^5 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



A ranchman's work is, of course, tree from much of the sameness 

 attendant upon that of a mere cowbo)-. One day he will ride out with 

 his men among the cattle, or after strayed horses ; the next he may hunt, 

 so as to keep the ranch in meat ; then he can make the tour of his out- 

 lying camps ; or, again, may join one of the round-ups for a week or two, 

 perhaps keeping with it the entire time it is working. On occasions he 

 will have a good deal of spare time on his hands, which, if he chooses, he 

 can spend in reading or waiting. If he cares for books, there will be many 

 a worn volume in the primitive little sitting-room, with its log walls and 

 huge fire-place ; but after a hard day's work a man will not read much, 

 but will rock to and fro in the flickering firelight, talking sleepily over his 

 success in the day's chase and the difficulty he has had with the cattle ; or 

 else may simply lie stretched at full length on the elk-hides and wolf-skins 

 in front of the hearthstone, listening in drowsy silence to the roar and 

 crackle of the blazing logs and to the moaning of the wind outside. 



In the sharp fall weather the riding is delicious all day long; but even 

 in the late spring, and all through the summer, we try, if we can, to do our 

 work before the heat of the day, and if going on a long ride, whether to 

 hunt or for other purposes, leave the ranch house by dawn. 



The early rides in the spring mornings have a charm all their own, for 

 they are taken when, for the one and only time during the year, the same 

 brown landscape of these high plains turns to a vivid green, as the new 

 grass sprouts and the trees and bushes thrust forth the young leaves ; 

 and at dawn, with the dew glittering everywhere, all things show at their 

 best and freshest. The flowers are out and a man may gallop for miles at 

 a stretch with his horse's hoofs sinking at every stride into the carpet of 

 prairie roses, whose short stalks lift the beautiful blossoms but a few 

 inches from the ground. Even in the waste places the cactuses are 

 blooming ; and one kind in particular, a dwarfish, globular plant, with 

 its mass of splendid crimson flow^ers glows against the sides of the gray 

 buttes like a splash of flame. 



The ravines, winding about and splitting into a labyrinth of coulees, 

 wdth chains of rounded hills to separate them, have groves of trees in their 

 bottoms, along the sides of the water courses. In these are found the 

 blacktail deer, and his cousin, the w^hitetail, too, with his flaunting flag; 

 but in the spring-time, when we are after antelope only, we must go out 

 farther to the flat prairie land on the divide. Here, in places, the level, 

 grassy plains are strewn with mounds and hillocks of red or gray scoria, 

 that stand singly or clustered into little groups, their tops crested, or their 

 sides covered, by queer detached masses of volcanic rock, wrought into 



