94 HUNTING TRIPS 



eastern prairie land, where we were on our 

 duck-shooting trip, but in many places on 

 the great dry plains farther west, it is either 

 very scanty or altogether lacking ; and I have 

 at times been forced to travel half a score 

 miles farther than I wished to get feed for the 

 horses. Water, again, is a commodity not by 

 any means to be found everywhere on the 

 plains. If the country is known and the 

 journeys timed aright, water can easily be 

 had, at least at the night camps, for on a 

 pinch a wagon can be pushed along thirty 

 miles or so at a stretch, giving the tough 

 ponies merely a couple of hours' rest and 

 feed at mid-day; but in going through an 

 unknown country it has been my misfortune 

 on more than one occasion to make a dry 

 camp that is, one without any water either 

 for men or horses, and such camps are most 

 uncomfortable. The thirst seems to be most 

 annoying just after sundown; after one has 

 gotten to sleep and the air has become cool, 

 he is not troubled much by it again until 

 within two or three hours of noon next day, 



