EARLY DAY STORIES. 161 



We now had five men in camp; the newcomers being 

 known as The Old Man, George and Charley. The Old 

 Man owned the outfit of wagon, tent and teams. I have for- 

 gotten his name if indeed I ever heard it. He was a rail- 

 road builder and having worked all summer on a grading 

 contract was now on a hunting trip for fun, and to get a 

 supply of meat for winter. He tended the camp, and hunt- 

 ed rabbits with a 22 rifle, but never killed anything. George 

 and Charley were mechanics — were both single men, and 

 were out for sport. They both carried new, magazine Win- 

 chester rifles, calibre 40-82. Charley was German, his real 

 name being Carl, and hereafter will be known as Carl in this 

 narrative to prevent confusion of names. Neither George 

 nor Carl knew anything about hunting, but Carl was a 

 splendid shot with a rifle. At a distance of twenty paces 

 he would hit a half gallon tin can at nearly every shot when 

 thrown into the air. He did not understand the habits of 

 game, nor know where to find it when hunting, but he was 

 quite successful as a hunter from the fact that he was an 

 expert marksman. They were not the most agreeable peo- 

 ple to camp out with, their conversation being on the low 

 order, and their stories and jokes rough to say the least. 

 However, they were friendly and willing to accommodate 

 and we got along first rate. 



The country over which we were to hunt was much the 

 same as that already described around our camps at the head 

 of Sand creek, only here, about two miles east of the camp 

 was a high, broken ridge — a divide between two water 

 courses, that assumed the proportions of a mountain range, 

 and contained a good deal of pine and cedar timber, some 

 of the pine trees being of quite large size. From any point 

 on the summit of this ridge, where the view was not ob- 

 structed by timber, the Big Horn mountains could plainly 

 be seen to the northwest, and the valley of Salt Fork on 

 which we were camped could be traced to its junction with 



