RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



the powdery snow, their hoofs tossed it up in masses of white spray. On 

 the left of the plateau was a ridge, and as they went up this I twice fired 

 at the leading ram, my bullets striking under him. On the summit he 

 stopped and stood for a moment looking back three hundred and fifty 

 yards off,* and my third shot went fairly through his lungs. He ran over 

 the hill as if unharmed, but lay down a couple of hundred yards on, and 

 was dead when we reached him. 



It was after nightfall when we got back to the horses, and we rode 

 home by moonlight. To gallop in such weather insures freezing ; so the 

 ponies shambled along at a single-foot trot, their dark bodies white with 

 hoar-frost, and the long icicles hanging from their lips. The cold had 

 increased steadily ; the spirit thermometer at the ranch showed 26 Fah- 

 renheit below zero. We had worked all day without food or rest, and 

 were very tired. On the ride home I got benumbed before I knew it and 

 froze my face, one foot, and both knees. Even my companion, who had 

 a great-coat, froze his nose and cheeks. Never was a sight more welcome 

 than the gleam of the fire-lit ranch windows to us that night. But the 

 great ram's head was a trophy that paid for all. 



* Actual pacing, not guesswork. 



A MONTANA COWBOY. 



