Hunting at High Altitudes 



of the temporary centers in Montana of the last fur 

 trading days. 



32. There were not a few mountain sheep on the 

 rough buttes of the Judith, Snowy and Little Belt 

 Mountains, though these would hardly be seen by 

 horsemen hunting on the plains below. 



33. As already said, the river steamers procured 

 their fuel from wood yards scattered along the river 

 at various points between Painted Woods and Benton. 

 A wood-chopper hired two or three hands, built a 

 cabin in some bottom where the cotton wood timber 

 was large and easy of access, chopped there through 

 the winter, and in summer disposed of his pile of 

 wood to the steamboat captains going up and down 

 The men who ran these wood yards and those who 

 chopped for them were the "wood-hawks" already 

 described. They took their lives in their hands when 

 they adopted this vocation, and yet, after all, com- 

 paratively few of them were killed by the Indians. 

 They were usually safe enough as long as they kept 

 their wits about them, and were prepared for danger, 

 for in the cabins in which they lived they had forts 

 which were impregnable to the savages. Sometimes, 

 however, they grew careless, and because they saw no 

 Indians, thought that none were about, and so were 

 surprised and killed. 



They were migratory population who chopped wood 

 in late winter, spring and early summer, hunted in fall 

 and wolfed that is, collected wolf hides in winter. 



Pike Landusky was one of these, who afterward 

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