330 The Wilderness Himte7\ 



with a revolver. Twice of late years it has been per- 

 formed in the neighborhood of my ranch. In both in- 

 stances the men were not hunters out after game, but 

 simply cowboys, ridiiig over the range in early morning 

 in pursuance of their ordinary duties among the cattle. I 

 knew both men and have worked with them on the 

 round-up. Like most cowboys they carried 44-calibre 

 Colt revolvers, and were accustomed to and fairly expert 

 in their use, and they were mounted on ordinary cow- 

 ponies — quick, wiry, plucky little beasts. In one case the 

 bear was seen from quite a distance, lounging across a 

 broad table-land. The cowboy, by taking advantage of a 

 winding and rather shallow coulie, got quite close to him. 

 He then scrambled out of the coulie, put spurs to his 

 pony, and raced up to within fifty yards of the astonished 

 bear ere the latter quite understood what it was that was 

 running at him through the gray dawn. He made no at- 

 tempt at fight, but ran at top speed towards a clump of 

 brush not far off at the head of a creek. Before he could 

 reach it, however, the galloping horseman was alongside, 

 and fired three shots into his broad back. He did not 

 turn, but ran on into the bushes and then fell over and 

 died. 



In the other case the cowboy, a Texan, was mounted 

 on a good cutting pony, a spirited, handy, agile little ani- 

 mal, but excitable, and with a habit of dancing, which ren- 

 dered it difficult to shoot from its back. The man was 

 with the round-up wagon, and had been sent off by him- 

 self to make a circle through some low, barren buttes, 

 where it was not thought more than a few head of stock 



