EARLY DAY STORIES. 123 



slept at all. It was too warm to sleep with the head covered, 

 and quite impossible to sleep with it uncovered. The only 

 way to get any sleep was to keep up a thick smudge and 

 sit or lie where it could reach one's head. Without doubt it 

 was as hard on the horses as on ourselves. The second night 

 out was at first, just as bad, and finding it impossible to 

 sleep, I went out where the horses were picketed, and rubbed 

 the mosquitos off their necks and legs, their bodies being 

 blanketed, which helped some. Near the camp was a big 

 blow-out, and thinking there might be a little breeze stirring 

 near the top I went there to investigate. There was no wind, 

 but near the top there were fewer mosquitos. The blow-out 

 was a big one, the hollow covering nearly or quite half an 

 acre, and being probably twenty feet deep, and all clean, 

 bare sand. I went down into it, and there was not a mos- 

 quito there . I had learned something. Going back to camp, 

 we carried the bed to the blowout and there slept until after 

 sunrise, without hearing the music of a single one of the 

 pests. We also spent the next night in the same place with- 

 out being bothered at all. 



The morning after our first night in the blow-out, we 

 were late getting breakfast, and we ate it on the rim at the 

 top of the blow-out, so as to be where we could look over 

 the country for game. While eating breakfast we saw a 

 herd of elk about a mile away to the southwest. They were 

 feeding, and were working slowly to the north. After 

 breakfast we saddled the horses and started after them. 

 They were now out of sight, but had not seen us and were 

 not alarmed. We rode perhaps a mile to the southwest, and 

 then turned north to follow the elk, keeping behind the 

 shelter of the sandhills, and riding near enough to the top 

 of one frequently, so as to look sharp ahead, but never show- 

 ing ourselves on any high place. While doing this we came 

 upon a wolf lying asleep in the tall grass. He had not heard 

 nor smelt us, and we watched him for a minute or two, un- 



