THE WASTEFUL WEST 



to have a good bed. The skin-hunter's California 

 blankets would sometimes cost him seventy-five dol- 

 lars and he would fight before he would lose his bed. 



Pat Garrett, once Collector of Customs at El 

 Paso, Texas, and once a protege of President Roose- 

 velt, was a member of a skin-hunting party on the 

 Staked Plains in his young days, and he tells with 

 amusement how, once upon a time, he and one or 

 two companions left the wagons and went westward 

 on an exploring expedition of their own. When 

 they, or one of them, after some weeks mixed in 

 with Indian fighting, got back to the place where 

 the wagons had been, both wagons and beds were 

 gone. 



"Follow them up ?" said Pat Garrett. "How could 

 you tell in those days who a skin-hunter was, or 

 where he came from, or where he was going? We 

 just marked the beds off and mine cost me the best 

 part of a hundred." 



What became of the buffalo robes that came in 

 such untold thousands from the Plains? This is a 

 very common question yet there seems no answer for 

 it. Today a good robe is worth what it will bring. 

 There are no quotations; but if you have a robe, 

 keep it. There are very few left among the whites, 

 and among the Indians only a few, preserved as 

 records ; for your Indian was fond of inscribing his 



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