366 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



taking chances on horseback. Xot only does that 

 mode necessitate more noise, but the moment lost in 

 dismounting generally loses you the only chance 

 you may get in the day. The Indians always hunt 

 on horseback, which fact, among others, probably 

 accounts for their being such indifferent hunters. 

 The slaughter they effect late in the fall, when the 

 wapiti are poor and moving in big bands, does not 

 prejudice this statement, as the noble animals, 

 driven and cornered in deep snow, must fall easy 

 victims to the army of " braves " who are doing 

 their best every year to make moose and wapiti 

 extinct animals. 



The Indians are supposed to be on their reserva- 

 tions ; but as numbers of them are to be found all 

 times of the year in every part of the country, the 

 idea is not to be entertained for a moment. As it 

 is their business to kill everything, in season and out 

 of season, cows and calves alike, it is not wonderful 

 that game is becoming rarer every year. Had the 

 game a fair chance, and were there the slightest 

 pretence of enforcing the existing laws against the 

 Indians, there would always be plenty of game in 

 the mountains. The enormous and wellnigh in- 

 accessible range in the foot-hills of the Rockies 

 would always ensure this ; but as the game is 

 driven down by the snow to the low country, and 

 along the rivers in the spring, the Indians can and 

 do make wholesale havoc among them. The hand- 



