Hunting with Hounds 209 



tralian rough riders are, for their own work, 

 just as good as men possibly can be. 



One spring I had to leave the East in the 

 midst of the hunting season, to join a round 

 up in the cattle country of western Dakota, 

 and it was curious to compare the totally dif 

 ferent styles of riding of the cowboys and the 

 cross-country men. A stock-saddle weighs 

 thirty or forty pounds instead of ten or fifteen 

 and needs an utterly different seat from that 

 adopted in the East. A cowboy rides with 

 very long stirrups, sitting forked well down 

 between his high pommel and cantle, and de 

 pends upon balance as well as on the grip of 

 his thighs. In cutting out a steer from a herd, 

 in breaking a vicious wild horse, in sitting a 

 bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede 

 of many hundred maddened animals, or in the 

 performance of a hundred other feats of reck 

 less and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is 

 absolutely unequaled; and when he has his 

 own horse gear he sits his animal with the 

 ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless 

 the first time he gets astride one of the small 

 Eastern saddles. One summer, while pur 

 chasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch fore 

 men had to get on an ordinary saddle to 

 ride out of town and see a bunch of steers. 



