264 



RECREATION. 



give her the best schoolin' money could 

 buy, the old girl nearly fainted. 



"I wonder how many of us would do the 

 things we're always dreamin' we'd do if 

 we got hit with a wad? 



"It's only a little while ago, seems like, 

 since I fell in with Lucky, freightin' on 

 the lower river. We've both had our in- 

 nin's pullin' each other out of tight 

 places durin' the last 20 years. He 

 never'd strike a good thing that he didn't 

 want to let me into it. We've had our 

 differences, too, and divided our grub 

 stake once when it nearly cost us both 

 our scalps. That was the trip that 

 queered my gait for life — feet ain't mates, 



snow was nearly all gone. The buff dis- 

 appeared with the snow; so for a long 

 while we hadn't much to do but lay 

 round camp, gettin' crusty as bears with 

 each other, and lookin' at the carcasses, 

 carcasses, everywhere, uncovered by the 

 thaw. One mornin' Lucky thought he 

 sighted the herd again, and took my sad- 

 dle horse, Poncho, the only real horse I 

 ever threw a leg over, and rode out to 

 take a look. What did he do, when he got 

 off to stalk a little bunch of cows and 

 spikes, but tie Poncho to a frozen bull that 

 we hadn't taken the trouble to skin. That 

 was the end of poor old Poncho. Left 

 alone with the whistler, he got rattled, 



PHOTO BY L. A. HUFFMAN 



CARCASSES, CARCASSES EVERYWHERE. 



you see; froze 'em goin' to Keogh for 

 help. It was when we built the dry 

 house over North. Just got her finished 

 when the snow fall and 40 below zero 

 brought the buffalo our way by the thou- 

 sands, and we went at it hammer and 

 tongs, skinnin', picklin' and hangin' 

 good old hump in the dry house. Lucky 

 was handy with a Sharps rifle those days. 

 "We had each a .45-120 and an extra for 

 luck. For 3 weeks we had big killin's 

 strung out in sight of the shack every 

 day. Pack horses got too slow. I taken 

 poles and dry hides and rigged up a pung 

 that would carry half a ton of meat, and 

 the way we cut and slashed daytimes, run 

 bullets and worked our reloadin' outfit 

 nights was a sin. Then one night I re- 

 member our dugout seemed to get hot 

 as an oven and we opened the door and 

 listened to the steady roar of a sure 

 enough 'chinook,' which blew till the 



wound up in the lariat and fell back, driv- 

 in' one of the horns deep into his vitals. 

 There Lucky found him dead. When he 

 tried to explain there was trouble. 

 Things got strained to the danger line, 

 and we whacked up in an Injun country 

 60 miles from any place, in midwinter. 

 About that time, though, Providence, in 

 the shape of a band of Spotted Eagle's 

 young bucks, sighted the smoke from our 

 dry house, and dropped in on us while 

 we were makin' the divvy. 



"But yonder light is your station. 

 Mighty glad you came out. I am goin' 

 to make it my business to fetch you again 

 about Christmas. There won't be any 

 ducks, but there's goin' to be company 

 and doin's that you'll want to be in with. 

 The Mule Shoe'll be glistenin' for once, 

 and may be we can get Luck to tell you 

 how he got his limp and a rough ride on 

 the pung." 



