330 FOX-HOUND, FOREST AND PRAIRIE. 



" running " an hotel or a dry goods store. A " colonel " ma}' be 

 found selling hardware ; or a doctor of medicine dispensing 

 timber in a lumber-yard. There is nothing infra dig. in selling 

 a pound of cheese ; your bootmaker and you (be you the ex- 

 President himself) take your daily dinner at the same hotel 

 table ; and the clerk who is good enough to receive your 

 telegram for transmission, takes care when so doing to put you 

 thoroughly at your ease by keeping both his legs on the table, 

 and retaining his half-eaten ci^ar in his mouth while tendering 

 you his hand for a cordial shake. 



The man-of-business has come West for the summwm bonum, 

 and he means to attain it — as honestly as the law compels him 

 — out of you and his other fellow-men ; you for choice, as you 

 are possibly as yet only insufficiently versed in the tricks of 

 the trade, and are probably still in possession of some little ready 

 money, and of some lingering disbelief in King David's hasty 

 summary of all men. To get to windward of somebody, is his- 

 creed and avocation ; and he is termed a good or bad business- 

 man according to the measure of his success. He comes not 

 West for the sake of his health, nor even that he may make a 

 living (the man who could be satisfied to set up such a goal 

 before himself, would truly earn the profoundest contempt from 

 the American business-man) — but that he may amass a fortune- 

 compatible either with a go in for a big stake here, or with a 

 fair start in the universal race for dollars back East. 



I have spoken of the type of manhood in question as in con- 

 nection with town — or as it may more likety be termed city — 

 which forms the chief meeting-ground of local society. But it 

 is not to be supposed that the Man of Business has nothing to 

 do with the subject of live stock. In almost every case he either 

 has, or has had, or hopes to have, an interest in some herd on 

 the neighbouring prairies, without prejudice or interruption 

 to his more apparent vocation at headquarters. There is ac- 

 cordingly nothing incongruous in the sight of an ironmonger 

 arrayed in straps and spurs, or of a maitre d'hdtel with a lasso 

 hung on his saddle-bow. Cattle form as recognised a standard 



