392 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



early camp, say at four o'clock, is better both for horses 

 and men. 



In choosing your camp consider first these points : water, 

 food, fuel, and shelter from wind and from the sight of such 

 game as may be in the neighbourhood. As to this last point, 

 it is as well not to allow fires to be lighted or wood chopped 

 until a careful survey of the neighbourhood has been made from 

 some adjacent height, especially if the camp has been pitched 

 in the district which you mean to hunt. Not long since my 

 friends and myself had the mortification of seeing the largest 

 band of sheep I ever saw move away while we were stalking 

 them, not because they detected us, but because they could 

 hear the ringing strokes of our men's axes in the valley below. 

 A camp without feed for the horses is the worst of all camps, 

 and luckily occurs very rarely. If there is any likelihood of 

 such camps being unavoidable, it may be necessary to carry 

 grain for the horses, although many ' cayuses ' will not at first 

 eat it, and frequently when they do eat it suffer from lampas 

 and other ailments consequent upon a sudden change of diet. 

 Lancing the bars of a horse's mouth with a sharp penknife will 

 procure relief from lampas, which is probably the commonest 

 complaint amongst pack ponies. In camping in America, 

 beware of camping near burnt timber — that is to say, so near 

 as to be in danger from a falling tree, a constantly recurring 

 risk where huge trunks are burnt almost through, and high 

 winds are common. 



Whatever you do, do not camp on old Indian camping 

 grounds. Indians rarely leave anything worth having in a camp, 

 but they do leave things worth avoiding. Again, don't be 

 tempted to use an old horse-blanket to put over your feet on a 

 very cold night. Men will tell you that the insects which infest 

 animals won't touch men. I remember one unfortunate party 

 which owned a horse suffering from the third plague of Egypt, 

 and owing to a careless use of one of that horse's blankets the 

 plague passed on to the horse's rider. The woodticks which 

 infest the woods in early spring are as omnivorous as the insects 



