190 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



by white men, a paradise for game. Miles of upland 

 prairie and rolling foot-hills, covered with grass and 

 sage-brush, are interspersed here and there with deep 

 and precipitous canons, and with rugged pine-clad 

 mountain ranges running up to 10,000 feet or more 

 in height. Here, in a country magnificently grassed 

 and watered, and with open deserts for winter range, 

 were at that time to be found thousands of elk 

 (wapiti), buffalo, black-tail deer, and antelope, as well 

 as the range grizzly, the big-horn sheep, or Ovis 

 Montana^ and an occasional puma or mountain lion. 

 For smaller game, wild duck and geese were plenti- 

 ful in the numerous lakes and rivers, while sage-hens, 

 grouse, hares, and rabbits (jack and cotton-tail), 

 abounded on the prairies and wooded foot-hills. This 

 was part of the fair domain, then teeming with wild 

 animal life, that the ruthless civilization of the white 

 man has let us not cant about it wrested by brute 

 force from the red man, its original and rightful 

 owner on the principle, let us take it, of the survival 

 of the strongest and the fittest. 



By the establishment of the Yellowstone National 

 Park and game sanctuary in the north-west corner of 

 Wyoming, Uncle Sam, with sound foresight and good 

 common- sense, has prevented the total extinction of 

 wapiti, deer, bear, antelope, and sheep, in this district 

 of the Rockies. But he has been too late to save the 

 buffalo, whose size and habits have now long since 

 rendered him an easy prey to hide-hunters armed with 

 breech-loading rifles. 



On arrival at Fort Steele we spent a day or two 

 in purchasing stores and generally arranging the 

 details of our outfit, a process requiring some amount 

 of forethought. Once started away from the railroad 



