Travelling in the Western Hunting Grounds. 3 



sweat-covered horses gave vent to their pleasure by neighs. In the 

 immediate foreground we perceived a delightfully green flat, covered 

 with grass so high as almost to hide a little band of prongbucks 

 which had been feeding, and were now gazing in alarmed surprise 

 at the unwonted sight of human beings ere they dashed off in jerky 

 leaps. At the further end of the little meadow there was a tiny 

 tarn fed by the drainage from the two high peaks flanking the pass, 

 and close to it stood a few gnarled old pines, the uppermost 

 sentinels of the great army below. One of them had been laid 

 low by lightning, the upper third of the trunk lying immersed 

 in the lake, the calm surface of which was undisturbed, save by 

 countless rises of hungry trout. 



A little brook issued forth from the further end of the tarn, 

 remaining visible, however, only for a short distance, for soon it 

 dipped over the edge of the flat, taking its first plunge down the 

 Pacific Slope on its long journey westward, where the setting sun 

 was now throwing a golden halo over a very ocean of mountain- 

 ranges that rose like the crests of a storm-tossed sea into a peaceful 

 and gloriously tinted evening sky. 



It was an ideal mountain picture, and, however reluctant a 

 hungry and travel-fagged man usually is to go into rhapsodies, it 

 was one which stands out in bold relief in a memory fairly well 

 stored with the beauties of mountain scenery in the Old and New 

 World. Ygung Henry, or to give him his usual name, " The Kid " 

 a hopelessly matter-of-fact Western youth, who acted as our 

 Vook, scullion and horse-boy, riding by my side in charge of the 

 kitchen pony, reminded me that we were out West, in the uncon- 

 ventional, " strictly business " frontier-land. Even he was impressed 

 by the sight. 



" Golly ! " he exclaimed, " If this ain't the first Pacific water ! 

 T'aint ever)' kid's funeral to wash up his pots and pans in that er 

 water ; and doggarn it, ain't this a bully camp, grass belly-high 

 for the cayuses, game and fish just a wanting to hop into 

 the frying-pan, and there," with a sly reflection upon the only 

 duty concerning which a reprimand was ever necessary, " and 



B 2 



