Hunting with Hounds 205 



killing big game at long ranges with the large- 

 bore rifle, at the cost of fatiguing tramps, but 

 they had a positive distaste for the sport and 

 would never allow that it equaled their own 

 stealthy hunts in Southern forests. So I know 

 plenty of men, experts with the shotgun, who 

 honestly prefer shooting quail in the East over 

 well-trained setters or pointers, to the hard- 

 ier, manlier sports of the wilderness. 



As it is with hunting, so it is with riding. 

 The cowboy's scorn of every method of rid- 

 ing save his own is as profound and as igno- 

 rant as is that of the school rider, jockey, or 

 fox-hunter. The truth is that each of these is 

 best in his own sphere and is at a disadvan- 

 tage when made to do the work of any of the 

 others. For all-around riding and horseman- 

 ship, I think the West Point graduate is some- 

 what ahead of any of them. Taken as a class, 

 however, and compared with other classes as 

 numerous, and not with a few exceptional in- 

 dividuals, the cowboy, like the Rocky Moun- 

 tain stage-driver, has no superiors anywhere 

 for his own work; and they are fine fellows, 

 these iron-nerved reinsmen and rough-riders. 



When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Eu- 

 rope they made a practice in England, France, 

 Germany, and Italy of offering to break and 



