2 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



apt to be cold work, but we were too warmly clad to 

 mind the weather. We wore heavy flannels, jackets lined 

 with sheepskin, caps which drew down entirely over our 

 ears, and on our feet heavy ordinary socks, german socks, 

 and overshoes. Galloping through the brush and among 

 the spikes of the dead cedars, meant that now and then 

 one got snagged; I found tough overalls better than 

 trousers; and most of the time I did not need the jacket, 

 wearing my old buckskin shirt, which is to my mind a 

 particularly useful and comfortable garment. 



It is a high, dry country, where the winters are usually 

 very cold, but the snow not under ordinary circumstances 

 very deep. It is wild and broken in character, the hills 

 and low mountains rising in sheer slopes, broken by cliffs 

 and riven by deeply cut and gloomy gorges and ravines. 

 The sage-brush grows everywhere upon the flats and 

 hillsides. Large open groves of pinyon and cedar are 

 scattered over the peaks, ridges, and table-lands. Tall 

 spruces cluster in the cold ravines. Cottonwoods grow 

 along the stream courses, and there are occasional patches 

 of scrub-oak and quaking asp. The entire country is 

 taken up with cattle ranges wherever it is possible to get 

 a sufficient water-supply, natural or artificial. Some 

 thirty miles to the east and north the mountains rise 

 higher, the evergreen forest becomes continuous, the snow 

 lies deep all through the winter, and such Northern 

 animals as the wolverene, lucivee, and snow-shoe rabbit 

 are found. This high country is the summer home of the 

 Colorado elk, now woefully diminished in numbers, and 

 of the Colorado blacktail deer, which are still very plenti- 



