120 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



in the rolling prairie country twelve or fifteen 

 miles away. Occasionally I took the wagon 

 and one of the men, driving to some good 

 hunting ground and spending a night or two ; 

 usually returning with two or three prong- 

 bucks, and once with an elk but this was 

 later in the fall. Not infrequently I went 

 away by myself on horseback for a couple of 

 days, when all the men were on the round-up, 

 and when I wished to hunt thoroughly some 

 country quite a distance from the ranch. I 

 made one such hunt in late August, because 

 I happened to hear that a small bunch of 

 mountain sheep were haunting a tract of very 

 broken ground, with high hills, about fifteen 

 miles away. 



I left the ranch early in the morning, riding 

 my favorite hunting horse, old Manitou. The 

 blanket and oilskin slicker were rolled and 

 strapped behind the saddle ; for provisions I 

 carried salt, a small bag of hard tack, and a 

 little tea and sugar, with a metal cup in which 

 to boil my water. The rifle and a score of 

 cartridges in my woven belt completed my out- 

 fit. On my journey I shot two prairie chickens 

 from a covey in the bottom of a brush coulie. 



I rode more than six hours before reaching 

 a good spot to camp. At first my route lay 

 across grassy plateaus, and along smooth, 

 wooded coulies ; but after a few miles the 

 ground became very rugged and difficult. At 

 last I got into the heart of the Bad Lands 

 proper, where the hard, wrinkled earth was 

 torn into shapes as sullen and grotesque as 

 those of dreamland. The hills rose high, 

 their barren flanks carved and channelled, 



