210 Hunting the Grisly 



He is perhaps the best rider on the ranch, 

 and will without hesitation mount and master 

 beasts that I doubt if the boldest rider in one 

 of our Eastern hunts would care to tackle; 

 yet his uneasiness on the new saddle was 

 fairly comical. At first he did not dare to 

 trot, and the least plunge of the horse bid 

 fair to unseat him, nor did he begin to get 

 accustomed to the situation until the very end 

 of the journey. In fact, the two kinds of rid- 

 ing are so very different that a man only ac- 

 customed to one feels almost as ill at ease 

 when he first tries the other as if he had never 

 sat on a horse's back before. It is rather 

 funny to see a man who only knows one kind, 

 and is conceited enough to think that that is 

 really the only kind worth knowing, when 

 first he is brought into contact with the other. 

 Two or three times I have known men try 

 to follow hounds on stock-saddles, which are 

 about as ill-suited for the purpose as they well 

 can be; while it is even more laughable to 

 see some young fellow from the East or from 

 England, who thinks he knows entirely too 

 much about horses to be taught by barbarians, 

 attempt in his turn to do cow-work with his 

 ordinary riding or hunting rig. It must be 

 said, however, that in all probability cowboys 



