120 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



legs on each side. Even then it was not possible to 

 cut the animal's throat without another shot through 

 the heart. 



After a few days in camp, like a sort of prolonged 

 picnic, with plenty of fire-lighting and wood-fetching, 

 of hobbling, picketing, saddling, finding and driving 

 horses, of cooking, skinning, baking, bathing, fishing, 

 and hunting, we returned to the ranche. 



The day before leaving old Jim Baker " turned 

 up," a well-known Eocky Mountain trapper and 

 Indian scout ; he was in search of some strayed 

 horses. He informed us that many years ago but 

 little rain fell on the divide at this point, which is 

 sometimes said now to be the cradle of all the storms 

 that cross the continent. On our return journey the 

 buggy broke or became temporarily disabled more 

 than once, owing to the strains to which it was 

 subjected, finally parting altogether from the horses 

 in a ditch. We arrived, however, at length, and 

 found the next ' round-up ' camped and on the point 

 of starting, and consisting of several outfits, amount- 

 ing to a hundred and fifty or sixty horses and nine 

 or ten ' boys,' besides the i bed ' and < cook ' wag- 

 gons, with the probability that it might return in 

 twenty days. Cooking was in progress, and several 

 1 boys ' were galloping after refractory horses, yelling 

 in a good-tempered way. I never saw a Westerner 

 ill- treat a horse for giving trouble to catch or to 

 rope ; that he takes as natural. The very oldest 

 and quietest broncho will never allow himself to 



