Following These English Greyhounds - Which Have Such Wonderful Speed And Keenness Of Sight - After Big Game On Vast Plains, Is Very Different From Running After The Slow Hounds And Foxes In The East, And Requires A Very Much Faster Horse And Quite Superior Riding.

One has to learn to ride a horse - to get a perfect balance that makes it a matter of indifference which-way the horse may jump, at any speed - in fact, one must become a part of one's mount before these hunts can be attempted.

Chasing wolves and rabbits is not as dangerous, for they cannot begin to run as fast as antelope. And it is great fun to chase the big jack-rabbits. They know their own speed perfectly and have great confidence in it. When the hounds start one he will give one or two jumps high up in the air to take a look at things, and then he commences to run with great bounds, with his enormously long ears straight up like sails on a boat, and almost challenges the dogs to follow. But the poor hunted thing soon finds out that he must do better than that if he wishes to keep ahead, so down go the ears, flat along his back, and stretching himself out very straight, goes his very fastest, and then the real chase is on.

But Mr. Jack-Rabbit is cunning, and when he sees that the long-legged dogs are steadily gaining upon him and getting closer with every jump, he will invariably make a quick turn and run back on his own tracks, often going right underneath the fast-running dogs that cannot stop themselves, and can only give vicious snaps as they jump over him. Their stride - often fifteen and twenty feet - covers so much more ground than the rabbit's, it is impossible for them to make as quick turns, therefore it is generally the slow dog of the pack that catches the rabbit.

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