16 CAMP FIRE REMINISCENCES 
elling and camping are much pleasanter when the 
weather is fine than after it has broken, and be- 
cause many hunters enter the field as soon as the 
Season opens, and the later arrival will find the 
game shy and his opportunities scarce until after a 
heavy fall of snow. Again, mule deer shooting is 
better after snow, as the big bucks are brought 
down by it from the high mountains, and their 
tracks can easily be seen. 
No matter what the sportsman’s record has been, 
throughout the West he will probably be considered 
a tenderfoot, and be imposed upon as such, and 
should his thirst for knowledge make him very in- 
quisitive, he may acquire a store of useless infor- 
mation. One finds the frontier rancher, as a rule, 
a first-rate fellow, and generous to a fault. But 
while some of the guides have only one object in 
view, and that is giving satisfaction to their em- 
ployers, there are others who feel that the longer 
they keep the stranger wandering in the wilder- 
ness the greater will be their own reward. 
The substance of three of these chapters was 
published in the Field some time ago, and I am 
indebted to its editors for permission to make use 
of them here. I am also indebted to the friends 
who have given me photographs when my own were 
failures. 
