IOO 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING -TRAIL 



But all these things are merely incidents in the cowboy's life. It is 

 utterly unfair to judge the whole class by what a few individuals do in 

 the course of two or three days spent in town, instead of by the long 

 months of weary, honest toil common to all alike. To appreciate properly 

 his fine, manly qualities, the wild rough-rider of the plains should be seen 

 in his own home. There he passes his days, there he does his life-work, 

 there, when he meets death, he faces it as he has faced many other evils, 

 with quiet, uncomplaining fortitude. Brave, hospitable, hardy, and adven- 

 turous, he is the grim pioneer of our race ; he prepares the way for the 

 civilization from before whose face he must himself disappear. Hard and 

 dangerous though his existence is, it has yet a wild attraction that strongly 

 draws to it his bold, free spirit. He lives in the lonely lands where mighty 

 rivers twist in long reaches between the barren bluffs ; where the prairies 

 stretch out into billowy plains of waving grass, girt only by the blue hori- 

 zon, plains across whose endless breadth he can steer his course for days 

 and weeks and see neither man to speak to nor hill to break the level; 

 where the glory and the burning splendor of the sunsets kindle the blue 

 vault of heaven and the level brown earth till they merge together in an 

 ocean of flaming fire. 



WHICH IS THE BAD MAN ? 



