

""^^ =-,*S!»i2; 



CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE CATTLE RANGES ; THE PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE. 



EARLY one June just after the close of the regular 

 spring round-up, a couple of wagons, with a score 

 of riders between them, were sent to work some 

 hitherto untouched country, between the little Missouri 

 and the Yellowstone. I was to go as the representative 

 of our own and of one or two neighboring brands ; but 

 as the round-up had halted near my ranch I determined 

 to spend a day there, and then to join the wagons ; — the 

 appointed meeting-place being a cluster of red scoria 

 buttes, some forty miles distant, where there was a spring 

 of good water. 



Most of my day at the ranch was spent in slumber ; 

 for I had been several weeks on the round-up, where no- 

 body ever gets quite enough sleep. This is the only 

 drawback to the work ; otherwise it is pleasant and excit- 

 ing, with just that slight touch of danger necessary to 

 give it zest, and without the wearing fatigue of such labor 

 as lumbering or mining. But there is never enough sleep, 

 at least on the spring and mid-summer round-ups. The 

 men are in the saddle from dawn until dusk, at the time 



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