Camping and Hunting in the S/ios/tone 



could afford to go on with forever ; for he 

 is a good-natured chap, who never did, or 

 never will do, an un kinder thing to any- 

 one than to laugh at him when he gets 

 into a scrape. Every day be can walk 

 farther and eat more. His shoulder does 

 not ache as it did to the steady pressure 

 of his rifle. Somehow the ground up in 

 the mountains does not seem as hard as it 

 used to be those first few nights on the 

 plains, after he left the railroad, and when, 

 hunt as he would, he could not find a 

 square inch of anything softer than a flint 

 on which to repose his weary hips. And 

 now that he is in permanent camp, and 

 the boys have time to chop up and lay 

 under his waterproof great armfuls of 

 the sweet-smelling mountain pine-tops, 

 no spring-mattress ever aflTorded delights 

 comparable to those his couch yields to 

 him. 



From six weeks of such living one re- 

 turns to his work a new man, — his mus- 

 cles set, his eye clear, and his hand as 

 steady as his appetite, — thankful for the 

 good time he has had, and thankful, dou- 

 bly thankful, for the home and friends, or 

 perhaps wife and children, that make the 

 thought of return again so sweet. 



As to scenery, there is a grandness, a 

 ss 



