HUNTING IN CATTLE COUNTRY 157 



of the great plains is wearisome; personally there are few 

 things I have enjoyed more than journeying over them 

 where the game was at all plentiful. Sometimes I have 

 gone off for three or four days alone on horseback, with 

 a slicker or oilskin coat behind the saddle, and some salt 

 and hardtack as my sole provisions. But for comfort on 

 a trip of any length it was always desirable to have a 

 wagon. My regular outfit consisted of a wagon and team 

 driven by one man who cooked, together with another 

 man and four riding ponies, two of which we rode, while 

 the other two were driven loose or led behind the wagon. 

 While it is eminently desirable that a hunter should be 

 able to rough it, and should be entirely willing to put 

 up with the bare minimum of necessities, and to undergo 

 great fatigue and hardship, it is yet not at all necessary 

 that he should refrain from comfort of a wholesome sort 

 when it is obtainable. By taking the wagon we could 

 carry a tent to put up if there was foul weather. I had 

 a change of clothes to put on if I was wet, two or three 

 books to read and nothing adds more to the enjoyment 

 of a hunting trip as w f ell as plenty of food ; while having 

 two men made me entirely foot-loose as regards camp, 

 so that I could hunt whenever I pleased, and, if I came 

 in tired, I simply rested, instead of spending two or three 

 hours in pitching camp, cooking, tethering horses, and 

 doing the innumerable other little things which in the 

 aggregate amount to so much. 



On such a trip, when we got into unknown country, 

 it was of course very necessary to stay near the wagon, 

 especially if we had to hunt for water. But if .we knew 



