36 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



of American life as fascinating as it is evanescent, 

 and one well deserving an historian. But in these 

 pages I propose to dwell on only one of its many 

 pleasant sides, and to give some idea of the game 

 shooting which forms perhaps the chief of the cattle- 

 man's pleasures, aside from those more strictly con- 

 nected with his actual work. I have to tell of no un- 

 usual adventures, but merely of just such hunting as 

 lies within reach of most of the sport-loving ranch- 

 men, whose cattle range along the waters of the 

 Powder and the Bighorn, the Little Missouri and 

 the Yellowstone. 



Of course I have never myself gone out hunting 

 under the direction of a professional guide or pro- 

 fessional hunter, unless it was to see one of the latter 

 who was reputed a crack shot; all of my trips have 

 been made either by myself or else with one of my 

 cowboys as a companion. Most of the so-called 

 hunters are not worth much. There are plenty of 

 men hanging round the frontier settlements who 

 claim to be hunters, and who bedizen themselves in 

 all the traditional finery of the craft, in the hope of 

 getting a job at guiding some "tender foot"; and 

 there are plenty of skin-hunters, or meat-hunters, 

 who, after the Indians have been driven away and 

 when means of communication have been estab- 

 lished, mercilessly slaughter the game in season and 

 out, being too lazy to work at any regular trade, and 

 keeping on hunting until the animals become too 

 scarce and shy to be taken without more skill than 

 they possess; but these are all temporary excres- 



