CREASING A HORSE. 267 



big game, in wild parts of Montana and Idaho, but not enough 

 to make it worth while to take a shot gun ; and as in those 

 parts they live during the shooting-season on rosebuds, they 

 taste very strongly of them and are not worth killing. I got 

 more than sixty brace to my own gun at Parsons in a day and 

 a half, besides a few snipe and ducks. Half a day's travelling 

 from there landed me at Denison, which I found to be a very 

 dull little wooden town, with a wretched inn, where the arrival 



of a stranger was an event. F was waiting for me, and 



we at once set about buying our outfit. We got a two-horse 

 waggon, a tent, two work-horses, and the necessary provisions, 

 beside engaging a Mexican as cook, leaving the buying of 

 riding-horses till we got further into the country, as they were 



much cheaper there than near the railway. F was already 



provided with a good hunting-pony, and soon after leaving 

 Denison I bought a horse with a history. He had been ridden 

 by a scout in a fight with the Comanches, where his master 

 had been killed, and he had been " creased," as it is called, 

 the ball striking the upper edge of the shoulder a wound 

 which temporarily paralyses a horse. It was in this way that 

 a great many wild horses were captured before the country 

 was settled, and the shot required a first-rate marksman, as if 

 half an inch too low the animal was killed or ruined for life. 

 About forty miles from Denison we came to a small place 

 called "Whites boro', where I bought a mare out of a waggon, 

 which proved to be an excellent animal in every way. 



The settlers in this part of the country struck me as being 

 the poorest and most miserable of any we had come across ; 

 no one seemed to have any money, and nearly all of them 

 were very much in debt, having borrowed in many cases at 



