Hunting with Hounds 209 



tralian rough riders are, for their own work, 

 just as good as men possibly can be. 



One spring I had to leave the East in the 

 midst of the hunting season, to join a round- 

 up in the cattle country of western Dakota, 

 and it was curious to compare the totally dif- 

 ferent styles of riding of the cowboys and the 

 cross-country men. A stock-saddle weighs 

 thirty or forty pounds instead of ten or fifteen 

 and needs an utterly different seat from that 

 adopted in the East. A cowboy rides with 

 very long stirrups, sitting forked well down 

 between his high pommel and cantle, and de- 

 pends upon balance as well as on the grip of 

 his thighs. In cutting out a steer from a herd, 

 in breaking a vicious wild horse, in sitting a 

 bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede 

 of many hundred maddened animals, or in the 

 performance of a hundred other feats of reck- 

 less and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is 

 absolutely unequaled; and when he has his 

 own horse gear he sits his animal with the 

 ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless 

 the first time he gets astride one of the small 

 Eastern saddles. One summer, while pur- 

 chasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch fore- 

 men had to get on an ordinary saddle to 

 ride out of town and see a bunch of steers. 



