126 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



tumbled across me, much to my relief; for, after all, the 

 little shelter afforded by timber, where you can always 

 have a good fire, is infinitely preferable to a smouldering 

 smudge of buffalo-chips, with the wind playing at hide- 

 and-go-seek round your shirt-tails. 



The following will give the reader some idea of the 

 hardship and danger to be run by the sportsman who 

 determines on visiting the home of the prong-horned 

 antelope. 



Circumstances had caused me to attach myself to a 

 trader, who, with about twenty teamsters, was en route for 

 Northern Mexico. My duties were to hunt and supply the 

 party with game, a pleasant enough occupation, but not 

 without danger, for the greater portion of the country we 

 traversed belonged to the much-dreaded Camanchee, the 

 most reckless race of freebooters and horsemen probably 

 on the face of the earth, who are at war with everyone, and 

 prize nothing so much as a white man's scalp. Knowing 

 such to be the case, it behoved me to keep my weather 

 eye open when separated from my newly-formed acquaint- 

 ances ; but for all my watchfulness I several times had 

 narrow escapes. Still, time fled pleasantly onwards, and 

 as I write this I look back with delight to the happy, free, 

 thoughtless hours passed either in the saddle or watching 

 the movements of the wild animals that knew no bounds 

 to their demesne. The Indians seldom troubled my 

 thoughts, for I had a mare, that I daily rode, handsome 

 as a picture, and as game, fleet, and enduring as any 

 animal I had ever thrown a leg over; thorough-bred, I 

 believe, and as sagacious as a dog ; also a bat mule, 



