MY FIRST TRIP TO THE ROCKIES H7 



To return to the wapiti head in the London shop- 

 window. I there and then made up my mind to 

 visit the country where wapiti were to be found, and 

 to bring back, if possible, similar trophies of my own 

 killing. I was fortunate enough about this time to 

 meet Mr. Otho Shaw, who had recently returned from 

 a hunting expedition to Wyoming, whence he had 

 brought back some good wapiti heads. From him 

 I obtained an introduction to the western ranchman, 

 Frank Earnest by name, who had accompanied him 

 as hunter and guide. All necessary arrangements 

 for guides, horses, and camp outfit were, accordingly, 

 made beforehand by post, and in July, 1877, my 

 friend Thomas Bate (of Kelsterton in North Wales) 

 and myself left Liverpool in the White Star liner 

 Germanic for New York, en route to the happy 

 hunting-grounds of the Far West. 



Those were the light-hearted days of early man- 

 hood, when one's hat covered one's family, when 

 letters and telegrams were few and far between, 

 and when no cares of any kind, domestic, financial, 

 or political, occurred to trouble the serenity and 

 happiness of life. In Thomas Bate I had a con- 

 genial companion, whose acquaintance I had made 

 a year or two before in a sporting trip across the 

 North Sea to Norway. The glamour of the Far 

 West was in our minds. That roving instinct of 

 the race that has driven so many of the Anglo-Saxon 

 breed to distant parts of the earth, either for sport, 

 for exploration, or in search of gold, had seized us 

 in its grip, and we simply had to go, and in going 

 enjoyed to the full those feelings of pleasure and 

 freedom that usually accompany obedience to the 

 promptings of all healthy natural instincts. 



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