MY FIRST TRIP TO THE ROCKIES 149 



Frank Earnest, our guide, philosopher, and friend 

 of the trip, was on the platform to meet us, as our- 

 selves and impedimenta guns, rifles, ammunition, and 

 portmanteaux were unceremoniously bundled out of 

 the No. 1 West-bound train, at three in the morning, 

 on to the primitive platform of the station of what 

 was then a small military post. In Frank Earnest 

 we had been lucky enough to engage a westerner of 

 the right sort. He was a Canadian who had left his 

 Toronto home as a youth, and had passed a wild and 

 somewhat chequered early manhood in hunting, trap- 

 ping, and occasionally scouting in the small Indian 

 wars that Uncle Sam was in those days constantly 

 engaged in. He had now settled down as a ranchman 

 in a small way in the valley of the North Platte, 

 about twenty miles south of Fort Steele. There 

 was nothing in the detail and necessary paraphernalia 

 of camp -life that he was not familiar with from 

 choosing a camp and shoeing a horse to frying 

 a venison steak and baking in a camp oven. And, 

 above all, he possessed that sterling pride and sense 

 of duty that prompted, and even compelled, him to 

 do his level best to show sport to two raw British 

 4 tender-foots ' who had employed him to that end. 

 Good old Frank ! he has now joined the majority. 

 He died suddenly in 1892 of heart disease while 

 engaged in his favourite pastime of fishing. But on 

 that August morning I commenced an acquaintance 

 with him which rapidly ripened into a firm and lasting 

 friendship of many years. 



We spent a day or two in Fort Steele preparing 

 for the trip. Stores of various kinds had to be 

 purchased, ponies tried, and such-like details attended 

 to. Our party consisted of Thomas Bate and myself ; 



