184 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



taking anything off. But in this western climate 

 the cold is not felt severely, in the light and rarefied 

 mountain atmosphere, unless it blows. When it did 

 blow, it usually snowed as well, and then, as Frank 

 remarked, all sensible white men c knew enough to 

 come inside ' tent or shanty, as the case might be. We 

 had a small stove in our tent, and until it went out at 

 night we could keep warm enough. 



But the time was now approaching when hunting 

 had to stop, and a return to civilization became 

 advisable. One morning in November we struck our 

 hunting-camp for the last time that season, and started 

 on a twenty-five mile ride to Saratoga Springs on the 

 North Platte River, then a small collection of wooden 

 huts close by the natural warm springs that have 

 since helped to make Saratoga, Wyo., a thriving 

 western town. 



I shall never forget that ride. It was fine when we 

 started, but came on to snow and blow for the last 

 two hours of the journey. We arrived at Saratoga 

 half frozen, starving, miserable, only too delighted 

 to crowd into the shelter of a two-roomed shanty, 

 where a cheery settler and his wife entertained us 

 with their best. The wife, by-the-by, was a most 

 beautiful young woman, obviously with a ' touch of 

 the tar-brush ' in her pedigree, but, as sometimes 

 happens in such cases, possessing a perfect face and 

 figure, a wealth of wavy dark hair, and ' velvet ' eyes. 

 It is one of the ironies of the situation that this lovely 

 young creature should thus unexpectedly appear in an 

 out-of-the-way log hut on the Main Divide, far away 

 from the railroad and civilization, to do the honours 

 to a weather-beaten hunting-party seeking shelter 

 from a November blizzard. 



