92 Tlie Wilderness Htinter. 



When making long wagon trips over the great plains, 

 antelope often offer the only source of meat supply, save 

 for occasional water fowl, sage fowl, and prairie fowl — 

 the sharp-tailed prairie fowl, be it understood. This is 

 the characteristic grouse of the cattle country ; the true 

 prairie fowl is a bird of the farming land farther east 



Towards the end of the summer of '92 I found it 

 necessary to travel from my ranch to the Black Hills, 

 some two hundred miles south. The ranch wagon went 

 with me, driven by an all-round plainsman, a man of iron 

 nerves and varied past, the sheriff of our county. He 

 was an old friend of mine ; at one time I had served as 

 deputy-sheriff for the northern end of the county. In 

 the wagon we carried our food and camp kit, and our 

 three rolls of bedding, each wrapped in a thick, nearly 

 waterproof canvas sheet ; we had a tent, but we never 

 needed it. The load being light, the wagon was drawn 

 by but a span of horses, a pair of wild runaways, tough, 

 and good travellers. My foreman and I rode beside the 

 wagon on our wiry, unkempt, unshod cattle-ponies. They 

 carried us all day at a rack, pace, single-foot or slow lope, 

 varied by rapid galloping when we made long circles after 

 game ; the trot, the favorite gait with eastern park-riders, 

 is disliked by all peoples who have to do much of their 

 life-work in the saddle. 



The first day's ride was not attractive. The heat was 

 intense and the dust stifling, as we had to drive some 

 loose horses for the first few miles, and afterwards to ride 

 up and down the sandy river bed, where the cattle had 

 gathered, to look over some young steers we had put on 



