240 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



The trip had been delayed owing to two of my men, 

 who had been sent out to buy ponies, coming in with 

 a bunch of fifty, for the most part hardly broken. 

 Some of them were meant for the use of the lower 

 ranch, and the men from the latter had come up to 

 get them. At night the ponies were let loose, 

 and each day they were gathered together into 

 the horse corral and broken as well as we could 

 break them in such weather. It was my intention 

 not to start on the hunt until the ponies were sep- 

 arated into the two bands, and the men from the 

 lower ranch (the Elkhorn) had gone off with theirs. 

 Then one of the cowboys was to take the buckboard 

 up to a deserted hunter's hut, which lay on a great 

 bend of the river nearby the ground over which the 

 big-horn were said to wander, while my foreman, 

 Merrifield, and myself would take saddle-horses, 

 and each day ride to the country through which we 

 intended to hunt, returning at night to the buck- 

 board and hut. But we started a little sooner than 

 we had intended, owing to a funny mistake made 

 by one of the cowboys. 



The sun did not rise until nearly eight, but each 

 morning we breakfasted at five, and the men were 

 then sent out on the horses which had been kept in 

 overnight, to find and drive home the pony band; 

 of course they started in perfect darkness, except for 

 the starlight. On the last day of our proposed stay 

 the men had come in with the ponies before sunrise ; 

 and, leaving the latter in the corral, they entered 

 the house and crowded round the fire, stamping and 



