22 2 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



ing. My horse was a wild, nervous roan, and 

 as I swung carelessly into the saddle, he sud- 

 denly began to buck before I got my right leg 

 over, and threw me off. My thumb was put 

 out of joint. I pulled it in again, and speed- 

 ily caught my horse in the dead timber. Then 

 I treated him as what the cowboys call a 

 '* mean horse," and mounted him carefully, so 

 as not to let him either buck or go over back- 

 ward. However, his preliminary success had 

 inspirited him, and a dozen times that day he 

 began to buck, usually choosing a down grade, 

 where the snow was deep, and there was much 

 fallen timber. 



All day long we pushed steadily through 

 the cold, blinding snowstorm. Neither squir- 

 rels nor rabbits were abroad ; and a few 

 Clarke's crows, whisky-jacks, and chickadees 

 were the only living things we saw. At night- 

 fall, chilled through, we reached the Upper 

 Geyser Basin. Here I met a party of railroad 

 surveyors and engineers, coming in from their 

 summer's field-work. One of them lent me a 

 saddle-horse and a pack-pony, and we went 

 on together, breaking our way through the 

 snow-choked roads to the Mammoth Hot 

 Springs, while Hofer took my own horses back 

 to Ferguson. 



I have described this hunt at length be- 

 cause, though I enjoyed it particularly on ac- 

 count of the comfort in which we travelled and 

 the beauty of the land, yet, in point of success 

 in finding and killing game, in value of tro- 

 phies procured, and in its alternations of good 

 and bad luck, it may fairly stand as the type 

 of a dozen such hunts I have made. Twice I 



