THE VIETUES OF A PIPE. 53 



Mexican saddle, a touch of the spur, and over it would 

 have gone. But I had no horse, had no rope, and not a 

 " stick," to make a handspike from, was within miles. 



Then it struck me why, the brute is lying the wrong 

 way of the slope ! I will haul him round. 



I could not haul him round ; he would not haul " worth 

 a red cent." Desperately I tugged at him again. Taking 

 hold of the front leg next the ground by its hoof, I stood on 

 the carcass just behind the elbow of the other leg, gave a few 

 preliminary sways, and then threw my whole weight back- 

 wards ; but the leverage of his big hump and his horns 

 stopped the turn just as it appeared about to be made, and 

 " soss " back he went ! 



Of course I could cut the animal up, skin him from his 

 hide, instead of his hide from him. But that was no way to 

 skin a buffalo ; besides, I had started in to do it, and was 

 bound to turn him over. 



There is wisdom in counsel. My counsellor hung from 

 my neck like a lady's locket. It did not hang from my 

 neck by a gold chain, but by a greasy old buckskin 

 " whang," and it was not an affair of gold, glass, hair, and 

 photograph. My faithful counsellor was a well-seasoned, 

 chocolate-coloured, large-bowled, short-stemmed, old briar- 

 root pipe. And why did I hang my pipe from my neck, like 

 the ornament of a fashionable siren or the fetish of a Hot- 

 tentot Venus, instead of having a case for it, and carrying it 

 in a pocket, like every other respectable member of society ? 

 For more reasons than one. A pipe is a valuable and irre- 

 placeable treasure on the Plains, whose loss must not be 

 risked by taking the chance of laying it down and forgetting 



