THE WHITE TAIL DEER. 6i 



steep a hillside. Once after a three days' 

 rainstorm some of us tried to get the ranch 

 wagon along a trail which led over the ridge 

 of a gumbo or clay butt^. The sticky stuff 

 clogged our shoes, the horses' hoofs, and the 

 wheels ; and it was even more slippery than 

 it was sticky. Finally we struck a sloping 

 shoulder ; with great struggling, pulling, push- 

 ing, and shouting, we reached the middle of 

 it, and then, as one of my men remarked, 

 "the whole darned outfit slid into the coulie." 

 These hunting trips after deer or antelope 

 with the wagon usually take four or five days. 

 I always ride some tried hunting horse ; and 

 the wagon itself when on such a hunt is apt 

 to lead a chequered career, as half the time 

 there is not the vestige of a trail to follow. 

 Moreover we often make a hunt when the 

 good horses are on the round-up, or otherwise 

 employed, and we have to get together a scrub 

 team of cripples or else of outlaws — vicious 

 devils, only used from dire need. The best 

 teamster for such a hunt that we ever had on 

 the ranch was a weather-beaten old fellow 

 known as " Old Man Tompkins." In the 

 course of a long career as lumberman, plains 

 teamster, buffalo hunter, and Indian fighter, 

 he had passed several years as a Rocky 

 Mountain stage driver; and a stage driver of 

 the Rockies is of necessity a man of such skill 

 and nerve that he fears no team and no coun- 

 try. No matter how wild the unbroken horses, 

 Old Tompkins never asked help ; and he 

 hated to drive less than a four-in-hand. When 

 he once had a grip on tlie reins, he let no one 

 hold the horses' heads. All he wished waa 



