Ranching in the Bad Lands 13 



one of the riders hauling from the saddle. A ranch 

 man or foreman dresses precisely like the cowboys, 

 except that the materials are finer, the saddle leather 

 being handsomely carved, the spurs, bit, and revolver 

 silver-mounted, the chaps of sealskin, etc. The re 

 volver was formerly a necessity to protect the 

 owner from Indians and other human foes; this is 

 still the case in a few places, but, as a rule, it is now 

 carried merely from habit, or to kill rattlesnakes, 

 or on the chance of falling in with a wolf or coyote, 

 while not unfrequently it is used to add game to 

 the cowboy s not too varied bill of fare. 



A cowboy is always a good and bold rider, but his 

 seat in the saddle is not at all like that of one of 

 our Eastern or Southern fox-hunters. The stirrups 

 are so long that the man stands almost erect in 

 them, from his head to his feet being a nearly 

 straight line. It is difficult to compare the horse 

 manship of a Western plainsman with that of an 

 Eastern or Southern cross-country rider. In fol 

 lowing hounds over fences and high walls, on a 

 spirited horse needing very careful humoring, the 

 latter would certainly excel; but he would find it 

 hard work to sit a bucking horse like a cowboy, or 

 to imitate the headlong dash with which one will 

 cut out a cow marked with his own brand from a 

 herd of several hundred others, or will follow at full 

 speed the twistings and doublings of a refractory 

 steer over ground where an Eastern horse would 

 hardly keep its feet walking. 



My own ranches, the Elkhorn and the Chimney 



