The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-07
HUNTING THE LEOPARD CAT.
A Feline of the Rio Grande Country
 That is Full of Fight.


 A Feline of the Rio Grande Country
 That is Full of Fight.
 Tar as the eye can reach on either hand stretches sea of mesquite, pillow upon pillow. The foam of these waves is light green in color and moves errat- ically in the wind and Is tossed wildly toward the sky, Huge cacti, twenty five feet high, rear ungainly forms amid foliage The broad-leaved cactus, which bears and edible fruit that gives a person chills and fever after the first eating and leaves an eternal hankering for more; the finger" cactus, that stands straight and slender; the "snake' cactus, that is trained like vine; the rock" cactus, that grows in limestone crevices; the Spanish dagger" the most cruel of plants; the ''pitaya eac- tus, whose apple Is of a delieiousness past description, and the 'nigger-head' cactus, round, wolly, clump-like, help to make up the tangle Woven in them, ihoSsSt etipuiil lllcIll III WpilOIOQo PIo- fusion, is the 'chaparral," or "cat- claw wild sage, ratama, huisache, blackthorn, and hundred different va rieties of shrubs Every growing thing bears thorn. Through this mass of barbed vegetation the hunters are to force their way. When the chase is ended the chests and knees of the horses will drip blood If broad stir rups are not used, the very soles of mems boots will be ripped away The country Is the Rio Grande country, and the quarry is the leopard cat.
 The wildcast of that section are of two kinds--the ordinary dirty colored 'bobtail" which is sneak thief and q robber and the beautifully marked "leopard' which is a warrior born. There is nothing in nature to exceed the ferocity of this small animal when it turns in the open, facing a dozen hounds, and gives battle for it's life. The skin is almost a reproduction of the leopard from which 1t is named, black spots upon a brilliantly tawny ground. It is about three feet from tip to tip and will weigh about thirty
 
 and owing to its habitat, always in the deepest of the tangled wilderness. is difficult to capture. It's food is birds, rabbits and such things. As 1t is life long enemy of the blue quail, the people hunt 1t savagely. It goes without say ingthat the man who pursues it must be a part of his horse. The city rider, with twenty Inches of pig skin under him, would be ''lest at the post" The horses are trained to the work, wonder fully active and enduring. Driven at full speed into a mass of. cactus, they will stop, throw their heads down, arch their backs and deliberately buck" out of it. Anyone who. has, sat a bucking pony will know that he was kept too busy to think of anything other than sticking on. When a horse of this kind dies and Is skinned, as sometimes hap pens, the foreIegs from knee to hoof show a yellow network of cactus needles an eighth of an inch thick--three or four millions of them, more or less. l The only hound in the southwest Is a mongreI. The straight bred deer hound is practically unknown. Deer are "still hunted" The "cat dogs" as they are called, are of small value. Anybody can gather pack for the asking They makeup in ferocity and noise what they lack in nose. Sensitive nostrils are not of great worth, as the cat leaves a | strong trail The dogs are of all sizes and ages, shambling, ill-bilt, ill-condi- | toned creatures, but hardy, speedy and | of good tongue. There is not great difference between them and the cactus wolf The music that they make In full cry is the. best part of them. In one pack, owned by Si Wilkinson of La Sale county, was a dog named Ranger, who had a heavy basso bay, and a fe- male named Mollie, whose voice was a high clear tenor. These two when they struck a trail really and truly sang. Their notes harmonized and the effect was odd and bewitching.
 It is early morning of a summer day and the riders and dogs are gathered at | the edge of the ocean brush" which rolls for league on league westward to | the bank of the turbid river. Slowly they work into the wall of thorns. and the dogs hurry to and fro whining. l A half mile is traversed, the horsemen | keeping as well up as possible. Sudden ly the pack bursts into full cry and is away The cat has jumped. By the speed of the hounds it Is more than a quarter mile in advance, and we shall have short, sharp run. The horses crash into the undergrowth and follow fast Each of the men sits in the high horned Texas saddle. The stirrups are six inches wide at the bottom and made of wood. The legs of every man is en- cased in heavy leathern waistless trous- CTS as a protection from the barbs of the plants. The horses, which know
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