12 Rod, Gun, and Palette in the High Rockies 



delights the artist with the splendid sword-like sweep of his wings. 



Some time before reaching Sherman, Wyo., 8,010 feet above 

 sea level, the land takes an aspect of bleak, bare desolation, broken 

 only by an occasional sheep herder's hut, or a straggling fence. 

 A feeding station for stock is quite an event. Arthur comments on 

 the isolation of things, and the hardihood of early homesteaders. 

 This serves as the introduction to a surveyor's story told by the 

 artist. A survey party in this part of the West years ago came 

 upon a deserted homestead. The doors and windows of the 

 house were boarded up. On the boards on one side was chalked 

 *'Four miles from wood." On the second side was chalked "Six 

 miles from water." On the third side, "A hundred miles from a 

 railroad," and on the last side, "God bless our home." 



The clouds hang low, and it gets a bit monotonous. A resort 

 is had to cards, this time Ellicott and Jimmy against Pratt and 

 Wroe at pedro, in which the first two are victorious by a narrow 

 margin. Bill and Art then go to a game of their own, in which, 

 hands of twelve each being dealt, the players draw and discard 

 in runs, threes and fours, a deuce having any value the man drawing 

 it likes to give it in combination with the others. The man playing 

 out all his cards first is credited with the number of pips counted 

 on the cards still remaining in the hand of his opponent. As he 

 plays, Bill keeps up a running comment that tickles the other two 

 mightily. I don't hear all of it, but get a stray sentence now and 

 then. 



"Come across, now. Art — can't wait here all day for you. 

 You're off the reserve. Now, will you come quietly, or do I 

 have to tie you ? Now, now (taking up a card from Art's discard, 

 and completing a trio with it), you shouldn't do things like that — 

 they're very unwise." 



"Nothing else to do," growls Art, and grins at the same time. 

 In fact, a continually wavering and cigar-punctuated smile is his 

 chorus to Bill's obiter dicta. 



The steward of the dining car comes to Wroe, and there is a 

 whispered conference. Art catches a word. His eyes open antic- 

 ipatorily, the dawning expression of pleased expectation of 

 gustatorial delights on his genial countenance, succeeded im- 

 mediately by a look of doubt. I catch four words from his 

 questioning remark to Bill: "Game warden — state law." The 



