232 ACCESSIBLE FIELD SPORTS. 



affairs, debating the pros and cons whether to return 

 to camp or remain where I was, to my intense satis- 

 faction I saw one of my comrades coming directly 

 towards me with the now- submissive Broomstick cap- 

 tive, and looking as if any pace faster than that of a 

 funeral procession was entirely beyond his powers of 

 exertion. My friend had spied the truant making 

 straight for camp. After an exciting chase, he had 

 succeeded in capturing him, when by taking the 

 reverse direction from which my nag was seen to 

 come, he happily tumbled across me, much to my 

 relief; for, after all, the little shelter afforded by 

 timber, where you can always have a good fire, is 

 infinitely preferable to a smouldering smudge of buf- 

 falo-chips, with the wind playing at hide-and-go-seek 

 round your shirt tails. On reaching the settlements I 

 parted with Broomstick for a fair price. The pur- 

 chaser was a character ; and, judging from the manner 

 he mounted, had never been outside of a horse before. 

 However, he was one of those hawk-featured men that 

 would be about the very last that you would select to 

 trifle with. If he and his horse had not numerous 

 misunderstandings, and if the latter did not get well 

 paid off for the several scurvy tricks he practised on 

 me, I will at once acknowledge that I am no judge of 

 character. 



