OF A RANCHMAN 55 



pleasure. On many of the ranches on my 

 own, for instance the supply of fresh meat 

 depends mainly on the skill of the riflemen, 

 and so, both for pleasure and profit, most 

 ranchmen do a certain amount of hunting 

 each season. The buffalo are now gene for- 

 ever, and the elk are rapidly sharing their 

 fate; but antelope and deer are still quite 

 plenty, and will remain so for some years; 

 and these are the common game of the plains- 

 man. Nor is it likely that the game will dis- 

 appear much before ranch life itself is a thing 

 of the past. It is a phase of American life as 

 fascinating as it is evanescent, and one well 

 deserving an historian. But in these pages 

 I propose to dwell on only one of its many 

 pleasant sides, and to give some idea of the 

 game shooting which forms perhaps the 

 chief of the cattle-man's pleasures, aside 

 from those more strictly connected with his 

 actual work. I have to tell of no unusual 

 adventures, but merely of just such hunting 

 as lies within reach of most of the sport- 



