I EXPLOEE THE LITTLE SNOWIES. 333 



to explore the Little Snowies, making a tour of the range, and 

 going up any likely-looking valleys which I might come across. 

 I got the cook to make me enough camp bread for a week, and 

 taking two blankets, a coat, and a few camp necessaries, I 

 started due east, keeping well in the range and crossing 

 numerous ridges and ravines. I do not think any kind of hunt- 

 ing comes up to the pleasure and excitement of these solitary 

 rambles, where in many cases you carry your life in your hand, 

 and rely for your daily food on your rifle, and never know from 

 minute to minute what may turn up. 



I passed some beautiful places for camps, and jumped a great 

 many deer the first day, and came across one small bear, but it 

 saw me first and made off up the mountain, and I let it go, as 

 the ground was almost impassable. My first camp was in a 

 pretty ravine at a spring, where I put up a rough shelter and 

 made a fire, as the weather was very cold and there were 

 several inches of snow on the ground. I was so far up in the 

 mountains that no wolves came to serenade me, which was a great 

 relief, for their howling is a very melancholy sound when you 

 have no one to talk to. I rode Brownie, and a good companion 

 he proved, coming and standing by me at the camp-fire, now 

 and then rubbing his head against me. I never tied him up 

 after the first night, and he was always somewhere near in the 

 morning. I had trained him to stand very still when I fired 

 off him, and to remain wherever I left him, and he was so 

 intelligent that he learnt very quickly. On the morning of the 

 second day I came on the trail of a large bear and cub, and as 

 there was a great deal of fallen timber, I dismounted, and 

 having removed the saddle and bridle, I left the pony loose 

 with a short rope on him, taking the bearings of the place very 



