41 6 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



trifles of the past and sundry troubles of the present chased 

 each other, only to lessen and vanish quickly under the in- 

 fluence of surroundings. It was the first stroll of the present 

 year for Smoke and me — Smoke having acted the part of 

 shooting pony for five previous years, during which he had 

 carried me on the Big Horn Mountains and the Rockies, and 

 had chased down the last elk of Mizpah Creek. Apropos of 

 this latter episode comes in a tragic sequence. One Bronson 

 had been my hunting comrade in that wintry chase, when the 

 snow lay frozen crisp with the thermometer 40° below zero at 

 night, and we had shared our buffalo-robes against its intensity. 

 Jim Bronson was a New Yorker ; but had served a long 

 novitiate in the West. Nothing came amiss to him, from cow- 

 punching to log-hewing. Brought up to the sale of hardware, 

 he had adapted himself with true Yankee versatility to very 

 different occupations. He could make his own windlass and 

 dig a well, or would tie a flour bag round his waist and fry 

 buckwheat cakes, while another man would be thinking 

 out his preliminaries. And all the time he would whistle 

 and sing till one quite envied the little fellow his wondrous- 

 spirits. 



Last winter Bronson, having fixed up all that was needed 

 about his own ranche — where a few cows, a few mares, and his 

 homestead (some thirty acres broken against the spring that 

 was never to come to him) constituted his personal wealth — 

 then betook himself to earn his forty dollars a month assisting 

 his neighbour. His wages were to be for hauling lumber, i.e.,. 

 boards, from the neighbouring sawmill ; and through December 

 he went to work with his team — daylight just allowing him to 

 make one trip per diem to the mill and back. Gaily and 

 happily, under such circumstances as would have chilled the 

 heart of most men, he plodded daily through the snow with his- 

 horses, while whistle and voice rang cheerily out, to the shrill 

 accompaniment of the wagon wheels (whose quaint singing as 

 they cut through the frozen snow could be heard a mile through 

 the clear, still atmosphere). 



