NATURALIST MEETS PROSPECTOR 107 



luxuriant feed in a number of adjacent meadows. 

 The stockman had a cabin near by. As for a 

 number of days I had been living on bark and ber- 

 ries, I gladly accepted his invitation and went 

 over to supper. 



He was born in Texas, had been a cowboy in that 

 state and elsewhere in the southwest, and he enter- 

 tained me mightily till midnight with stirring 

 snatches of biography. Then I bade him good- 

 night, went back to my old raincoat, crawled into 

 it, built a fire, and lay down to sleep. 



We had parted the best of friends, but in the 

 night a wolf played me a shabby trick. He 

 raided the stockman's sparsely populated hen- 

 roost and carried off a chicken, which he stopped 

 to devour close to my camp. A few telltale feath- 

 ers were left. The following day the stockman 

 called my attention to them and warned me that 

 it would not be well for me to take another chicken. 



I protested my innocence, but appearances were 

 against me. "Here you are," he said, "without 

 a piece of bacon or a scrap of food of any kind. 

 You don't have a gun or any means of procuring 

 food in the wilderness. You have no visible means 

 of support, not even your next meal is in sight. 

 Men are often hanged on less satisfactory evi- 

 dence." 



The next night another chicken disappeared, 

 and the following morning I was awakened early 

 and rather violently, confronted by a stockman 



