LETTER XL 123 



tramping like his master. The difficulty of the 

 trail sufficiently accounted for the rarity of the 

 natives' visits to this particular peak, as my ex- 

 perience of the Ashinola Indian is, that where he 

 cannot hunt on horseback he does not care to 

 hunt at all. The noble savage can do as much 

 hard work as anyone, but will avoid it always if 

 he can. By noon we had scrambled up the last 

 step in the ladder which led to my land of 

 promise, and my moccasins were hanging about 

 my feet in rags, so that I had to rely on old S.'s 

 good nature, who gave me his last pair, and 

 submitted for the rest of our trip to the misery 

 of wearing a good-looking pair of knee-boots, of 

 which he was inordinately proud at starting. 



As we dragged our horses after us up the last 

 moraine, from which we looked on the downs 

 beyond, Toma sank with a low whistle to the 

 ground. Lying there behind him, we rested, and 

 watched six splendid rams feed slowly to the top 

 of the ridge and disappear. Then we hurried on 

 through a piece of ' brule ' to where, above a 

 patch of boggy gray moss, in which a little 

 water stood in pools, a patch of burnt timber 

 afforded just sufficient shelter to hide our tents 

 from the game on the great bare snow-patched 

 sheep-walk above. The camp was the bleakest 

 I ever looked upon, but we left old S. to do his 



