HANK HOTCHKISS 187 
standpoint were it not for the bounty which cattle- 
men offered, usually from ten to twenty dollars for 
an adult lion, wolf or bear, which are all great cattle 
destroyers. 
“I’ve shore had hard luck,’’ he complained, ‘‘I’d 
orter had oodles of skunks, foxes an’ bob cats in my 
little traps, but by gum, I been a catchin’ my dawgs 
in ’em more’n anathin’ else. That there ornery 
Spot would travel twenty miles to git into a trap. 
Every time I go out I find him a howlin’ in one of 
’em sum’mers! 
‘“‘The other night he went out huntin’ an’ never 
showed up in the mornin’. I knowed right away 
what had happened. Soon’s I got to my first traps, 
down on Squaw Canyon, thar was Spot, caught by 
the foot and howlin’ reel mournful. I took him out 
an’ beat him t’well I was plumb wore out, an’ he 
went off toward th’ house lickitysplit. An’ by gum, 
afore I made the round of my traps I found the pore 
fool caught in another trap. I give it up after that. 
If that there’s his idee of pleasure I figger tain’t 
goin’ to do no good to try an’ break him of it. Hit 
remines me of th’ time I caught an Injun. D’ye 
ever hear tell 0’ that? No! Well, I never seen him 
myself, but I hearn tell of it afterwards. He shore 
got in th’ trap an’ I was plumb pleased he got away 
*fore I found him, becuz I could tell by th’ way he’d 
tore things aroun’ there he’d a-been mighty hard t’ 
turn loose.’’ 
Continuing the score of his misfortunes, Hotch- 
