RECREATION. 



Volume III. DECEMBER, J895. 



G. O. SHIELDS fCOQUINA), Editor and Manager. 



Number 6. 



A YOUTHFUL GUIDE AND A PRIZE BIG HORN. 



HON. I. N. HIBBS. 



We had grown tired of fishing Little Roy Evans was a true sports- 

 and the quiet of camp life man. He had gone up and down the 

 was too monotonous to satisfy valleys and over every trail with his 

 an ambitious sportsman. The moun- father to bring back the pack-horses; 

 tains around Willowa Lake are rug- and he had been allowed to us 

 ged, and on the steep half-mile from old-style Henry rifle till he had Le- 

 the beach to the snow line is a per- come a good marksman, and every 

 feet jungle. Every member of the day when he became less timid 1 en- 

 party of twenty in the camp had gone couraged him to talk about the big 

 out after deer, bear and " big horns," game of the country. 1 [e knew r\ ery 

 at some time within the past week, watering place, and the time of day 

 only to report an unsuccessful effort that the big horns came to this one 

 to reach the game resorts on account and the mule deer to that one. 

 of fallen dead timber and tangled One day I asked him it he could 

 brush. There were hunters coming get permission from his mother to go 

 in every day with reports of good with me to the "bighorn lick." He 

 shooting; but they were men who came back beaming with an affir ma- 

 knew the country well and were in- tive reply. Three and a half miles from 

 clined to retain a monopoly of the camp, up the river and nearly to the 

 grand sport. They did not encour- timber line on the right side, w.is, t 

 age tenderfeet in their efforts to kill warm sulphur spring, where the 

 the game which many of them re- sheep came every afternoon. "They 

 garded as a heritage. These wild ani- never fail," said the youthful guide, 

 mals were noble to these men because The next forenoon w e w ere w ell on 

 they supplied the family larders, and the way up the winding trail, on the 

 were the means of gaining spending bank of a river lull of tumbling white 

 money by the methods known to the waves, when I took a good look at my 

 pothunter. little companion, lie was laborii 



A poor man, who followed hunting, under the weight of the old rifle. The 



fishing and field labor, lived on the stock was broken and tin- sin 



border of the lake in a tent. His squeaked as he trotted on. It was 



family, of wife and seven children, tied up with a string, and the rusty 



was huddled into the makeshift shel- barrel was dented l>\ many yeai 



ter and had few of life's comforts, mountain campaigns. II 



One of the poorly-clad children was back showed sunburned stn 



amanly little fellow of thirteen years, through the rents in the old faded 



He often came to my tent and asked shirt, and his slender 



me to buy, for afew cents, a io-pound clothed only in an old pair ol ovei 



trout fresh from the rushing, ice-cold alls which were in strings belou the 



river; or perhaps to ask if I had any knees. But I never had a guide who 



washing that I wished to have done, was so full ol « onfidence and so 



His sisters and his mother were eager tain of every detail as was little Roy 



to work in the laundrv, or at baking Evans. 



great loaves of flaky bread for sale, to What lu- knew as ,, trail and 



add to the family store. lowed without once falterin 



253 



