HUNTING FROM THE RANCH. 33 



CHAPTER II. 



HUNTING FROM THE RANCH ; THE BLACKTAIL 

 DEER. 



NO life can be pleasanter than life during 

 the months of fall on a ranch in the 

 northern cattle country. The weather is 

 cool ; in the evenings and on the rare rainy 

 days we are glad to sit by the great fireplace, 

 with its roaring cottonwood logs. But on most 

 days not a cloud dims the serene splendor of 

 the sky ; and the fresh pure air is clear with 

 the wonderful clearness of the high plains. 

 We are in the saddle from morning to night. 



The long, low, roomy ranch house, of clean 

 hewed logs, is as comfortable as it is bare and 

 plain. We fare simply but well ; for the wife 

 of my foreman makes excellent bread and 

 cake, and there are plenty of potatoes, grown 

 in the forlorn little garden-patch on the bot- 

 tom. We also have jellies and jams, made 

 from wild plums and buffalo berries ; and all 

 the milk we can drink. For meat we depend 

 on our rifles ; and, with an occasional inter- 

 lude of ducks or prairie chickens, the mainstay 

 of each meal is venison, roasted, broiled, or 

 fried. 



Sometimes we shoot the deer when we hap- 

 pen on them while about our ordinary business, 

 indeed throughout the time that I have lived 



