my saddle, 
and as these saddles were all alike, I often wondered how 
he knew mine. Unless we had some mark about them 
we often could not find them in a moment ourselves. 
Yet he could go straight to mine any time. The leather 
hoods on the stirrups are generally too short when issued. 
I had cut mine off and put on a pair twice as long, but 
others- had them as long as mine. . , , , ^■ 
I had two small silver stars^n the outside of each stir- 
rup. They took the place qf the copper rivets there, and 
no one else had any like .^ein, they had cost me two dol- 
lars, and most men did not..care to put that amount on a 
government saddle. ^Jpr 
We were on a scout, an<T while in camp one evening 
I noticed Spot examining the saddles; he would walk 
past each one, look at it, then go to another, and kept 
this up some time. My saddle lay by itself, and I had 
the stirrups both laid on top with the blanket folded and 
laid on top of them, covering them. He finally stopped 
in front of the saddle, then pushing the blanket off with 
his nose, looked at the stirrups, then lay down. If he 
was not looking for those stars, what was he huntii^g for? 
Cabia Blanco. 
Trent and Tributaries. 
The gray dawn was forcing a light through the heavy 
mists, and a deep chill was in the air. Up the river the 
boat was swiftly paddled, and, as the light grew,' tlie 
waters sparkled like molten silver. The gnarled oak 
seemed clad in lace mantiil as, so soft was the effect of 
Spanish mosses, that clung to them so affectidnat^hr. 
Peering in the wooded depths one conjectured the delight 
of an encounter with Bruin, or the antlered monarch' of 
these wilds; again, the visions of vanishing turkey wohld 
be forced upon our vivid imagination, until the hist of 
the boatman gave wai'ning of our real intentions. Afar 
in the hazy distance a dark blot appeared, following the 
river's couFse, and on a direct line with our boat, but 
high in air; swift as an arrow the line came nearer and 
nearer, and now the supreme moment arrives. Holding 
well ahead of the leader, we see the third bird drop slow- 
ly backward, and soon with set wings go hurtling to the 
waters below. What delight fills one to have the first shot 
of the morning successful ? This bird is gathered, fondly 
examined and carefully laid away with the hope that it 
will soon have companfons; this success was mere acci- 
dent, as the birds are wary, and seldom under such con- 
ditions does one secure a shot within range. On and on 
m the morning's silence, past marshes where the waters 
swirl in great pools and eddies, making no sound, but we 
are ever on the alert for our quarry; now a bird rises 
from the dark marsh and cleverly swings to the stern of 
our little craft. My boatman is not quick to meet the 
condition, so no shot is fired, it being impossible to turn in 
the cramped quarters of the bow ; another bird rises, fol- 
lowed by still another, and two beautiful misses are 
scored. Yet is not the crisp morning air filling our lungs, 
giving us new vigor, new life, brushing the cobwebs from 
our brain, and making us well content to live over such 
glorious days in sweet reminiscence? Now a little creek 
is entered where the branches overarch and intertwine; 
the silence is oppressive; the paddle falls with precision, 
every turn reveals new beauties as the sun gleams through 
the overhanging shadows; every sense is alert and the 
tension is to the point of breaking. With swift-beating 
pinions a wood duck strives ro break through the heavy 
mass above, and succeeds only partially, as a snap shot, 
that will live while memory lasts, brings him to earth. 
After much labor he is placed beside his less handsome 
fellow, and admired as the most beautiful of his kind. 
Here is every hue of the rainbow : glowing iridescence 
at every turn, the most harmonious blending of gorgeous 
coloring ever conceived by the wonder worker of nature. 
A few shots are secured with indifferent success, as the 
biting cold and the long hours in one position incapacitate 
a novice from the possibility of a clean score. We lunch 
in an old field, shielded from the wind by a great oak, and 
endeavor to relieve our rigid muscles by violent exercise 
immediately, after our meal, but the fascination of pursuit 
will not allow a long rest. Positions are again taken in 
our contracted craft (a small boat only being practicable 
for river or creek shooting in this locality), and the sinu- 
ous windings of the stream followed, till a narrow creek • 
is found; this being entered, soon widens to a lag:oon, 
and, on making a sliarp turn, we suddenly flush a flock 
of mallards. Great was the consternation both of the 
ducks and shooter, and the first barrel was a sure case of 
duck fever; but nerves being suddenly controlled, the sec- 
ond secures a magnificent specimen of a male bird, "en- 
larging the bag to three. As the dying sound of wings 
portrayed the departure of the flock to less troublous 
waters, we began the return journey in mid-afternoon, 
floating lazily along with the current, turning in the like- 
ly looking places, but (Juite content with the small show- 
ing made. 
As the evening shadows fell, great banks of murky 
clouds loomed up beyond the receding woodlands, 
through which the dying sun pierced the waters. Here 
was light, there was shadow, and all about the silent 
world; no human sound reached our ears, no cry of beast 
or bird, no sail appeared, no hunter's craft cleaved these 
waters save our own ; yet the lights, the shadows, and the 
silence, filled my soul with delight; far from the ceaseless 
sounds of strife, near to nature's heart, near to the real 
life. The wharf is reached, and soon the hotel, and then 
after a hasty toilet the inner man appeased. A recital of 
the day's experience follows with fellow members of the 
craft, then to rest, and pleasant dreams. Again the waters 
curl at the boat's prow, ripples rush hurriedly away, and 
then die in the water's vast expanse. The swish of wings 
is to us sweeter than the music of harpsichord, and the 
day is repeated, delight upon delight; overwrought, nerves 
are restored to healthful conditions, over-tired brains find 
rest and peace, and we feel again the true joy of living, 
Edward Havens Goodnough. 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., New 
York, and not to any individual connected with the swper. 
— » 
The Hermit Crab. 
The war lately waged in the various warm and pep- 
pery Spanish islands had a chapter of crabs contributed 
not only from Cuba, but from the Ladrones and the 
Philippines as well. In every report, save those which 
have passed strictly "through military channels," as the 
regulations phrase it, it was made clear that the Variety 
of indigenous crabs aroused as much wonder as disgust. 
The operations about Santiago gave the soldiers an 
opportunity to watch the land crabs taking vengeance 
for many a soft shell or a shedder which had been em- 
ployed for the nutrition and the appetite of man. If 
some sentry, keen to watch the lines and to recognize the 
slightest indication of the approach of the enemy, had 
turned out the guard to resist no more deadly attack than 
the nocturnal march of the land crabs, he could not have 
been ridiculed. The same marauders have turned out 
guards before this last war; it is a matter of history that 
they caused a terror-stricken flight of a British army in 
the same province. The noise in the jungle was so 
alarming that the British were sure they were facing a 
vastly superior force having also the advantage of posi- 
tion. Rather than accept battle tinder such -adverse con- 
drtions, the invaders decamped in a hurry, routed by the 
land crabs. 
