LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 53 



saddle, which he piled on the others to windward of the fire one of 

 the trappers was kindling. Fire-making is a simple process with 

 the mountaineers. Their bullet-pouches always contain a flint, 

 and steel, and sundry pieces of " punk"* or tinder ; and pulling a 

 handful of dry grass, which they screw into a nest, they place the 

 lighted punk in this, and, closing the grass over it, wave it in the 

 air, when it soon ignites, and readily kindles the dry sticks forming 

 the foundation of the fire. 



The tit-bits of the deer the stranger had brought in, were soon 

 roasting over the fire ; while, as soon as the burning logs had de- 

 posited a sufficiency of ashes, a hole was raked in them, and the 

 head of the deer, skin, hair, and all, placed in this primitive oven, 

 and carefully covered with the hot ashes. 



A "heap" of "fat meat" in perspective, our mountaineers en- 

 joyed their ante-prandial pipes, recounting the news of the respect- 

 ive regions whence they came ; and so well did they like each 

 other's company, so sweet was the "honey-dew" tobacco of which 

 the strange hunter had good store, so plentiful the game about the 

 creek, and so abundant the pasture for their winter-starved ani- 

 mals, that before the carcass of the "two-year" buck had been 

 more than four-fifths consumed ; and, although rib after rib had 

 been picked and chucked over their shoulders to the wolves, and 

 one fore leg and the "bit" of all, the head, were still cooked before 

 them, — the three had come to the resolution to join company, and 

 hunt in their present locality for a few days at least — the owner 

 of the "two-shoot" gun volunteering to fill their horns with pow- 

 der, and find tobacco for their pipes. 



Here, on plenty of meat, of venison, bear, and antelope, they 

 merrily luxuriated ; returning after their daily hunts to the bright- 

 ly burning camp-fire, where one always remained to guard the an- 

 imals, and unloading their packs of meat, (all choicest portions), 



* A pithy substance found in dead pine-trees. 



