Ranching in the Bad Lands. 1 7 



tion. When the work is over for the day the men gather 

 round the fire for an hour or two to sing songs, talk, 

 smoke, and tell stones ; and he who has a good voice, or, 

 better still, can play a fiddle or banjo, is sure to receive 

 his meed of most sincere homage. 



Though the ranchman is busiest during the round-up, 

 yet he is far from idle at other times. He rides round 

 among the cattle to see if any are sick, visits any outlying 

 camp of his men, hunts up any band of ponies which may 

 stray and they are always straying, superintends the 

 haying, and, in fact, does not often find that he has too 

 much leisure time on his hands. Even in winter he has 

 work which must be done. His ranch supplies milk, 

 butter, eggs, and potatoes, and his rifle keeps him, at least 

 intermittently, in fresh meat ; but coffee, sugar, flour, and 

 whatever else he may want, has to be hauled in, and this 

 is generally done when the ice will bear. Then firewood 

 must be chopped ; or, if there is a good coal vein, as on 

 my ranch, the coal must be dug out and hauled in. 

 Altogether, though the ranchman will have time enough 

 to take shooting trips, he will be very far from having 

 time to make shooting a business, as a stranger who comes 

 for nothing else can afford to do. 



There are now no Indians left in my immediate neigh- 

 borhood, though a small party of harmless Grosventres 

 occasionally passes through ; yet it is but six years since 

 the Sioux surprised and killed five men in a log station 

 just south of me, where the Fort Keogh trail crosses the 

 river ; and, two years ago, when I went down on the 

 prairies toward the Black Hills, there was still danger 



