48 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



nearly twenty thousand a year, while a man who 

 only shoots for sport, and that occasionally, will, in 

 practicing at marks and everything else, hardly get 

 through with five hundred. Besides, he was cradled 

 in the midst of wild life, and has handled a rifle 

 and used it against both brute and human foes 

 almost since his infancy; his nerves and sinews 

 are like iron, and his eye is naturally both quick 

 and true. 



Vic is an exception. With practice an amateur 

 will become nearly as good a shot as the average 

 hunter; and, as I said before, I do not myself be 

 lieve in taking out a professional hunter as a shoot 

 ing companion. If I do not go alone I generally 

 gci with one of my foremen, Merrifield, who himself 

 came from the East but five years ago. He is a 

 good-looking fellow, daring and self-reliant, a good 

 rider and first-class shot, and a very keen sportsman. 

 Of late years he has been my fidus Achates of the 

 hunting field. I can kill more game with him than 

 I can alone; and in hunting on the plains there are 

 many occasions on which it is almost a necessity to 

 have a companion along. 



It frequently happens that a solitary hunter finds 

 himself in an awkward predicament, from which he 

 could be extricated easily enough if there were an 

 other man with him. His horse may fall into a 

 washout, or may get stuck in a mud-hole or quick 

 sand in such a manner that a man working by him 

 self will have great difficulty in getting it out; and 

 two heads often prove better than one in an emer- 



