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Philip Seamark

Beginning DAX with Power BI

The SQL Pro’s Guide to Better Business
Intelligence
Philip Seamark
UPPER HUTT, New Zealand

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​9781484234761 . For
more detailed information, please visit http://​www.​apress.​com/​
source-code .

ISBN 978-1-4842-3476-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-3477-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3477-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937896

© Philip Seamark 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book.

Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a
trademarked name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and
images only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the
trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the
trademark. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks,
service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as
such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or
not they are subject to proprietary rights.

While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true
and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the
editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any
errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no
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corporation.
To Grace, Hazel, Emily
. . . and of course Rebecca.
Foreword
Power BI has changed the definition of business intelligence (BI)
tools. Taking tools that were historically reserved for data scientists
and making them easy to use and economically available to business
analysts has enabled an entire culture of self-service BI. This book is
doing the same for data access programming. It breaks complex
concepts into simple, easy-to-understand steps and frames them in
a business context that makes it easy for you to start learning the
DAX language and helps you solve real-world business challenges on
a daily basis.
—Charles “Chuck” Sterling (of Microsoft).
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Marco Russo, Alberto Ferrari, and Chris Webb for
providing many years of high-quality material in the world of
business intelligence.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 :​Introduction to DAX

What Is DAX?​

What Is a Data Model?​

Components of a DAX Data Model

Data

Tables

Columns

Relationships

Measures

Hierarchies

Your First DAX Calculation

Your First Calculation

IntelliSense

Formatting

Comments

Your Second DAX Calculation

Your Third DAX Calculation

The CALENDARAUTO Function

 Datatypes

The Whole Number Datatype

The Decimal and Fixed Decimal Number Datatype

Date and DateTime

Time

Operators

Arithmetic Operators

Comparison Operators

Concatenation Operator

Logical Operators

Operator Precedence

Relationships

Types of Relationships

Hierarchies

Chapter 2 :​Variables

Variable Structure

Using Variables with Text

Using Variables in Calculated Columns

Using Variables in Calculated Measures

Using Variables in Calculated Tables

 Debugging Using Variables

Nesting Variables

Nested Variables (Complex)

Chapter 3 :​Context

Filter Context

Implicit Filter Context

Explicit Filter Context

Calculated Column

Calculated Measure

Hardcoded Example

Row Context

Iterators

How Data Is Stored in DAX

Column Indexes

Context Transition

Chapter 4 :​Summarizing and Aggregating

The SUMMARIZE Function

Relationships

SUMMARIZE with a Filter

The SUMMARIZECOLUMNS​Function
 SUMMARIZECOLUMNS​with a Filter

The GROUP BY Function

The CURRENTGROUP() Function

GROUPBY Iterators

The GROUPBY Double Aggregation

GROUPBY with a Filter

Subtotal and Total Lines

The ISSUBTOTAL Function

Chapter 5 :​Joins

Joins in DAX

Standard Relationship

How to Join Tables Without a Relationship

The CROSSJOIN and GENERATE Functions

CROSSJOIN

GENERATE

NATURALINNERJOIN​and NATURALLEFTOUTER​JOIN

Lineage

UNION

LOOKUPVALUE

Chapter 6 :​Filtering
 Implicit Filtering

Explicit Filtering

The FILTER Function

Filters and Calculated Tables

Chapter 7 :​Dates

Date

Time

Date/​Calendar Tables

Automatic Date Tables

Quick Measures

Sorting by Columns

Including the Year When Using Month

Time Intelligence

Year to Date

Period Comparisons

The Rolling Average

Rolling Your Own Table

CALENDAR

CALENDARAUTO

Expanding the Date Table

 Adding the Year

Fiscal Year

Days from Today

Weekly Buckets

Is Working Day

Weekday Name

Rolling Your Own—Summary

Optimizing Dates

Chapter 8 :​Debugging and Optimizing

Debugging in DAX

Debugging Using Columns

Debugging Using Variables

Debugging Calculated Measures

External Tools

Optimizing

Optimizing Data Models

Chapter 9 :​Practical DAX

Creating a Numbers Table

Adding a Date Table

Creating the Sales Table

 Optimizing Sales

Calculated Columns vs.​Calculated Measures

Calculated Columns

Calculated Measures

Show All Sales for the Top Ten Products

Double Grouping

Index
About the Author and About the
Technical Reviewer
About the Author
Philip Seamark
is an experienced Data Warehouse and
Business Intelligence consultant with a deep
understanding of the Microsoft stack and
extensive knowledge of Data Warehouse
methodologies and enterprise data modeling.
He is recognized for his analytical,
conceptual, and problem-solving abilities and
has more than 25 years of commercial
experience delivering business applications
across a broad range of technologies. His
expertise runs the gamut from project
management, dimensional modeling, performance tuning, ETL
design, development and optimization, and report and dashboard
design to installation and administration.
In 2017 he received a Microsoft Data Platform MVP award for his
contributions to the Microsoft Power BI community site, as well as
for speaking at many data, analytic, and reporting events around the
world. Philip is also the founder and organizer of the Wellington
Power BI User Group.

About the Technical Reviewer

Jeffrey Wang
stumbled upon Power BI technologies by accident in 2002 in the
suburbs of Philadelphia, fell in love with the field, and has stayed in
the BI industry ever since. In 2004, he moved his family across the
continent to join the Microsoft Analysis Services engine team as a
software engineer just in time to catch the tail end of SQL Server
2005 Analysis Services RTM development. Jeffrey started off with
performance improvements in the storage engine. After he found
that users desperately needed faster MDX (Multidimensional)
calculations, he switched to the formula engine and participated in
all the improvements to MDX afterward. He was one of the inventors
of the DAX programming language in 2009 and has been driving the
progress of the DAX language since then. Currently, Jeffrey is a
principal engineering manager in charge of the DAX development
team and is leading the next phase of BI programming and its
modeling evolution.
© Philip Seamark 2018
Philip Seamark, Beginning DAX with Power BI, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4842-3477-8_1

1. Introduction to DAX
Philip Seamark1
(1) UPPER HUTT, New Zealand

The aim of this book is to help you learn how you can use the DAX
language to improve your data modelling capability using tools such
as Microsoft Power BI, Excel Power Pivot, and SSAS Tabular. This
book will be particularly useful if you already have a good knowledge
of T-SQL, although this is not essential.
Throughout the book, I present and solve a variety of scenarios
using DAX and provide equivalent T-SQL statements primarily as a
comparative reference to help clarify each solution. My personal
background is as someone who has spent many years building
solutions using T-SQL, and I would like to share the tips and tricks I
have acquired on my journey learning DAX with those who have a
similar background. It’s not crucial for you to be familiar with T-SQL
to get the best out of this book because the examples will still be
useful to someone who isn’t. I find it can be helpful to sometimes
describe an answer multiple ways to help provide a better
understanding of the solution.
In this book, I use Power BI Desktop as my primary DAX engine
and most samples use data from the WideWorldImportersDW
database, which is freely available for download from Microsoft’s
website. This database can be restored to an instance of Microsoft
SQL Server 2016 or later. I am using the Developer edition of SQL
Server 2016.
 I recommend you download and install the latest version of
Power BI Desktop to your local Windows PC. The download is
available from powerbi.microsoft.com/desktop, or you can
find it via a quick internet search. The software is free to install and
allows you to load data and start building DAX-based data models in
a matter of minutes.
The WideWorldImportersDW database is clean, well-organized,
and an ideal starting point from which to learn to data model using
DAX.
The aim of this first chapter is to cover high-level fundamentals
of DAX without drilling into too much detail. Later chapters explore
the same fundamentals in much more depth.

What Is DAX?
Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) is both a query and functional
language. It made its first appearance back in 2009 as part of an
add-in to Microsoft Excel 2010. The primary objective of DAX is to
help organize, analyze, understand, and enhance data for analytics
and reporting.
DAX is not a full-blown programing language and does not
provide some of the flow-control or state-persistence mechanisms
you might expect from other programming languages. It has been
designed to enhance data modeling, reporting, and analytics. DAX is
constantly evolving with new functions being added on a regular
basis.
DAX is described as a functional language, which means
calculations primarily use functions to generate results. A wide
variety of functions are provided to help with arithmetic, string
manipulation, date and time handling, and more. Functions can be
nested but you cannot create your own. Functions are classified into
the following categories:
DateTime
Filter
 Info
Logical
Mathtrig
ParentChild
Statistical
Text
There are over 200 functions in DAX. Every calculation you write
will use one or more of these. Each function produces an output
with some returning a single value and others returning a table.
Functions use parameters as input. Functions can be nested so the
output of one function can be used as input to another function.
Unlike T-SQL, there is no concept of INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE
for manipulating data in a data model. Once a physical table exists in
a Power BI, SSAS Tabular, or Excel PowerPivot data model, DAX
cannot add, change, or remove data from that table. Data can only
be filtered or queried using DAX functions.

What Is a Data Model?

A data model is a collection of data, calculations, and formatting
rules that combine to create an object that can be used to explore,
query, and better understand an existing dataset. This can include
data from many sources.
Power BI Desktop, SSAS Tabular, and PowerPivot for Excel can
import data from a wide variety of data sources including databases
and flat files or directly from many source systems. Once imported,
calculations can be added to the model to help explore and make
sense of the data.
Data is organized and stored into tables. Tables are two
dimensional and share many characteristics with databases tables.
Tables have columns and rows, and relationships can be defined
between tables to assist calculations that use data from multiple
tables. Calculations can be as simple as providing a row count over a
table or providing a sum of values in a column. Well-considered
calculations should enhance your data model and support the
process of building reports and performing analytical tasks known as
measures .
It’s the combination of data and measures that become your data
model.
The Power BI Desktop user interface consists of three core
components. First, the Report View provides a canvas that lets you
create a visual layer of your data model using charts and other
visuals. Report View also lets you control the layout by dragging,
dropping, and resizing elements on the report canvas. It’s the canvas
that is presented to the end user when they access the report.
The second component is the Data View, which provides the
ability to see raw data for each table in the model. Data View can
show data for one table at a time and is controlled by clicking the
name of a table from the list of tables in the right-hand panel.
Columns can be sorted in this view, but sorting here has no impact
on any sorting by visuals on the report canvas. Columns can be
renamed, formatted, deleted, hidden, or have their datatype defined
using the Report View. A hidden column will always appear in the
Report View but not in any field list in the report.
It’s possible to add or change calculations from both Report and
Data View.
The last component of the Power BI Desktop user interface is the
Relationship View . This section shows every table in the data model
and allows you to add, change, or remove relationships between
tables.

Components of a DAX Data Model

The DAX data modeling engine is made up of six key components.

Data
The first step of building a data model is importing data. A wide
variety of data sources are available, and once they are imported,
they will be stored in two-dimensional tables. Sources that are not
two dimensional can be used, but these will need to be converted to
a two-dimensional format before or during import. The query editor
provides a rich array of functions that help with this type of
transformation.

Tables
Tables are objects used to store and organize data. Tables consist of
columns that are made up of source data or results of DAX
calculations.

Columns
Each table can have one or more columns. The underlying data
engine stores data from the same column in its own separate index.
Unlike T-SQL, DAX stores data in columns rather than in rows. Once
data has been loaded to a column, it is considered static and cannot
be changed. Columns can also be known as fields.

Relationships
Two tables can be connected via a relationship defined in the model.
A single column from each table is used to define the relationship.
Only one-to-many and one-to-one relationships are supported.
Many-to-many relationships cannot be created. In DAX, the most
common use of relationships is to provide filtering rather than to
mimic normalization of data optimized for OLTP operations .

Measures
A measure is a DAX calculation that returns a single value that can
be used in visuals in reports or as part of calculations in other
measures. A measure can be as simple as a row count of a table or
sum over a column. Measures react and respond to user interaction
and recalculate as a report is being used. Measures can return new
values based on updates to the selection of filters and slicers.
Hierarchies
Hierarchies are groupings of two or more columns into levels that
can be drilled up/down through by interactive visuals and charts. A
common hierarchy might be over date data that creates a three-level
hierarchy over year, month, and day. Other common hierarchies
might use geographical data (country, city, suburb), or structures
that reflect organizational groupings in HR or Product data.

Your First DAX Calculation

It’s possible to import data and have no need to write in DAX. If
data is clean and simple and report requirements are basic, you can
create a model that needs no user-created calculations. Numeric
fields dragged to the report canvas will produce a number.
If you then drag a non-numeric field to the same visual, it
automatically assumes you would like to group your numeric field by
the distinct values found in your nonnumeric field. The default
aggregation over your numeric field will be SUM. This can be
changed to another aggregation type using the properties of your
visual. Other aggregation types include AVERAGE, COUNT, MAX, MIN
and so on.
In this approach, the report creates a DAX-calculated measure on
your behalf. These are known as implicit measures . Dragging the
‘Fact Sale’[Quantity] field to the canvas automatically generates the
following DAX statement for you:

CALCULATE(SUM('Fact Sale'[Quantity]))

This calculation recomputes every time a slicer or filter is

changed and should show values relevant for any filter settings in
your report.
Most real-world scenarios require at least some basic
enhancements to raw data, and this is where adding DAX
calculations can improve your model. When you specifically create
calculated measures, these are known as explicit measures .
 Some of the most common enhancements are to provide the
ability to show a count of the number of records in a table or to sum
values in a column.
Other enhancements might be to create a new column using
values from other columns in the same row, or from elsewhere in
the model. A simple example is a column that multiplies values from
columns such as Price and Qty together to produce a total. A more
complicated example might use data from other tables in a
calculation to provide a value that has meaning to that row and
table.
Once basic count or sum calculations have been added, more
sophisticated calculations that provide cumulative totals, period
comparisons, or ranking can be added.
These are the three types of calculations in DAX:
Calculated columns
Calculated measures
Calculated tables
We explore each of these calculations in more detail later in this
book and I include hints on how and when you might choose one
type over another.

Note Calculated tables (tables that are the result of a DAX

calculation) can only be created in the DAX engine used by Power
BI Desktop and SSAS Tabular.

Your First Calculation

The first example I cover creates a simple calculated measure using
data from the WideWorldImportersDW database (Figure 1-1). The
dataset has a table called ‘Fact Sale’ that has a column called [Total
Including Tax]. The calculation produces a value that represents a
sum using values stored in this column.
Figure 1-1 A sample of data from the ‘Fact Sale’ table
When viewing this table in Data View, we see the unsummarized
value for each row in the [Total Including Tax] column. A calculated
measure is required to show a single value that represents a sum of
every row in this column.
In Power BI, you can create a calculated measure using the
ribbon, or by right-clicking the table name in the Report View or
Data View. This presents an area below the ribbon where you can
type the DAX code for your calculation. The text for this calculated
measure should be

Sum of Total including Tax = SUM('Fact

Sales'[Total Including Tax])

This should look as it does in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 DAX for the first calculated measure. This calculation uses the SUM function
to return a single value anywhere the calculated measure is used in the report. When
dragged and dropped to the report canvas using a visual with no other fields or filters, the
value should show as $198,043,493.45.
 The structure of the formula can be broken down as follows:
starting from the left, the first part of the text sets the name of the
calculated measure. In this case, the name is determined by all text
to the left of the = operator. The name of this calculated measure is
[Sum of Total including Tax]. Names of calculated measures should
be unique across the model including column names .
This name is how you will see the measure appear in the field list
as well as how it may show in some visuals and charts.

Note Spaces between words are recommended when creating

names for calculated measures and columns. Avoid naming
conventions that use the underscore character or remove spaces
altogether. Use natural language as much as possible. Use names
that are brief and descriptive. This will be especially helpful for
Power BI features such as Q&A.

The = sign separates the calculation name from the calculation itself.
A calculated measure can only return a single value and never a list
or table of values. In more advanced scenarios, steps involving
groups of values can be used, but the result must be a single value.
All text after the = sign is the DAX code for the calculated
measure. This calculation uses the SUM function and a single
parameter, which is a reference to a column. The single number
value that is returned by the SUM function represents values from
every row from the [Total Including Tax] column added together.
The datatype for the column passed to the SUM function needs to be
numeric and cannot be either the Text or DateTime datatypes.
The notation for the column reference is fully qualified , meaning
it contains both the name of the table and name of the column. The
table name is encapsulated inside single quotations (‘ ’). This is
optional when your table name doesn’t contain spaces. The column
name is encapsulated inside square brackets ([ ]).
Calculated measures belong to a single table but you can move
them to a new home table using the Home Table option on the
Modeling tab. Calculated measures produce the same result
regardless of which home table they reside on.

Note When making references to other calculated measures in

calculations, never prefix them with the table name. However, you
should always include the name of a table when referencing a
column.

IntelliSense
IntelliSense is a form of predictive text for programmers. Most
modern programming development environments offer some form of
IntelliSense to help guide you as you write your code. If you haven’t
encountered this before, it is an incredibly useful way to help avoid
syntax errors and keep calculations well-formed.
DAX is no different, and as you start typing your calculation, you
should notice suggestions appearing as to what you might type next.
Tooltips provide short descriptions about functions along with details
on what parameters might be required.
IntelliSense also helps you ensure you have symmetry with your
brackets, although this can sometimes be confusing if you are not
aware it is happening.
IntelliSense suggestions can take the form of relevant functions,
or tables or columns that can be used by the current function.
IntelliSense is smart enough to only offer suggestions valid for the
current parameter. It does not offer tables to a parameter that only
accepts columns.
In the case of our formula, when we type in the first bracket of
the SUM function, IntelliSense offers suggestions of columns that
can be used. It does not offer tables or calculated measures as
options because the SUM function is only designed to work with
columns.

Formatting
As with T-SQL and pretty much any programming language, making
practical use of line spacing, carriage returns, and tabs greatly
improves readability and, more importantly, understanding of the
code used in the calculation. Although it’s possible to construct a
working calculation using complex code on just a single line, it is
difficult to maintain. Single-line calculations also lead to issues
playing the bracket game .

Note The bracket game is where you try to correctly pair

open/close brackets in your formula to produce the correct result.
Failure to pair properly means you lose the game and your
formula doesn’t work.

A good tip is to extend the viewable area where you edit your
calculation before you start by repeating the Shift-Enter key
combination multiple times or by clicking the down arrow on the
right-hand side.

Comments
Comments can also be added to any DAX calculation using any of
the techniques in Table 1-1.
Table 1-1 How to Add Comments

Comment Effect
Characters
// Text to the right is ignored by DAX until the next carriage
return.
-- Text to the right is ignored by DAX until the next carriage
return.
/* */ Text between the two stars is ignored by DAX and comments
can span multiple lines.

Examples of ways you can add comments are shown in Figure 1-

3 as is an example of how spacing DAX over multiple lines helps
increase readability.
 By formatting code and adding comments you help to make the
logic and intent of the function easier to understand and interpret
for anyone looking at the calculation later.

Figure 1-3 Commented text styles and usage of line breaks

A nice alternative to the formula bar in Power BI Desktop and

SSAS Tabular, is DAX Studio, which is a free product full of features
designed to help you develop and debug your calculations. I provide
a more detailed look at DAX Studio in Chapter 8.

Your Second DAX Calculation

In this second example, I create a calculated column as opposed to
a calculated measure. A Chapter 9 provides more detailed advice on
when you should consider using a calculated column instead of a
calculated measure, but in short, a calculated column adds a column
in an existing table in which the values are generated using a DAX
formula.
A simple calculation might use values from other columns in the
same row. This example uses two columns from the ‘Fact Sale’ table
to perform a simple division to return a value that represents an
average unit price.
To add this calculation to your data model, select the ‘Fact Sale’
table in the Fields menu so it is highlighted. Then use the New
Column button on the Modeling tab and enter the text shown in
Figure 1-4.

Figure 1-4 A calculated column for [Average Item Price]

Note This formula works without the table name preceding

each column name; however, it is highly recommended that
whenever you reference a column, you always include the table
name. This makes it much easier to differentiate between
columns and measures when you are debugging longer DAX
queries.

The code in Figure 1-4 adds a new column to the ‘Fact Sale’ table
called [Average Item Price]. The value in each cell of the new
column (see Figure 1-5) is the output of this calculation when it is
executed once for every row in the table.
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with Unrelated Content
young, but had no newly born cub; sometimes bear breed only every
other year, but I have found the mother accompanied not only by her
cub but by her young of the year before. The yearling also had
nothing but buds in its stomach. When its skin was taken off, Stewart
looked at it, shook his head, and turning to Lambert said solemnly,
“Alex., that skin isn’t big enough to use for anything but a doily.”
From that time until the end of the hunt the yearlings were only
known as “doily bears.”
Next morning we again went out, and this time for twelve hours
steadily, in the saddle, and now and then on foot. Most of the time
we were in snow, and it was extraordinary that the horses could get
through it at all, especially in working up the steep mountain-sides.
But until it got so deep that they actually floundered—that is, so long
as they could get their legs down to the bottom—I found that they
could travel much faster than I could. On this day some twenty good-
natured, hard-riding young fellows from the ranches within a radius
of a dozen miles had joined our party to “see the President kill a
bear.” They were a cheerful and eagerly friendly crowd, as hardy as
so many young moose, and utterly fearless horsemen; one of them
rode his wild, nervous horse bareback, because it had bucked so
when he tried to put the saddle on it that morning that he feared he
would get left behind, and so abandoned the saddle outright.
Whenever they had a chance they all rode at headlong speed, paying
no heed to the slope of the mountain-side or the character of the
ground. In the deep snow they did me a real service, for of course
they had to ride their horses single file through the drifts, and by the
time my turn came we had a good trail.
 A DOILY BEAR

From a photograph,
copyright, 1905, by
Alexander Lambert,
M.D.

After a good deal of beating to and fro, we found where an old she-
bear with two yearlings had crossed a hill during the night and put
the hounds on their tracks. Johnny and Jake, with one or two of the
cowboys, followed the hounds over the exceedingly difficult hillside
where the trail led; or rather, they tried to follow them, for the
hounds speedily got clear away, as there were many places where
they could run on the crust of the snow, in which the horses
wallowed almost helpless. The rest of us went down to the valley,
where the snow was light and the going easier. The bear had
travelled hither and thither through the woods on the sidehill, and
the dogs became scattered. Moreover, they jumped several deer, and
four or five of the young dogs took after one of the latter. Finally,
however, the rest of the pack put up the three bears. We had an
interesting glimpse of the chase as the bears quartered up across an
open spot of the hillside. The hounds were but a short distance
behind them, strung out in a long string, the more powerful, those
which could do best in the snow bucking, taking the lead. We pushed
up the mountain-side after them, horse after horse getting down in
the snow, and speedily heard the redoubled clamor which told us
that something had been treed. It was half an hour before we could
make our way to the tree, a spruce, in which the two yearlings had
taken refuge, while around the bottom the entire pack was gathered,
crazy with excitement. We could not take the yearlings alive, both
because we lacked the means of carrying them, and because we were
anxious to get after the old bear. We could not leave them where they
were, because it would have been well-nigh impossible to get the
dogs away, and because, even if we had succeeded in getting them
away, they would not have run any other trail as long as they knew
the yearlings were in the tree. It was therefore out of the question to
leave them unharmed, as we should have been glad to do, and
Lambert killed them both with his revolver; the one that was first hit
immediately biting its brother. The ranchmen took them home to
eat.
The hounds were immediately put on the trail of the old one and
disappeared over the snow. In a few minutes we followed. It was
heavy work getting up the mountain-side through the drifts, but once
on top we made our way down a nearly bare spur, and then turned to
the right, scrambled a couple of miles along a slippery sidehill, and
halted. Below us lay a great valley, on the farther side of which a
spruce forest stretched up toward the treeless peaks. Snow covered
even the bottom of the valley, and lay deep and solid in the spruce
forest on the mountain-side. The hounds were in full cry, evidently
on a hot trail, and we caught glimpses of them far on the opposite
side of the valley, crossing little open glades in the spruce timber. If
the crust was hard they scattered out. Where it was at all soft they
ran in single file. We worked our way down toward them, and on
reaching the bottom of the valley, went up it as fast as the snow
would allow. Finally we heard the pack again barking treed and
started toward them. They had treed the bear far up the mountain-
side in the thick spruce timber, and a short experiment showed us
that the horses could not possibly get through the snow. Accordingly,
off we jumped and went toward the sound on foot, all the young
ranchmen and cowboys rushing ahead, and thereby again making me
an easy trail. On the way to the tree the rider of the bareback horse
pounced on a snowshoe rabbit which was crouched under a bush and
caught it with his hands. It was half an hour before we reached the
tree, a big spruce, up which the bear had gone to a height of some
forty feet. I broke her neck with a single bullet. She was smaller than
the one I had shot the day before, but full-grown. In her stomach, as
in those of the two yearlings, there were buds of rose-bushes and
quaking aspens. One yearling had also swallowed a mouse. It was a
long ride to camp, and darkness had fallen by the time we caught the
gleam from the lighted tents, across the dark stream.
With neither of these last two bear had there been any call for
prowess; my part was merely to kill the bear dead at the first shot, for
the sake of the pack. But the days were very enjoyable, nevertheless.
It was good fun to be twelve hours in the saddle in such wild and
beautiful country, to look at and listen to the hounds as they worked,
and finally to see the bear treed and looking down at the maddened
pack baying beneath.
For the next two or three days I was kept in camp by a touch of
Cuban fever. On one of these days Lambert enjoyed the longest hunt
we had on the trip, after an old she-bear and three yearlings. The
yearlings treed one by one, each of course necessitating a stoppage,
and it was seven in the evening before the old bear at last went up a
cottonwood and was shot; she was only wounded, however, and in
the fight she crippled Johnny’s Rowdy before she was killed. When
the hunters reached camp it was thirteen hours since they had left it.
The old bear was a very light brown; the first yearling was reddish-
brown, the second light yellowish-brown, the third dark black-
brown, though all were evidently of the same litter.
Following this came a spell of bad weather, snow-storm and
blizzard steadily succeeding one another. This lasted until my
holiday was over. Some days we had to stay in camp. On other days
we hunted; but there was three feet of new snow on the summits and
foothills, making it difficult to get about. We saw no more bear, and,
indeed, no more bear-tracks that were less than two or three weeks
old.
We killed a couple of bobcats. The chase of one was marked by
several incidents. We had been riding through a blizzard on the top
of a plateau, and were glad to plunge down into a steep sheer-sided
valley. By the time we reached the bottom there was a lull in the
storm and we worked our way with considerable difficulty through
the snow, down timber, and lava rock, toward Divide Creek. After a
while the valley widened a little, spruce and aspens fringing the
stream at the bottom while the sides were bare. Here we struck a
fresh bobcat trail leading off up one of the mountain-sides. The
hounds followed it nearly to the top, then turned and came down
again, worked through the timber in the bottom, and struck out on
the hillside opposite. Suddenly we saw the bobcat running ahead of
them and doubling and circling. A few minutes afterward the hounds
followed the trail to the creek bottom and then began to bark treed.
But on reaching the point we found there was no cat in the tree,
although the dogs seemed certain that there was; and Johnny and
Jake speedily had them again running on the trail. After making its
way for some distance through the bottom, the cat had again taken to
the sidehill, and the hounds went after it hard. Again they went
nearly to the top, again they streamed down to the bottom and
crossed the creek. Soon afterward we saw the cat ahead of them. For
the moment it threw them off the track by making a circle and
galloping around close to the rearmost hounds. It then made for the
creek bottom, where it climbed to the top of a tall aspen. The hounds
soon picked up the trail again, and followed it full cry; but
unfortunately just before they reached where it had treed they ran on
to a porcupine. When we reached the foot of the aspen, in the top of
which the bobcat crouched, with most of the pack baying beneath, we
found the porcupine dead and half a dozen dogs with their muzzles
and throats filled full of quills. Before doing anything with the cat it
was necessary to take these quills out. One of the terriers, which
always found porcupines an irresistible attraction, was a really
extraordinary sight, so thickly were the quills studded over his face
and chest. But a big hound was in even worse condition; the quills
were stuck in abundance into his nose, lips, cheeks, and tongue, and
in the roof of his mouth they were almost as thick as bristles in a
brush. Only by use of pincers was it possible to rid these two dogs of
the quills, and it was a long and bloody job. The others had suffered
less.
 THE BIG BEAR

From a photograph by
Philip B. Stewart

The dogs seemed to have no sympathy with one another, and

apparently all that the rest of the pack felt was that they were kept a
long time waiting for the cat. They never stopped baying for a
minute, and Shorty, as was his habit, deliberately bit great patches of
bark from the aspens, to show his impatience; for the tree in which
the cat stood was not one which he could climb. After attending to
the porcupine dogs one of the men climbed the tree and with a stick
pushed out the cat. It dropped down through the branches forty or
fifty feet, but was so quick in starting and dodging that it actually
rushed through the pack, crossed the stream, and, doubling and
twisting, was off up the creek through the timber. It ran cunning, and
in a minute or two lay down under a bush and watched the hounds as
they went by, overrunning its trail. Then it took off up the hillside;
but the hounds speedily picked up its track, and running in single
file, were almost on it. Then the cat turned down hill, but too late, for
it was overtaken within fifty yards. This ended our hunting.
One Sunday we rode down some six miles from camp to a little
blue school-house and attended service. The preacher was in the
habit of riding over every alternate Sunday from Rifle, a little town
twenty or twenty-five miles away; and the ranchmen with their wives
and children, some on horseback, some in wagons, had gathered
from thirty miles round to attend the service. The crowd was so large
that the exercises had to take place in the open air, and it was
pleasant to look at the strong frames and rugged, weather-beaten
faces of the men; while as for the women, one respected them even
more than the men.
In spite of the snow-storms spring was coming; some of the trees
were beginning to bud and show green, more and more flowers were
in bloom, and bird life was steadily increasing. In the bushes by the
streams the handsome white-crowned sparrows and green-tailed
towhees were in full song, making attractive music; although the
song of neither can rightly be compared in point of plaintive beauty
with that of the white-throated sparrow, which, except some of the
thrushes, and perhaps the winter wren, is the sweetest singer of the
Northeastern forests. The spurred towhees were very plentiful; and
one morning a willow-thrush sang among the willows like a veery.
Both the crested jays and the Woodhouse jays came around camp.
Lower down the Western meadow larks were singing beautifully, and
vesper finches were abundant. Say’s flycatcher, a very attractive bird,
with pretty, soft-colored plumage, continually uttering a plaintive
single note, and sometimes a warbling twitter, flitted about in the
neighborhood of the little log ranch houses. Gangs of blackbirds
visited the corrals. I saw but one song sparrow, and curiously
enough, though I think it was merely an individual peculiarity, this
particular bird had a song entirely different from any I have heard
from the familiar Eastern bird—always a favorite of mine.
While up in the mountains hunting, we twice came upon owls,
which were rearing their families in the deserted nests of the red-
tailed hawk. One was a long-eared owl, and the other a great horned
owl, of the pale Western variety. Both were astonishingly tame, and
we found it difficult to make them leave their nests, which were in
the tops of cottonwood trees.
On the last day we rode down to where Glenwood Springs lies,
hemmed in by lofty mountain chains, which are riven in sunder by
sheer-sided, cliff-walled canyons. As we left ever farther behind us
the wintry desolation of our high hunting-grounds we rode into full
spring. The green of the valley was a delight to the eye; bird songs
sounded on every side, from the fields and from the trees and bushes
beside the brooks and irrigation ditches; the air was sweet with the
spring-time breath of many budding things. The sarvice bushes were
white with bloom, like shadblow on the Hudson; the blossoms of the
Oregon grape made yellow mats on the ground. We saw the chunky
Say’s ground squirrel, looking like a big chipmunk, with on each side
a conspicuous white stripe edged with black. In one place we saw
quite a large squirrel, grayish, with red on the lower back. I suppose
it was only a pine squirrel, but it looked like one of the gray squirrels
of southern Colorado. Mountain mockers and the handsome, bold
Arkansaw king birds were numerous. The blacktail sage sparrow was
conspicuous in the sage-brush, and high among the cliffs the white-
throated swifts were soaring. There were numerous warblers, among
which I could only make out the black-throated gray, Audubon’s, and
McGillivray’s. In Glenwood Springs itself the purple finches, house
finches, and Bullock’s orioles were in full song. Flocks of siskins
passed with dipping flight. In one rapid little stream we saw a water
ousel. Humming-birds—I suppose the broad-tailed—were common,
and as they flew they made, intermittently and almost rhythmically,
a curious metallic sound; seemingly it was done with their wings.
But the thing that interested me most in the way of bird life was
something I saw in Denver. To my delight I found that the huge hotel
at which we took dinner was monopolized by the pretty, musical
house finches, to the exclusion of the ordinary city sparrows. The
latter are all too plentiful in Denver, as in every other city, and, as
always, are noisy, quarrelsome—in short, thoroughly unattractive
and disreputable. The house finch, on the contrary, is attractive in
looks, in song, and in ways. It was delightful to hear the males
singing, often on the wing. They went right up to the top stories of
the high hotel, and nested under the eaves and in the cornices. The
cities of the Southwestern States are to be congratulated on having
this spirited, attractive little songster as a familiar dweller around
their houses and in their gardens.
 CHAPTER III
WOLF-COURSING

On April eighth, nineteen hundred and five, we left the town of

Frederick, Oklahoma, for a few days’ coyote coursing in the
Comanche Reserve. Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M. Young, U. S. A., retired,
Lieutenant Fortescue, U. S. A., formerly of my regiment, and Dr.
Alexander Lambert, of New York, were with me. We were the guests
of Colonel Cecil Lyon, of Texas, of Sloan Simpson, also of Texas, and
formerly of my regiment, and of two old-style Texas cattlemen,
Messrs. Burnett and Wagner, who had leased great stretches of wire-
fenced pasture from the Comanches and Kiowas; and I cannot
sufficiently express my appreciation of the kindness of these my
hosts. Burnett’s brand, the Four Sixes, has been owned by him for
forty years. Both of them had come to this country thirty years
before, in the days of the buffalo, when all game was very plentiful
and the Indians were still on the warpath. Several other ranchmen
were along, including John Abernethy, of Tesca, Oklahoma, a
professional wolf hunter. There were also a number of cowhands of
both Burnett and Wagner; among them were two former riders for
the Four Sixes, Fi Taylor and Uncle Ed Gillis, who seemed to make it
their special mission to see that everything went right with me.
Furthermore there was Captain McDonald of the Texas Rangers, a
game and true man, whose name was one of terror to outlaws and
violent criminals of all kinds; and finally there was Quanah Parker,
the Comanche chief, in his youth a bitter foe of the whites, now
painfully teaching his people to travel the white man’s stony road.
 STARTING TOWARDS THE WOLF GROUNDS

From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander

Lambert, M.D.

We drove out some twenty miles to where camp was pitched in a

bend of Deep Red Creek, which empties into the Red River of the
South. Cottonwood, elm, and pecans formed a belt of timber along
the creek; we had good water, the tents were pitched on short, thick
grass, and everything was in perfect order. The fare was delicious.
Altogether it was an ideal camp, and the days we passed there were
also ideal. Cardinals and mocking-birds—the most individual and
delightful of all birds in voice and manner—sang in the woods; and
the beautiful, many-tinted fork-tailed fly-catchers were to be seen
now and then, perched in trees or soaring in curious zigzags,
chattering loudly.
In chasing the coyote only greyhounds are used, and half a dozen
different sets of these had been brought to camp. Those of Wagner,
the “Big D” dogs, as his cow-punchers called them, were handled by
Bony Moore, who, with Tom Burnett, the son of our host Burke
Burnett, took the lead in feats of daring horsemanship, even in that
field of daring horsemen. Bevins had brought both greyhounds and
rough-haired staghounds from his Texas ranch. So had Cecil Lyon,
and though his dogs had chiefly been used in coursing the black-
tailed Texas jack-rabbit, they took naturally to the coyote chases.
Finally there were Abernethy’s dogs, which, together with their
master, performed the feats I shall hereafter relate. Abernethy has a
homestead of his own not far from Frederick, and later I was
introduced to his father, an old Confederate soldier, and to his sweet
and pretty wife, and their five little children. He had run away with
his wife when they were nineteen and sixteen respectively; but the
match had turned out a happy one. Both were particularly fond of
music, including the piano, horn, and violin, and they played duets
together. General Young, whom the Comanches called “War Bonnet,”
went in a buggy with Burke Burnett, and as Burnett invariably
followed the hounds at full speed in his buggy, and usually succeeded
in seeing most of the chase, I felt that the buggy men really
encountered greater hazards than anyone else. It was a thoroughly
congenial company all through. The weather was good; we were in
the saddle from morning until night; and our camp was in all
respects all that a camp should be; so how could we help enjoying
ourselves?
The coursing was done on the flats and great rolling prairies which
stretched north from our camp toward the Wichita Mountains and
south toward the Red River. There was a certain element of risk in
the gallops, because the whole country was one huge prairie-dog
town, the prairie-dogs being so numerous that the new towns and
the abandoned towns were continuous with one another in every
direction. Practically every run we had was through these prairie-dog
towns, varied occasionally by creeks and washouts. But as we always
ran scattered out, the wonderfully quick cow-ponies, brought up in
this country and spending all their time among the prairie-dog
towns, were able, even while running at headlong speed, to avoid the
holes with a cleverness that was simply marvellous. During our hunt
but one horse stepped in a hole; he turned a complete somerset,
though neither he nor his rider was hurt. Stunted mesquite bushes
grew here and there in the grass, and there was cactus. As always in
prairie-dog towns, there were burrowing owls and rattlesnakes. We
had to be on our guard that the dogs did not attack the latter. Once
we thought a greyhound was certainly bitten. It was a very fast blue
bitch, which seized the rattler and literally shook it to pieces. The
rattler struck twice at the bitch, but so quick were the bitch’s
movements that she was not hit either time, and in a second the
snake was not merely dead, but in pieces. We usually killed the
rattlers with either our quirts or ropes. One which I thus killed was
over five feet long.
By rights there ought to have been carts in which the greyhounds
could be drawn until the coyotes were sighted, but there were none,
and the greyhounds simply trotted along beside the horses. All of
them were fine animals, and almost all of them of recorded pedigree.
Coyotes have sharp teeth and bite hard, while greyhounds have thin
skins, and many of them were cut in the worries. This was due to the
fact that only two or three of them seized by the throat, the others
taking hold behind, which of course exposed them to retaliation. Few
of them would have been of much use in stopping a big wolf.
Abernethy’s hounds, however, though they could not kill a big wolf,
would stop it, permitting their owner to seize it exactly as he seized
coyotes, as hereafter described. He had killed but a few of the big
gray wolves; one weighed ninety-seven pounds. He said that there
were gradations from this down to the coyotes. A few days before our
arrival, after a very long chase, he had captured a black wolf,
weighing between fifty and sixty pounds.
These Southern coyotes or prairie-wolves are only about one-third
the size of the big gray timber wolves of the Northern Rockies. They
are too small to meddle with full-grown horses and cattle, but pick
up young calves and kill sheep, as well as any small domesticated
animal that they can get at. The big wolves flee from the
neighborhood of anything like close settlements, but coyotes hang
around the neighborhood of man much more persistently. They show
a fox-like cunning in catching rabbits, prairie-dogs, gophers, and the
like. After nightfall they are noisy, and their melancholy wailing and
yelling are familiar sounds to all who pass over the plains. The young
are brought forth in holes in cut banks or similar localities. Within
my own experience I have known of the finding of but two families.
In one there was but a single family of five cubs and one old animal,
undoubtedly the mother; in the other case there were ten or eleven
cubs and two old females which had apparently shared the burrow or
cave, though living in separate pockets. In neither case was any full-
grown male coyote found in the neighborhood; as regards these
particular litters, the father seemingly had nothing to do with taking
care of or supporting the family. I am not able to say whether this
was accidental or whether it is a rule, that only the mother lives with
and takes care of the litter; I have heard contrary statements about
the matter from hunters who should know. Unfortunately I have
learned from long experience that it is only exceptional hunters who
can be trusted to give accurate descriptions of the habits of any beast,
save such as are connected with its chase.

GREYHOUNDS RESTING AFTER A RUN

From a photograph by W. Sloan Simpson

Coyotes are sharp, wary, knowing creatures, and on most

occasions take care to keep out of harm’s way. But individuals among
them have queer freaks. On one occasion while Sloan Simpson was
on the round-up he waked at night to find something on the foot of
his bed, its dark form indistinctly visible against the white tarpaulin.
He aroused a friend to ask if it could be a dog. While they were
cautiously endeavoring to find out what it was, it jumped up and ran
off; they then saw that it was a coyote. In a short time it returned
again, coming out of the darkness toward one of the cowboys who
was awake, and the latter shot it, fearing it might have hydrophobia.
But I doubt this, as in such case it would not have curled up and gone
to sleep on Simpson’s bedding. Coyotes are subject to hydrophobia,
and when under the spell of the dreadful disease will fearlessly attack
men. In one case of which I know, a mad coyote coming into camp
sprang on a sleeping man who was rolled in his bedding and bit and
worried the bedding in the effort to get at him. Two other men
hastened to his rescue, and the coyote first attacked them and then
suddenly sprang aside and again worried the bedding, by which time
one of them was able to get in a shot and killed it. All coyotes, like big
wolves, die silently and fight to the last. I had never weighed any
coyotes until on this trip. I weighed the twelve which I myself saw
caught, and they ran as follows: male, thirty pounds; female, twenty-
eight pounds; female, thirty-six pounds; male, thirty-two pounds;
male, thirty-four pounds; female, thirty pounds; female, twenty-
seven pounds; male, thirty-two pounds; male, twenty-nine pounds;
young male, twenty-two pounds; male, twenty-nine pounds; female,
twenty-seven pounds. Disregarding the young male, this makes an
average of just over thirty pounds.[2] Except the heaviest female, they
were all gaunt and in splendid running trim; but then I do not
remember ever seeing a really fat coyote.
2. I sent the skins and skulls to Dr. Hart Merriam, the head of the Biological
Survey. He wrote me about them: “All but one are the plains coyote, Canis
nebracensis. They are not perfectly typical, but are near enough for all practical
purposes. The exception is a yearling pup of a much larger species. Whether this is
frustor I dare not say in the present state of knowledge of the group.”
The morning of the first day of our hunt dawned bright and
beautiful, the air just cool enough to be pleasant. Immediately after
breakfast we jogged off on horseback, Tom Burnett and Bony Moore
in front, with six or eight greyhounds slouching alongside, while
Burke Burnett and “War Bonnet” drove behind us in the buggy. I was
mounted on one of Tom Burnett’s favorites, a beautiful Kiowa pony.
The chuck wagon, together with the relay of greyhounds to be used in
the afternoon, was to join us about midday at an appointed place
where there was a pool of water.
We shuffled along, strung out in an irregular line, across a long
flat, in places covered with bright-green wild onions; and then up a
gentle slope where the stunted mesquite grew, while the prairie-dogs
barked spasmodically as we passed their burrows. The low crest, if
such it could be called, of the slope was reached only some twenty
minutes after we left camp, and hardly had we started down the
other side than two coyotes were spied three or four hundred yards
in front. Immediately horses and dogs were after them at a headlong,
breakneck run, the coyotes edging to the left where the creek bottom,
with its deep banks and narrow fringes of timber, was about a mile
distant. The little wolves knew their danger and ran their very
fastest, while the long dogs stretched out after them, gaining steadily.
It was evident the chase would be a short one, and there was no need
to husband the horses, so every man let his pony go for all there was
in him. At such a speed, and especially going down hill, there was not
the slightest use in trying to steer clear of the prairie-dog holes; it
was best to let the veteran cow-ponies see to that for themselves.
They were as eager as their riders, and on we dashed at full speed,
curving to the left toward the foot of the slope; we jumped into and
out of a couple of broad, shallow washouts, as we tore after the
hounds, now nearing their quarry. The rearmost coyote was
overtaken just at the edge of the creek; the foremost, which was a few
yards in advance, made good its escape, as all the dogs promptly
tackled the rearmost, tumbling it over into a rather deep pool. The
scuffling and splashing told us what was going on, and we reined our
horses short up at the brink of the cut bank. The water had
hampered the dogs in killing their quarry, only three or four of them
being in the pool with him; and of those he had seized one by the
nose and was hanging on hard. In a moment one of the cowboys got
hold of him, dropped a noose over his head, and dragged him out on
the bank, just as the buggy came rattling up at full gallop. Burnett
and the general, taking advantage of the curve in our course, had
driven across the chord of the arc, and keeping their horses at a run,
had seen every detail of the chase and were in at the death.
In a few minutes the coyote was skinned, the dogs rested, and we
were jogging on once more. Hour after hour passed by. We had a
couple more runs, but in each case the coyote had altogether too long
a start and got away; the dogs no longer being as fresh as they had
been. As a rule, although there are exceptions, if the greyhounds
cannot catch the coyote within two or three miles the chances favor
the escape of the little wolf. We found that if the wolf had more than
half a mile start he got away. As greyhounds hunt by sight, cut banks
enable the coyote easily to throw off his pursuers unless they are
fairly close up. The greyhounds see the wolf when he is far off, for
they have good eyes; but in the chase, if the going is irregular, they
tend to lose him, and they do not depend much on one another in
recovering sight of him; on the contrary, the dog is apt to quit when
he no longer has the quarry in view.
 AT THE TAIL OF THE CHUCK WAGON

From a photograph by W. Sloan Simpson

At noon we joined the chuck wagon where it stood drawn up on a

slope of the treeless, bushless prairie; and the active round-up cook
soon had the meal ready. It was the Four Sixes wagon, the brand
burned into the wood of the chuck box. Where does a man take more
frank enjoyment in his dinner than at the tail end of a chuck wagon?
Soon after eating we started again, having changed horses and
dogs. I was mounted on a Big D cow-pony, while Lambert had a dun-
colored horse, hard to hold, but very tough and swift. An hour or so
after leaving camp we had a four-mile run after a coyote, which
finally got away, for it had so long a start that the dogs were done out
by the time they came within fair distance. They stopped at a little
prairie pool, some of them lying or standing in it, panting violently;
and thus we found them as we came stringing up at a gallop. After
they had been well rested we started toward camp; but we were down
in the creek bottom before we saw another coyote. This one again
was a long distance ahead, and I did not suppose there was much
chance of our catching him; but away all the dogs and all the riders
went at the usual run, and catch him we did, because, as it turned
out, the “morning” dogs, which were with the wagon, had spied him
first and run him hard, until he was in sight of the “afternoon” dogs,
which were with us. I got tangled in a washout, scrambled out, and
was galloping along, watching the country in front, when Lambert
passed me as hard as he could go; I saw him disappear into another
washout, and then come out on the other side, while the dogs were
driving the coyote at an angle down toward the creek. Pulling short
to the right, I got through the creek, hoping the coyote would cross,
and the result was that I galloped up to the worry almost as soon as
the foremost riders from the other side—a piece of good fortune for
which I had only luck to thank. The hounds caught the coyote as he
was about crossing the creek. From this point it was but a short
distance into camp.
Again next morning we were off before the sun had risen high
enough to take away the cool freshness from the air. This day we
travelled several miles before we saw our first coyote. It was on a
huge, gently sloping stretch of prairie, which ran down to the creek
on our right. We were travelling across it strung out in line when the
coyote sprang up a good distance ahead of the dogs. They ran
straight away from us at first. Then I saw the coyote swinging to the
right toward the creek and I half-wheeled, riding diagonally to the
line of the chase. This gave me an excellent view of dogs and wolf,
and also enabled me to keep nearly abreast of them. On this
particular morning the dogs were Bevin’s greyhounds and
staghounds. From where the dogs started they ran about three miles,
catching their quarry in the flat where the creek circled around in a
bend, and when it was not fifty yards from the timber. By this time
the puncher, Bony Moore, had passed me, most of the other riders
having been so far to the left when the run began that they were
unable to catch up. The little wolf ran well, and the greyhounds had
about reached their limit when they caught up with it. But they lasted
just long enough to do the work. A fawn-colored greyhound and a
black staghound were the first dogs up. The staghound tried to seize
the coyote, which dodged a little to one side; the fawn-colored
greyhound struck and threw it; and in another moment the other
dogs were up and the worry began. I was able to see the run so well,
because Tom Burnett had mounted me on his fine roan cutting
horse. We sat around in a semicircle on the grass until the dogs had
been breathed, and then started off again. After some time we struck
another coyote, but rather far off, and this time the dogs were not
fresh. After running two or three miles he pulled away and we lost
him, the dogs refreshing themselves by standing and lying in a
shallow prairie pool.
In the afternoon we again rode off, and this time Abernethy, on his
white horse, took the lead, his greyhounds trotting beside him. There
was a good deal of rivalry among the various owners of the hounds as
to which could do best, and a slight inclination among the cowboys to
be jealous of Abernethy. No better riders could be imagined than
these same cowboys, and their greyhounds were stanch and fast; but
Abernethy, on his tough white horse, not only rode with great
judgment, but showed a perfect knowledge of the coyote, and by his
own exertions greatly assisted his hounds. He had found out in his
long experience that while the greyhounds could outpace a coyote in
a two or three mile run, they would then fall behind; but that after
going eight or ten miles, a coyote in turn became exhausted, and if he
had been able to keep his hounds going until that time, they could,
with his assistance, then stop the quarry.

THE BIG D. COW-

PONY

From a photograph by
W. Sloan Simpson

We had been shogging along for an hour or more when we put up a

coyote and started after it. I was riding the Big D pony I had ridden
the afternoon before. It was a good and stout horse, but one which
my weight was certain to distress if I tried to go too fast for too long a
time. Moreover, the coyote had a long start, and I made up my mind
that he would either get away or give us a hard run. Accordingly, as
the cowboys started off at their usual headlong pace, I rode behind at
a gallop, husbanding my horse. For a mile or so the going was very
rough, up over and down stony hills and among washouts. Then we
went over gently rolling country for another mile or two, and then
came to a long broken incline which swept up to a divide some four
miles ahead of us. Lambert had been riding alongside of Abernethy,
at the front, but his horse began to play out, and needed to be nursed
along, so that he dropped back level with me. By the time I had
reached the foot of this incline the punchers, riding at full speed, had
shot their bolts, and one by one I passed them, as well as most of the
greyhounds. But Abernethy was far ahead, his white horse loping
along without showing any signs of distress. Up the long slope I did
not dare press my animal, and Abernethy must have been a mile
ahead of me when he struck the divide, while where the others were I
had no idea, except that they were behind me. When I reached the
divide I was afraid I might have missed Abernethy, but to my delight
he was still in sight, far ahead. As we began to go down hill I let the
horse fairly race; for by Abernethy’s motions I could tell that he was
close to the wolf and that it was no longer running in a straight line,
so that there was a chance of my overtaking them. In a couple of
miles I was close enough to see what was going on. But one
greyhound was left with Abernethy. The coyote was obviously tired,
and Abernethy, with the aid of his perfectly trained horse, was
helping the greyhound catch it. Twice he headed it, and this enabled
me to gain rapidly. They had reached a small unwooded creek by the
time I was within fifty yards; the little wolf tried to break back to the
left; Abernethy headed it and rode almost over it, and it gave a
wicked snap at his foot, cutting the boot. Then he wheeled and came
toward it; again it galloped back, and just as it crossed the creek the
greyhound made a rush, pinned it by the hind leg and threw it. There
was a scuffle, then a yell from the greyhound as the wolf bit it. At the
bite the hound let go and jumped back a few feet, and at the same
moment Abernethy, who had ridden his horse right on them as they
struggled, leaped off and sprang on top of the wolf. He held the reins
of the horse with one hand and thrust the other, with a rapidity and
precision even greater than the rapidity of the wolf’s snap, into the
wolf’s mouth, jamming his hand down crosswise between the jaws,
seizing the lower jaw and bending it down so that the wolf could not
bite him. He had a stout glove on his hand, but this would have been
of no avail whatever had he not seized the animal just as he did; that
is, behind the canines, while his hand pressed the lips against the
teeth; with his knees he kept the wolf from using its forepaws to
break the hold, until it gave up struggling. When he thus leaped on
and captured this coyote it was entirely free, the dog having let go of
it; and he was obliged to keep hold of the reins of his horse with one
hand. I was not twenty yards distant at the time, and as I leaped off
the horse he was sitting placidly on the live wolf, his hand between
its jaws, the greyhound standing beside him, and his horse standing
by as placid as he was. In a couple of minutes Fortescue and Lambert
came up. It was as remarkable a feat of the kind as I have ever seen.
Through some oversight we had no straps with us, and Abernethy
had lost the wire which he usually carried in order to tie up the
wolves’ muzzles—for he habitually captured his wolves in this
fashion. However, Abernethy regarded the lack of straps as nothing
more than a slight bother. Asking one of us to hold his horse, he
threw the wolf across in front of the saddle, still keeping his grip on
the lower jaw, then mounted and rode off with us on the back track.
The wolf was not tied in any way. It was unhurt, and the only hold he
had was on its lower jaw. I was surprised that it did not strive to fight
with its legs, but after becoming satisfied that it could not bite, it
seemed to resign itself to its fate, was fairly quiet, and looked about
with its ears pricked forward. The wolves which I subsequently saw
him capture, and, having tied up their muzzles, hold before him on
the saddle, acted in precisely the same manner.
The run had been about ten miles in an almost straight line. At the
finish no other riders were in sight, but soon after we crossed the
divide on our return, and began to come down the long slope toward
the creek, we were joined by Tom Burnett and Bony Moore; while
some three or four miles ahead on a rise of the prairie we could see
the wagon in which Burke Burnett was driving General Young. Other
punchers and straggling greyhounds joined us, and as the wolf, after
travelling some five miles, began to recover his wind and show a
tendency to fight for his freedom, Abernethy tied up his jaws with his
handkerchief and handed him over to Bony Moore, who packed him
on the saddle with entire indifference, the wolf himself showing a
curious philosophy. Our horses had recovered their wind and we
struck into a gallop down the slope; then as we neared the wagon we
broke into a run, Bony Moore brandishing aloft with one hand the
live wolf, its jaws tied up with a handkerchief, but otherwise
unbound. We stopped for a few minutes with Burnett and the general
to tell particulars of the hunt. Then we loped off again toward camp,
which was some half dozen miles off. I shall always remember this
run and the really remarkable feat Abernethy performed. Colonel
Lyon had seen him catch a big wolf in the same way that he caught
this coyote. It was his usual method of catching both coyotes and
wolves. Almost equally noteworthy were the way in which he handled
and helped his greyhounds, and the judgment, resolution, and fine
horsemanship he displayed. His horse showed extraordinary
endurance.
The third day we started out as usual, the chuck wagon driving
straight to a pool far out on the prairie, where we were to meet it for
lunch. Chief Quanah’s three wives had joined him, together with a
small boy and a baby, and they drove in a wagon of their own.
Meanwhile the riders and hounds went south nearly to Red River. In
the morning we caught four coyotes and had a three miles run after
one which started too far ahead of the dogs, and finally got clean
away. All the four that we got were started fairly close up, and the
run was a breakneck scurry, horses and hounds going as hard as they
could put feet to the ground. Twice the cowboys distanced me; and
twice the accidents of the chase, the sudden twists and turns of the
coyote in his efforts to take advantage of the ground, favored me and
enabled me to be close up at the end, when Abernethy jumped off his
horse and ran in to where the dogs had the coyote. He was even
quicker with his hands than the wolf’s snap, and in a moment he
always had the coyote by the lower jaw.
Between the runs we shogged forward across the great reaches of
rolling prairie in the bright sunlight. The air was wonderfully clear,
and any object on the sky-line, no matter how small, stood out with
startling distinctness. There were few flowers on these dry plains; in
sharp contrast to the flower prairies of southern Texas, which we had
left the week before, where many acres for a stretch would be covered
by masses of red or white or blue or yellow blossoms—the most
striking of all, perhaps, being the fields of the handsome buffalo
clover. As we plodded over the prairie the sharp eyes of the punchers
were scanning the ground far and near, and sooner or later one of
them would spy the motionless form of a coyote, or all would have
their attention attracted as it ran like a fleeting gray or brown
shadow among the grays and browns of the desolate landscape.
Immediately dogs and horses would stretch at full speed after it, and
everything would be forgotten but the wild exhilaration of the run.

ABERNETHY AND
COYOTE

From a photograph,
copyright, 1905, by
Alexander Lambert,
M.D.

It was nearly noon when we struck the chuck wagon. Immediately

the handy round-up cook began to prepare a delicious dinner, and
we ate as men have a right to eat, who have ridden all the morning
and are going to ride fresh horses all the afternoon. Soon afterward
the horse-wranglers drove up the saddle band, while some of the
cow-punchers made a rope corral from the side of the wagon. Into
this the horses were driven, one or two breaking back and being
brought into the bunch again only after a gallop more exciting than
most coyote chases. Fresh ponies were roped out and the saddle
band again turned loose. The dogs that had been used during the
morning then started campward with the chuck wagon. One of the
punchers was riding a young and partially broken horse; he had no
bridle, simply a rope around the horse’s neck. This man started to
accompany the wagon to the camp.
The rest of us went off at the usual cow-pony trot or running walk.
It was an hour or two before we saw anything; then a coyote
appeared a long way ahead and the dogs raced after him. The first
mile was up a gentle slope; then we turned, and after riding a couple
of miles on the level the dogs had shot their bolt and the coyote drew
away. When he got too far in front the dogs and foremost riders
stopped and waited for the rest of us to overtake them, and shortly
afterward Burke Burnett and the general appeared in their buggy.
One of the greyhounds was completely done out and we took some
time attending to it. Suddenly one of the men, either Tom Burnett or
Bony Moore, called out that he saw the coyote coming back pursued
by a horseman. Sure enough, the unfortunate little wolf had run in
sight of the wagons, and the puncher on the young unbridled horse
immediately took after him, and, in spite of a fall, succeeded in
heading him back and bringing him along in our direction, although
some three-quarters of a mile away. Immediately everyone jumped
into his saddle and away we all streamed down a long slope
diagonally to the course the coyote was taking. He had a long start,
but the dogs were rested, while he had been running steadily, and
this fact proved fatal to him. Down the slope to the creek bottom at
its end we rode at a run. Then there came a long slope upward, and
the heavier among us fell gradually to the rear. When we topped the
divide, however, we could see ahead of us the foremost men
streaming after the hounds, and the latter running in a way which
showed that they were well up on their game. Even a tired horse can
go pretty well down hill, and by dint of hard running we who were
behind got up in time to see the worry when the greyhounds caught
the coyote, by some low ponds in a treeless creek bed. We had gone
about seven miles, the unlucky coyote at least ten. Our journey to
camp was enlivened by catching another coyote after a short run.
Next day was the last of our hunt. We started off in the morning as
usual, but the buggy men on this occasion took with them some trail
hounds, which were managed by a sergeant of the regular army, a
game sportsman. They caught two coons in the timber of a creek two
or three miles to the south of the camp. Meanwhile the rest of us,
riding over the prairie, saw the greyhounds catch two coyotes, one
after a rather long run and one after a short one. Then we turned our
faces toward camp. I saw Abernethy, with three or four of his own
hounds, riding off to one side, but unfortunately I did not pay any
heed to him, as I supposed the hunting was at an end. But when we
reached camp Abernethy was not there, nor did he turn up until we
were finishing lunch. Then he suddenly appeared, his tired
greyhounds trotting behind him, while he carried before him on the
saddle a live coyote, with its muzzle tied up, and a dead coyote
strapped behind his saddle. Soon after leaving us he had found a
coyote, and after a good run the dogs had stopped it and he had
jumped off and captured it in his usual fashion. Then while riding
along, holding the coyote before him on the saddle, he put up
another one. His dogs were tired, and he himself was of course
greatly hampered in such a full-speed run by having the live wolf on
the saddle in front of him. One by one the dogs gave out, but his
encouragement and assistance kept two of them to their work, and
after a run of some seven miles the coyote was overtaken. It was
completely done out and would probably have died by itself, even if
the hounds had not taken part in the killing. Hampered as he was,
Abernethy could not take it alive in his usual fashion. So when it was
dead he packed it behind his horse and rode back in triumph. The
live wolf, as in every other case where one was brought into camp,
made curiously little effort to fight with its paws, seeming to
acquiesce in its captivity, and looking around, with its ears thrust
forward, as if more influenced by curiosity than by any other feeling.
After lunch we rode toward town, stopping at nightfall to take
supper by the bank of a creek. We entered the town after dark, some
twenty of us on horseback. Wagner was riding with us, and he had
set his heart upon coming into and through the town in true cowboy
style; and it was he who set the pace. We broke into a lope a mile
outside the limits, and by the time we struck the main street the
horses were on a run and we tore down like a whirlwind until we
reached the train. Thus ended as pleasant a hunting trip as any one
could imagine. The party got seventeen coyotes all told, for there
were some runs which I did not see at all, as now and then both men
and dogs would get split into groups.
 On this hunt we did not see any of the big wolves, the so-called
buffalo or timber wolves, which I hunted in the old days on the
Northern cattle plains. Big wolves are found in both Texas and
Oklahoma, but they are rare compared to the coyotes; and they are
great wanderers. Alone or in parties of three or four or half a dozen
they travel to and fro across the country, often leaving a district at
once if they are molested. Coyotes are more or less plentiful
everywhere throughout the West in thinly settled districts, and they
often hang about in the immediate neighborhood of towns. They do
enough damage to make farmers and ranchers kill them whenever
the chance offers. But this damage is not appreciable when compared
with the ravages of their grim big brother, the gray wolf, which,
wherever it exists in numbers, is a veritable scourge to the stockmen.
Colonel Lyon’s hounds were, as I have said, used chiefly after jack-
rabbits. He had frequently killed coyotes with them, however, and on
two or three occasions one of the big gray wolves. At the time when
he did most of his wolf-hunting he had with the greyhounds a huge
fighting dog, a Great Dane, weighing one hundred and forty-five
pounds. In spite of its weight this dog could keep up well in a short
chase, and its ferocious temper and enormous weight and strength
made it invaluable at the bay. Whether the quarry were a gray wolf or
coyote mattered not in the least to it, and it made its assaults with
such headlong fury that it generally escaped damage. On the two or
three occasions when the animal bayed was a big wolf the
greyhounds did not dare tackle it, jumping about in an irregular
circle and threatening the wolf until the fighting dog came up. The
latter at once rushed in, seizing its antagonist by the throat or neck
and throwing it. Doubtless it would have killed the wolf unassisted,
but the greyhounds always joined in the killing; and once thrown, the
wolf could never get on his legs. In these encounters the dog was
never seriously hurt. Rather curiously, the only bad wound it ever
received was from a coyote; the little wolf, not one-third of its weight,
managing to inflict a terrific gash down its huge antagonist’s chest,
nearly tearing it open. But of course a coyote against such a foe could
not last much longer than a rat pitted against a terrier.
Big wolves and coyotes are found side by side throughout the
Western United States, both varying so in size that if a sufficient
number of specimens, from different localities, are examined it will
be found that there is a complete intergradation in both stature and
weight. To the northward the coyotes disappear, and the big wolves
grow larger and larger until in the arctic regions they become
veritable giants. At Point Barrow Mr. E. A. McIlhenny had six of the
eight “huskies” of his dog team killed and eaten by a huge white dog
wolf. At last he shot it, and found that it weighed one hundred and
sixty-one pounds.
Good trail hounds can run down a wolf. A year ago Jake Borah’s
pack in northwestern Colorado ran a big wolf weighing one hundred
and fifteen pounds to bay in but little over an hour. He then stood
with his back to a rock, and though the dogs formed a semicircle
around him, they dared not tackle him. Jake got up and shot him.
Unless well trained and with the natural fighting edge neither trail
hounds (fox-hounds) nor greyhounds can or will kill a big wolf, and
under ordinary circumstances, no matter how numerous, they make
but a poor showing against one. But big ninety-pound or one
hundred-pound greyhounds, specially bred and trained for the
purpose, stand on an entirely different footing. Three or four of these
dogs, rushing in together and seizing the wolf by the throat, will kill
him, or worry him until he is helpless. On several occasions the
Colorado Springs greyhounds have performed this feat. Johnny Goff
owned a large, fierce dog, a cross between what he called a Siberian
bloodhound (I suppose some animal like a Great Dane) and an
ordinary hound, which, on one occasion when he had shot at and
broken the hind leg of a big wolf, ran it down and killed it. On the
other hand, wolves will often attack dogs. In March of the present
year—nineteen hundred and five—Goff’s dogs were scattered over a
hillside hunting a bobcat, when he heard one of them yell, and
looking up saw that two wolves were chasing it. The other dogs were
so busy puzzling out the cat’s trail that they never noticed what was
happening. Goff called aloud, whereupon the wolves stopped. He
shot one and the other escaped. He thinks that they would have
overtaken and killed the hound in a minute or two if he had not
interfered.
The big wolves shrink back before the growth of the thickly settled
districts, and in the Eastern States they often tend to disappear even
from districts that are uninhabited save by a few wilderness hunters.
They have thus disappeared almost entirely from Maine, the
Adirondacks, and the Alleghanies, although here and there they are
said to be returning to their old haunts. Their disappearance is rather
mysterious in some instances, for they are certainly not all killed off.
The black bear is much easier killed, yet the black bear holds its own
in many parts of the land from which the wolf has vanished. No
animal is quite so difficult to kill as is the wolf, whether by poison or
rifle or hound. Yet, after a comparatively few have been slain, the
entire species will perhaps vanish from certain localities. In some
localities even the cougar, the easiest of all game to kill with hounds,
holds its own better. This, however, is not generally true.
But with all wild animals, it is a noticeable fact that a course of
contact with man continuing over many generations of animal life
causes a species so to adapt itself to its new surroundings that it can
hold its own far better than formerly. When white men take up a new
country, the game, and especially the big game, being entirely
unused to contend with the new foe, succumb easily, and are almost
completely killed out. If any individuals survive at all, however, the
succeeding generations are far more difficult to exterminate than
were their ancestors, and they cling much more tenaciously to their
old homes. The game to be found in old and long-settled countries is
of course much more wary and able to take care of itself than the
game of an untrodden wilderness; it is the wilderness life, far more
than the actual killing of the wilderness game, which tests the ability
of the wilderness hunter.
 ABERNETHY
RETURNS FROM THE
HUNT

From a photograph,
copyright, 1905, by
Alexander Lambert,
M.D.

After a time, game may even, for the time being, increase in certain
districts where settlements are thin. This was true of the wolves
throughout the northern cattle country, in Montana, Wyoming,
Colorado, and the western ends of the Dakotas. In the old days
wolves were very plentiful throughout this region, closely following
the huge herds of buffaloes. The white men who followed these herds
as professional buffalo-hunters were often accompanied by other
men, known as wolfers, who poisoned these wolves for the sake of
their fur. With the disappearance of the buffalo the wolves
diminished in numbers so that they also seemed to disappear. Then
in the late eighties or early nineties the wolves began again to
increase in numbers until they became once more as numerous as
ever and infinitely more wary and difficult to kill; though as they
were nocturnal in their habits they were not often seen. Along the
Little Missouri and in many parts of Montana and Wyoming this
increase was very noticeable during the last decade of the nineteenth
century. They were at that time the only big animals of the region
which had increased in numbers. Such an increase following a
previous decrease in the same region was both curious and
interesting. I never knew the wolves to be so numerous or so daring
in their assaults upon stock in the Little Missouri country as in the
years 1894 to 1896 inclusive. I am unable wholly to account for these
changes. The first great diminution in the numbers of the wolves is
only partially to be explained by the poisoning; yet they seemed to
disappear almost everywhere and for a number of years continued
scarce. Then they again became plentiful, reappearing in districts
from whence they had entirely vanished, and appearing in new
districts where they had been hitherto unknown. Then they once
more began to diminish in number. In northwestern Colorado, in the
White River country, cougars fairly swarmed in the early nineties,
while up to that time the big gray wolves were almost or entirely
unknown. Then they began to come in, and increased steadily in
numbers, while the cougars diminished, so that by the winter of
1902–3 they much outnumbered the big cats, and committed great
ravages among the stock. The settlers were at their wits’ ends how to
deal with the pests. At last a trapper came in, a shiftless fellow, but
extraordinarily proficient in his work. He had some kind of scent, the
secret of which he would not reveal, which seemed to drive the
wolves nearly crazy with desire. In one winter in the neighborhood of
the Keystone Ranch he trapped forty-two big gray wolves; they still
outnumber the cougars, which in that neighborhood have been
nearly killed out, but they are no longer abundant.
At present wolves are decreasing in numbers all over Colorado, as
they are in Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. In some localities
traps have been found most effective; in others, poison; and in yet
others, hounds. I am inclined to think that where they have been
pursued in one manner for a long time any new method will at first
prove more efficacious. After a very few wolves have been poisoned
or trapped, the survivors become so wary that only a master in the
art can do anything with them, while there are always a few wolves
which cannot be persuaded to touch a bait save under wholly
exceptional circumstances. From association with the old she-wolves
the cubs learn as soon as they are able to walk to avoid man’s traces
in every way, and to look out for traps and poison. They are so shy
and show such extraordinary cunning in hiding and slinking out of
the way of the hunter that they are rarely killed with the rifle.
Personally I never shot but one. A bold and good rider on a first-rate
horse can, however, run down even a big gray wolf in fair chase, and
either rope or shoot it. I have known a number of cow-punchers thus
to rope wolves when they happened to run across them after they
had gorged themselves on their quarry. A former Colorado
ranchman, Mr. Henry N. Pancoast, who had done a good deal of
wolf-hunting, and had killed one which, judging by its skin, was a
veritable monster, wrote me as follows about his experiences:
“I captured nearly all my wolves by running them down and then
either roped or shot them. I had one mount that had great
endurance, and when riding him never failed to give chase to a wolf if
I had the time to spare; and never failed to get my quarry but two or
three times. I roped four full-grown and two cubs and shot five full-
grown and three cubs—the large wolf in question being killed that
way. And he was by far the hardest proposition I ever tried, and I
candidly think I run him twenty miles before overhauling and
shooting him (he showed too much fight to use a rope). As it was
almost dark, concluded to put him on horse and skin at ranch, but
had my hands full to get him on the saddle, was so very heavy. My
plan in running wolves down was to get about three hundred yards
from them, and then to keep that distance until the wolf showed
signs of fatigue, when a little spurt would generally succeed in
landing him. In the case of the large one, however, I reckoned
without my host, as the wolf had as much go left as the horse, so I
tried slowing down to a walk and let the wolf go; he ... came down to
a little trot and soon placed a half mile between us, and finally went
out of sight over a high hill. I took my time and on reaching top of
hill saw wolf about four hundred yards off, and as I now had a down
grade managed to get my tired horse on a lope and was soon up to
the wolf, which seemed all stiffened up, and one shot from my
Winchester finished him. We always had poison out, as wolves and
coyotes killed a great many calves. Never poisoned but two wolves,
and those were caught with fresh antelope liver and entrails (coyotes
were easily poisoned).”
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