AMONG THE HIGH HILLS. 



119 



or tent, if at a line camp ; under the open sky, 

 if with the round-up wagon. 



After ten days or so of such work, in which 

 every man had to do his full share for lag- 

 gards and idlers, no matter who, get no mercy 

 in the real and healthy democracy of the 

 round-up I would go back to the ranch to 

 turn to my books with added zest for a fort- 

 night. Yet even during these weeks at the 

 ranch there was some out-door work ; for I 

 was breaking two or three colts. I took my 

 time, breaking them gradually and gently, 

 not, after the usual cowboy fashion, in a hurry, 

 by sheer main strength and rough riding, with 

 the attendant danger to the limbs of the man 

 and very probable ruin to the manners of the 

 horse. We rose early ; each morning I stood 

 on the low-roofed verandah, looking out un- 

 der the line of murmuring, glossy-leaved cot- 

 tonwoods, across the shallow river, to see the 

 sun flame above the line of bluffs opposite. 

 In the evening I strolled off for an hour or 

 two's walk, rifle in hand. The roomy, home- 

 like ranch house, with its log walls, shingled 

 roof, and big chimneys and fireplaces, stands 

 in a glade, in the midst of the thick forest, 

 which covers half the bottom ; behind rises, 

 bare and steep, the wall of peaks, ridges, and 

 table-lands. 



During the summer in question, I once or 

 twice shot a whitetail buck right on this large 

 bottom ; once or twice I killed a blacktail in 

 the hills behind, not a mile from the ranch 

 house. Several times I killed and brought 

 in prong-bucks, rising before dawn, and rid- 

 ing off on a good horse for an all day's hunt 



