h one forefinger, and returning with noiseless gait
to his chair, unmoved, and making no comment. On the morning of a hunt
he would always appear on a stout horse, clad in a long linen duster, a
huge club in his hand, and his trousers working half-way up his legs.
He hunted everything on all possible occasions; and he never under any
circumstances shot an animal that the dogs could kill. Once when a skunk
got into his house, with the direful stupidity of its perverse kind, he
turned the hounds on it; a manifestation of sporting spirit which roused
the ire of even his long-suffering wife. As for his dogs, provided they
could run and fight, he cared no more for their looks than for his own;
he preferred the animal to be half greyhound, but the other half could
be fox-hound, colley, or setter, it mattered nothing to him. They were
a wicked, hardbiting crew for all that, and Mr. Cowley, in his flapping
linen duster, was a first-class hunter and a good rider. He went almost
mad with excitement in every chase. His pack usually hunted coyote, fox,
jack-rabbit, and deer; and I have had more than one good run with it.

My own experience is too limited to allow me to pass judgment with
certainty as to the relative speed of the different beasts of the chase,
especially as there is so much individual variation. I consider the
antelope the fleetest of all however; and in this opinion I am sustained
by Col. Roger D. Williams, of Lexington, Kentucky, who, more than any
other American, is entitled to speak upon coursing, and especially upon
coursing large game. Col. Williams, like a true son of Kentucky, has
bred his own thoroughbred horses and thoroughbred hounds for many
years; and during a series of long hunting trips extending over nearly
a quarter of a century he has tried his pack on almost every game animal
to be found among the foot-hills of the Rockies and on the great plains.
His dogs, both smooth-haired greyhounds and rough-coated deer-hounds,
have been bred by him for generations with a special view to the chase
of big game--not merely of hares; they are large animals, excelling not
only in speed but in strength, endurance, and ferocious courage. The
survivors of his old pack are literally seamed all over with the scars
of innumerable battles. When several dogs were together they would stop
a bull-elk, and fearlessly assail a bear or cougar. This pack scored
many a triumph over blacktail, whitetail, and prong-buck. For a few