CHAPTER IV 



ON THE CATTLE RANGES; THE PRONG-HORN 

 ANTELOPE 



EARLY one June just after the close of the regu- 

 lar spring round-up, a couple of wagons, with 

 a score of riders between them, were sent to work 

 some hitherto untouched country, between the Lit- 

 tle Missouri and the Yellowstone, I was to go as 

 the representative of our own and of one or two 

 neighboring brands ; but as the round-up had halted 

 near my ranch I determined to spend a day there, 

 and then to join the wagons; the appointed meet- 

 ing-place being a cluster of red scoria buttes, some 

 forty miles distant, where there was a spring of 

 good water. 



Most of my day at the ranch was spent in slum- 

 ber; for I had been several weeks on the round-up, 

 where nobody ever gets quite enough sleep. This 

 is the only drawback to the work; otherwise it is 

 pleasant and exciting, with just that slight touch 

 of danger necessary to give it zest, and without 

 the wearing fatigue of such labor as lumbering or 

 mining. But there is never enough sleep, at least 

 on the spring and mid-summer round-ups. The 

 men are in the saddle from dawn until dusk, at 

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