28 SADDLE AND CAMP 



the dusk of evening was gathering when I re- 

 turned to camp, to find John by the river side 

 cleaning his afternoon's catch, which numbered 

 eighteen. 



"I tried that made-up fly," he explained, "but 

 it wouldn't go. They wanted grasshoppers, and 

 I gave 'em grasshoppers. I'd have caught 

 more," he added apologetically, "but after I'd 

 been out half an hour I felt in my bones some- 

 thing was going plumb wrong in camp, and I 

 came up to look the outfit over. That little devil 

 Button was gone. I caught him a mile away, 

 hitting it up for Taylor like a spark out of hell. 

 I brought him back and picketed him to a stake, 

 and before I was out of sight he had pulled 

 the stake up and was off again. Now, I've got 

 him picketed to a pine that I reckon he won't 



move." 



Button, the little rascal, picketed with a lasso 

 to a pine tree, looked very forlorn and restless. 

 Evidently he was to prove a source of annoy- 

 ance, with his tendency to return, upon every 

 opportunity that offered, to his old home. Un- 

 less forage is very good indeed, a picketed horse 

 will not find sufficient food within the compass 

 of a rope length to keep him in working condi- 

 tion for long, and naturally we desired our 

 horses to have free range, for if they were to 



