ON A CATTLE-RANGE 307 



tenanted only by suckers, and have thriven therein 

 amazingly. On my first evening out from the old 

 Pick ranch that last year, I killed as well- shaped 

 a five-pound rainbow -trout as ever gladdened an 

 angler's heart, the first of a fairly long series subse- 

 quently basketed. Truly this is a life of change. 

 But there are compensations. 



The nature of the local population has also some- 

 what changed. No longer the cow-puncher of the 

 'eighties, revolver on hip and quirt in hand, swaggers 

 in spring or autumn, with jingling big-ro welled spurs 

 on his high boot-heels, through the streets of Rawlins, 

 Laramie, or Cheyenne. Eastern civilization of a 

 kind has crossed the Missouri River. The day of 

 the small stock -grower with his fenced pastures, of 

 the sheep-herder with his waggon and his solitary 

 ways, of the owner of mining and oil claims, has 

 arrived, and the old range-rider of the west has 

 disappeared. 



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