OF A RANCHMAN 35 



fact, does not often find that he has too much 

 leisure time on his hands. Even in winter 

 he has work which must be done. His ranch 

 supplies milk, butter, eggs, and potatoes, and 

 his rifle keeps him, at least intermittently, in 

 fresh meat; but coffee, sugar, flour, and 

 whatever else he may want, has to be hauled 

 in, and this is generally done when the ice 

 will bear. Then firewood must be chopped ; 

 or, if there is a good coal vein, as on my 

 ranch, the coal must be dug out and hauled 

 in. Altogether, though the ranchman will 

 have time enough to take shooting trips, he 

 will be very far from having time to make 

 shooting a business, as a stranger who comes 

 for nothing else can afford to do. 



There are now no Indians left in my im- 

 mediate neighborhood, though a small party 

 of harmless Grosventres occasionally passes 

 through; yet it is but six years since the 

 Sioux surprised and killed five men in a 

 log station just south of me, where the Fort 

 Keogh trail crosses the river; and, two 

 years ago, when I went down on the prairies 



