CHAPTER XIII. 



"The best Dog in the World" Nip cind Tug Joe and Laughfy Their 

 Peculiarities The Outfit Traps Description of Wet-mountain Valley 

 Saiigre de Cristo Pass The Mosca Pass. 



IT has been my fortune to own many good dogs besides 

 Grouse. In my experience every sportsman asserts he 

 once owned " the best dog in the world." This time I am 

 equal to the occasion, and assert I once owned the two 

 best. For camp service and the pursuit of large game, 

 they were certainly unsurpassable. It has also been 

 noticed by me that most men, when they think they have 

 possessed unusually good animals, like to talk and write 

 of them, and believe everybody else would like to hear and 

 read about them. I am no exception to the general rule. 

 I should like to say a good deal about those two dogs. 

 They were almost more than dogs to me, for I found them 

 interesting companions as well as efficient aids during a 

 long winter's camp-out in the Rocky Mountains. To write 

 a detailed account of that camp-out would enable me to 

 gratify my inclination, would give an idea of the sports and 

 pleasures, the difficulties and hardships, of life in the 

 wilderness, and would furnish a general notion of the 



