Memories of a Bear Hunter 



drive, passing down almost beyond the snow, 

 thqugh the greater part of the day's travel was 

 through snow sixteen inches deep. 



By noon of the following day we reached the 

 point of the mountains just above the junction of 

 the north and south forks of the Stinking River. 

 Except for sugar, coffee, tea and dried fruit, we 

 were pretty well out of food. We had been told 

 that in this basin there were two ranches, the Car- 

 ter Ranch and the Belknap Ranch, and these two 

 cattle men during the past summer had each 

 brought in about a thousand head of cows. I had 

 known Captain Belknap well, for at the battle of 

 Murfreesboro, or Stone River, he was a captain of 

 the 1 8th U. S. Infantry, and I had no doubt that 

 at his place I could get frour enough to last until 

 we reached the Crow Agency, near the Yellow- 

 stone. Near the camp, therefore, we climbed a 

 point of a mountain above the forks, high enough 

 to get a view of the basin before us, and after 

 carefully inspecting the landscape with field glasses, 

 its curving smoke showed us a lone cabin three or 

 four miles distant. We moved a few miles in 

 that direction and camped in the brush on the 

 bank of the south fork. I went on to the lone 

 cabin and found there Dr. 'Carter, then manager 

 of the Carter Cattle Company, whose herd had 



181 



