82 WAITING IN THE WILDERNESS 



I was well prepared. I had learned to identify 

 numbers of trees, birds, and wild flowers. I was 

 certain I knew how to camp and especially that 

 my camp equipment was correct. In fire start- 

 ing I could have taken a prize. But I found my- 

 self embarrassed with green grass and old "cow- 

 chips," by a treeless, rockless water hole. 



At last I had a fire glowing in the darkness 

 out in the lone wide prairie. The water hole by 

 which I camped was a shallow buffalo wallow 

 about fifty feet long and half as wide. Ten 

 years before thousands of buffalo had ranged 

 these scenes. Water is scarce on the plains, 

 and these wallows once served both the ante- 

 lope and the buffalo as drinking places. The 

 crowding stars seemed only a stone's throw 

 above the wide, flat prairie, and the merry coy- 

 otes were having fun all around me when I lay 

 down to sleep. 



I wasted a lot of time the next morning in 

 trying to find something among my too numer- 

 ous pieces of camp outfit. Just as I had things 

 scattered over the prairie two cowboys came rid- 

 ing up. They were from a cow outfit that was 

 drifting northward and had seen me from afar. 

 They were grazing two thousand head of cattle 

 and had a six-horse cook wagon and seventy 

 saddle ponies. 



"What's this, a general merchandise store?" 



