342 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



edge of the woods; I gave the shrill whistle with the 

 fingers, and called my pony's name. Soon he answered, 

 and both animals followed us back to the cabin. Here 

 I will say that I am not a horseman, and have no liking 

 for horses. Few men like horses. They will tell you 

 that they "like a good horse." That means that they 

 like him while he is young and stylish, but when all that 

 is past he may be sold to pull an ash cart. Out on such 

 love! Compare it with the love that the sportsman has 

 for his dog, that has worked the fields with him in heat and 

 cold, his skin torn by briers in summer and his feet frozen 

 in the winter's snows. Is the old dog sold into drudgery 

 in his old days? "Not on your life!" as the phrase of the 

 day goes. Therefore I do not believe that the average 

 man loves the horse for more than he can get out of him. 

 I have a regard for the horse as a most useful animal, just 

 as I have a regard for a locomotive as a bit of useful ma- 

 chinery ; but I think, with Charles Dickens, that the head 

 of a horse, at its best, is not a handsome thing, admitting 

 that some horses may have comparatively handsome 

 heads by some modification of that long nose. I am 

 wondering what Dickens would have thought of the head 

 of a moose ! There is no doubt but Mr. Moose sees most 

 delicate lines of beauty in the facial contour of Mrs. 

 Moose, but we are not educated up to their standard 

 that's the trouble, and a moose is the homeliest animal 

 that my eyes ever gazed upon, take head, body or legs, 

 or in "the altogether." 



Before we left the breakfast table Amos had arranged 

 a buffalo hunt for the next week, and we agreed to go 

 with him. His idea and that of his neighbors was to take 

 ox teams, and bring back loads of beef for present use 

 and for salting for winter, as well as to get the skins for 

 robes to use or to sell. 



