222 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



With a friend, I once ran three bulls apart from 

 any herd, and we succeeded in getting the finest head 

 of the three by riding wide of one another on either 

 flank, and so turning them from one to the other as 

 to make them lose ground. Our western hunter and 

 companion on that occasion had a bird's-eye view of 

 the whole chase from start to finish, from a high bluff 

 where we had left him on sighting the bulls below, 

 and where, as he was riding a slow horse, he i calcu- 

 lated ' to stay and ' watch the fun.' 



On another occasion I was out alone near the 

 Rim of the Hole, unfortunately on a slow horse, my 

 favourite mount Pinto having that day been left in 

 camp for a rest, when I jumped a very fine old bull 

 elk in the open country. He had been lying on a 

 sage- covered hillside, and took straight across the 

 open prairie to the Medicine Bow Range, about ten 

 miles distant It was a splendid opportunity for a 

 fair run in the open after a single bull, and I have 

 always deeply regretted that on that occasion I had 

 the wrong mount. The bull had a half-mile start, 

 and I ran my slow old cow-pony to a complete stand- 

 still in five or six miles without getting within shot, 

 though at first I gained a little on the bull. 



Occasionally a drive could be tried with success, 

 though the opportunity for this was rare. This 

 manoeuvre could only be successfully attempted when 

 the formation of the ground and the position of the 

 herd were particularly favourable. 



In the autumn of 1887 I obtained a good bull in 

 this way. The locality was on the western slope of 

 the Great Divide, at an elevation of 8,000 feet above 

 the sea, where steep and precipitous ravines or canons 

 run down for miles through dense pine-forest to the 



