22 Sport and Life. 



nice and dry, and worn smooth, so that they "come tought," with that 

 business-like, tidy look by which a well-put-up brown paper parcel 

 shows at a glance that skilled hands have made it up, then, I say, 

 packing is a pleasantly invigorating exercise. Very different is the 

 aspect of things when ropes are wet, or, worse, frozen, and your 

 stock of blanket-pads that come between the horse's back and 

 the saddle has been reduced by losses or the wear and tear of 

 a long trip, and you have to use your bedding blankets. For, 

 under these conditions your hands are as liable to suffer as is the 

 animal's back, and, once sore, the greatest and most constant care 

 is required if the horse is not be rendered entirely useless for 

 weeks. 



As the direction of our day's ride is plainly indicated by a very 

 visible landmark in the shape of a fine peak, I ride ahead. Boreas, 

 my old hunting horse, after his week's rest and the bounteous 

 bunch-grass is " feeling good," and kicks up his heels as a 

 preliminary exercise to the canter which he knows well enough is 

 before him. 



It is, let us take it, the latter half of October, and the days are 

 getting short, so no noon camp will be made. The pack-train will 

 keep on until the base of the aforesaid peak is reached, where 

 I shall have picked out a camping place by the time the slower 

 moving pack-horses can get there. A bit of lunch in the cantinas 

 of my saddle makes me quite independent of the party for the rest 

 of the day. 



Game is almost constantly in view. On the bare ridges, often 

 of quite rugged formation, which form the undulations which we 

 have to traverse at right angles, mule-deer in little bands can 

 be seen grazing, but no specially good head is among the different 

 lots, so they are not molested, and a few graceful leaps soon put 

 the ridge between the deer and the hunter. A couple of old bison 

 bulls I come upon in a secluded dell lumber away with that awkward 

 gait so peculiar to them. Their hides are scabby, and not even 

 worth the cartridges it would take to obtain them. As I pass 

 through a thicket of quaking asps which cover the bottom of one 



