94 The Wilderness Hunter 



travel for any very great distance, but seek some 

 sheltered grassy tableland in the Bad Lands, or 

 some well-shielded valley, where their instinct and 

 experience teach them that the snow does not lie 

 deep in winter. Once having chosen such a place 

 they stand much persecution before leaving it. 



One December, an old hunter whom I knew told 

 me that such a band was wintering a few miles from 

 a camp where two line-riders of the W Bar brand 

 were stationed ; and I made up my mind to ride thith 

 er and kill a couple. The line camp was twenty miles 

 from my ranch; the shack in which the old hunter 

 lived was midway between, and I had to stop there 

 to find out the exact lay of the land. 



At dawn, before our early breakfast, I saddled a 

 tough, shaggy sorrel horse; hastening indoors as 

 soon as the job was over, to warm my numbed 

 fingers. After breakfast I started, muffled in my 

 wolfskin coat, with beaver-fur cap, gloves, and 

 shaps, and great felt overshoes. The windless air 

 was bitter cold, the thermometer showing well be 

 low zero. Snow lay on the ground, leaving bare 

 pa^hes here and there, but drifted deep in the hol 

 lows. Under the steel-blue heavens the atmosphere 

 had a peculiar glint as if filled with myriads of tiny 

 crystals. As I crossed the frozen river, immediately 

 in front of the ranch house, the strangely carved 

 tops of the bluffs were reddening palely in the win 

 ter sunrise. Prairie fowl were perched in the bare 



