288 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



At any rate I missed clean, and the whole band 

 plunged down into a hollow and were off before, 

 with my stiffened and numbed fingers, I could get 

 another shot; and in wet, sullen misery we plodded 

 back to the ponies. 



All that day the rain continued, and we passed 

 another wretched night. Next morning, however, 

 it had cleared off, and as the sun rose brightly we 

 forgot our hunger and sleepiness, and rode cheerily 

 off up a large dry creek, in whose bottom pools of 

 rain-water still stood. During the morning, how- 

 ever, our ill-luck continued. My companion's horse 

 almost trod on a rattlesnake, and narrowly escaped 

 being bitten. While riding along the face of a 

 steeply-inclined bluff the sandy soil broke away 

 under the ponies' hoofs, and we slid and rolled 

 down to the bottom, where we came to in a heap, 

 horses and men. Then while galloping through a 

 brush-covered bottom my pony put both forefeet 

 in a hole made by the falling and uprooting of a 

 tree, and turned a complete somersault, pitching me 

 a good ten feet beyond his head. And finally, while 

 crossing what looked like the hard bed of a dry 

 creek, the earth gave way under my horse as if he 

 had stepped on a trap-door and let him down to his 

 withers in soft, sticky mud. I was off at once and 

 floundered to the bank, loosening the lariat from the 

 saddlebow; and both of us turning to with a will, 

 and bringing the other pony in to our aid, hauled 

 him out by the rope, pretty nearly strangling him 

 in so doing; and he looked rather a melancholy 



