170 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



we started out on a hunt the dogs were apparently 

 more interested than the men; but their judgment 

 did not equal their zeal, and lack of training made 

 them on the whole more bother than advantage. 



But much more than good shooting is necessary 

 before a man can be called a good hunter. Indians, 

 for example, get a good deal of game, but they are 

 in most cases very bad shots. Once, while going 

 up the Clear Fork of the Powder, in northern 

 Wyoming, one of my men, an excellent hunter, and 

 myself rode into a large camp of Cheyennes; and 

 after a while started a shooting-match with some of 

 them. We had several trials of skill with the rifle, 

 and, a good deal to my astonishment, I found that 

 most of the Indians (quite successful hunters, to 

 judge by the quantity of smoked venison lying 

 round) were very bad shots indeed. None of them 

 came anywhere near the hunter who was with me; 

 nor, indeed, to myself. An Indian gets his game by 

 his patience, his stealth, and his tireless persever 

 ance; and a white to be really successful in still- 

 hunting must learn to copy some of the Indian s 

 traits. 



While the game butchers, the skin hunters, and 

 their like, work such brutal slaughter among the 

 plains animals that these will soon be either totally 

 extinct or so thinned out as to cease being promi 

 nent features of plains life, yet, on the other hand, 

 the nature of the country debars them from follow 

 ing certain murderous and unsportsmanlike forms of 

 hunting much in vogue in other quarters of our 



