Hunting the Prong-Buck. 77 



where two line-riders of the W Bar brand were stationed ; 

 and I made up my mind to ride thither and kill a couple. 

 The line camp was twenty miles from my ranch ; the shack 

 in which the old hunter lived was midway between, and I 

 had to stop there to find out the exact lay of the land. 



At dawn, before our early breakfast, I saddled a tough, 

 shaggy sorrel horse ; hastening in-doors as soon as the job 

 was over, to warm my numbed fingers. After breakfast I 

 started, muffled in my wolf-skin coat, with beaver-fur cap, 

 gloves, and shaps, and great felt over-shoes. The wind- 

 less air was bitter cold, the thermometer showing well 

 below zero. Snow lay on the ground, leaving bare patches 

 here and there, but drifted deep in the hollows. Under 

 the steel-blue heavens the atmosphere had a peculiar glint 

 as if filled with myriads of tiny crystals. As I crossed 

 the frozen river, immediately in front of the ranch house, 

 the strangely carved tops of the bluffs were reddening 

 palely in the winter sunrise. Prairie fowl were perched 

 in the bare cottonwoods along the river brink, showing 

 large in the leafless branches ; they called and clucked to 

 one another. 



Where the ground was level and the snow not too deep 

 I loped, and before noon I reached the sheltered coulie 

 where, with long poles and bark, the hunter had built his 

 tepee wigwam, as eastern woodsmen would have called 

 it. It stood in a loose grove of elms and box-alders ; 

 from the branches of the nearest trees hung saddles of 

 frozen venison. The smoke rising from the funnel-shaped 

 top of the tepee showed that there was more fire than 

 usual within ; it is easy to keep a good tepee warm, though 



