94 The Wilderness Hunter 



travel for any very great distance, but seek some 

 sheltered grassy tableland in the Bad Lands, or 

 some well-shielded valley, where their instinct and 

 experience teach them that the snow does not lie 

 deep in winter. Once having chosen such a place 

 they stand much persecution before leaving it. 



One December, an old hunter whom I knew told 

 me that such a band was wintering a few miles from 

 a camp where two line-riders of the W Bar brand 

 were stationed ; and I made up my mind to ride thith- 

 er and kill a couple. The line camp was twenty miles 

 from my ranch; the shack in which the old hunter 

 lived was midway between, and I had to stop there 

 to find out the exact lay of the land. 



At dawn, before our early breakfast, I saddled a 

 tough, shaggy sorrel horse; hastening indoors as 

 soon as the job was over, to warm my numbed 

 fingers. After breakfast I started, muffled in my 

 wolfskin coat, with beaver-fur cap, gloves, and 

 shaps, and great felt overshoes. The windless air 

 was bitter cold, the thermometer showing well be- 

 low zero. Snow lay on the ground, leaving bare 

 patches here and there, but drifted deep in the hol- 

 lows. Under the steel-blue heavens the atmosphere 

 had a peculiar glint as if filled with myriads of tiny 

 crystals. As I crossed the frozen river, immediately 

 in front of the ranch house, the strangely carved 

 tops of the bluffs were reddening palely in the win- 

 ter sunrise. Prairie fowl were perched in the bare 



