on run nilz percbs TRAIL 



the shouts of our men, the rumbling of the 

 cars, the black smoke, and — it was over, 

 with no one hurt, though slightly jarred. 



The second night out we camped at the 

 North end of Big Sheep Creek basin, near 

 the ranch of Joe Smith. One horse was 

 picketed, 8 were hobbled, and the others 

 were turned loose. Tn the morning all 

 were gone except the one on the picket 

 rope. Blair and Bray went after them on 

 foot, without any preparation for a long 

 tramp. We did not see them again until 

 the night of the third day after, when they 

 returned with 18 head. Two belonging to 



tracks of the horses ridden by the thieves 

 and he trailed them to their corral. Hav- 

 ing gathered some; local traditions, he be- 

 lieves he knows who the men are, and I 

 do not care to be present when he meets 

 them. 



During 3 days of enforced idleness 1 

 came to understand why sheep herders be- 

 come so melancholy. There was one' 

 bunch of 3,600 sheep about our camp, and 

 the continual bleating and that undulating 

 mass of waving wool drifting aimlessly 

 about were maddening. The herder was 

 an agreeable man. A compensating fea- 





A COSY CAMP. 



Joe Kemp were missing, and as Joe had 

 recently sacrificed a $2,000 outfit in Alaska, 

 he felt his loss keenly. Our animals were 

 run off by horse thieves to a distance of 25 

 miles from our camp, finally up a steep 

 mountain side and down into a deep basin. 

 The hobbles were not removed, and the 

 legs of the animals were terribly mangled. 

 They were a sorry sight when they got 

 back to our camp. Worse than inhuman 

 brutes were they who committed the out- 

 rage on horses and men. Blair and Bray 

 trailed the horses until they found and 

 brought them back. Blair loves a good 

 horse, and his wrath was dark hued and 

 continuous. He was able to pick out the 



ture in our delay was the abundance of 

 sage hens, there being almost as many hens 

 as sheep in the basin. Bunches of 100 to 

 200 could always be found in the wet bot- 

 toms, and the young birds at that season 

 are equal to grouse. In the meantime I 

 bought a saddle horse of Joe Smith, "Bal- 

 dy" by name, and by nature a reliable and 

 sociable beast, sound and sure footed. 



Resuming our journey, events ran 

 smoothly for a while. Our chief difficulty 

 was with fences. We sometimes went 3 

 to 5 miles out of our way to weather a 

 fence, and generally there was someone 

 present to see that we did go around in- 

 stead of through it. On the 14th we 



