20 RUSTLINGS IN THE ROCKIES. 



attention of the cayiise. He turned square across the road 

 and stopped to look at it. Before Mike could induce him to 

 move on the wagon came up, and the tongue struck him with 

 a solid shoot squarely amidships. At this he concluded to 

 break camp and move at once. Stiff-legged bucking set in. 

 He waltzed, polkaed, bucked and shook Mike's frame almost 

 to pieces. Finally he missed his footing and fell. He rolled 

 all over Mike, and when he had mashed and churned him to 

 his heart's content, got up, shook himself, and was ready to 

 be mounted again. 



None of us were in love with our teamster or his team 

 from the first, but it was the only outfit we could get in town. 

 We hoped, however, that when we reached Ed Forest's 

 ranch we should be able to get him to furnish a team and 

 take us out, and turn "Doc" back; but, unfortunately, 

 Forest's horses were out on the range, and had strayed away 

 so far that he had been unable to find them after a hard day's 

 ride. So we were compelled, much against our wishes, to 

 take up our march the next day with the same three plugs 

 (" Doc." and his two horses) that we had started with. 



On Monday morning we drove up the Yellowstone five 

 miles, forded it, and proceeded up Clark's Fork river to the 

 mouth of Rock creek, where we had expected to find good 

 hunting, but we met an old Crow Indian, who told us that 

 several lodges of his tribe were camped on Rock creek, and 

 had been for many "sleeps"; so we knew we should find no 

 game there, and must keep on up Clark's Fork. We camped 

 on Rock creek that night, and in the morning held a council 

 of war. We had noticed all the previous afternoon that one 

 of" Doc's" plugs was very weak, and we had serious doubts 

 about his being able to stand a long drive. If we had found 

 game on Rock creek , and he could have grazed there two or 

 three days while we were hunting, he would have gathered 



