THE WASTEFUL WEST 



agency, the skin-hunting outfit, the swift rise and 

 fall of which added at one time a distinctive feature 

 to Western life. 



Any man owning a wagon and team might turn 

 skin-hunter, and indeed most of the frontiersmen did 

 so at one time or another up to 1871, on the lower 

 range, and until 1883 in the North. One may have 

 food and some sort of clothing but what is life 

 without cash ? And if cash can be obtained only by 

 the sale of what one has, and if one has only un- 

 counted robes of stupid brute beasts, what is the nat- 

 ural inference and result? Some Western men 

 farmed at the edge of things, but very many went 

 skin-hunting. Sometimes two or three would make 

 up a partnership for the sake of greater safety 

 against the Indians, always bitterest against the 

 white hide-hunters. There might perhaps be two or 

 three wagons, perhaps half a dozen in a big outfit. 

 The wagons had high sideboards and heavy canvas 

 covers, and sometimes there were four horses, or 

 even six if the partnership were opulent. 



A rude press, a beam at the tail-gate, was occa- 

 sionally used in pressing the hide bales, though most 

 of the robe trade was in hides rough-dried and 

 folded only once, lengthwise. This latter method of 

 handling the hide was more common nearer to the 

 railroads. The skin outfit was divided into wagon- 



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