The Whitetail Dee7\ 47 



we often make a hunt when the oood horses are on the 

 round-up, or otherwise employed, and we have to get to- 

 gether a scrub team of cripples or else of outlaws — vicious 

 devils, only used from dire need. The best teamster for 

 such a hunt that we ever had on the ranch was a weather- 

 beaten old fellow known as " Old Man Tompkins." In the 

 course of a long career as lumberman, plains teamster, 

 buffalo hunter, and Indian fighter, he had passed several 

 years as a Rocky Mountain stage driver ; and a stage 

 driver of the Rockies is of necessity a man of such skill 

 and nerve that he fears no team and no country. No 

 matter how wild the unbroken horses. Old Tompkins never 

 asked help ; and he hated to drive less than a four-in-hand. 

 When he once had a grip on the reins, he let no one hold 

 the horses' heads. All he wished was an open plain for 

 the rush at the beginning. The first plunge might take 

 the wheelers' fore-feet over the cross-bars of the leaders, 

 but he never stopped for that ; on went the team, run- 

 ning, bounding, rearing, tumbling, while the wagon 

 leaped behind, until gradually things straightened out of 

 their own accord. I soon found, however, that I could 

 not allow him to carry a rifle ; for he was an inveterate 

 game butcher. In the presence of game the old fellow 

 became fairly wild with excitement, and forgot the years 

 and rheumatism which had crippled him. Once, after a 

 long and tiresome day's hunt, we were walking home to- 

 gether ; he was carrying his boots in his hands, bemoan- 

 ing the fact that his feet hurt him. Suddenly a whitetail 

 jumped up ; down dropped Old Tompkins' boots, and 

 away he went like a college sprinter, entirely heedless of 



