is a _ _ 
rope was tight, and I was being dragged at a wild pace 
through the sagebrush, when the end of the clog ran 
under the roots of a big bunch of sagebrush and turned 
the horse a complete ^nersault, lanxling it on its back. 
Of course this gave me a bad hand, but no bones were 
broken, and in a few days 1 w%s at work again. 
One very cold, frosty morning I concluded to go on 
foot, as I had my ax and some other things to carry, and 
it was too cold for comfortable riding. I took my gun 
along and when I was half way to my place I saw where 
a deer had crossed the road the night before and had 
gone up into the hills on the north side of the park, which 
were covered witli a growth of small quaking aspen and 
pines. As I was then well along with the building of my 
cabin, and expected soon to move in, and had no meat 
yet, I thought it policy to hide my a.x and other tools and 
giv^e chase. This was in December, and the big game 
was usually all gone from those parts by that time of 
year to their winter quarters. As soon as I got up into 
the hills I found it impossible to trail the deer 1 had 
started after, for the snow was tramped by deer until it 
looked like a sheep corral. The sun was getting things 
warmed up, and the day getting quite comfortable, so I 
just loafed around in the sunny nooks watching for deer 
until in the afternoon, when I saw a bunch of about 
.seven, as nearly as I could count, come up out of a ravine, 
headed by two bucks with the largest horns that 1 ever 
saw on deer. They were too far away for a shot, and I 
watched them until they stopped and went to feeding, 
then I started to crawl up for a shot. It was a difficult 
task, as the space between us was quite open and ne?irly 
bare of any growth, I had got along well and was over 
the most exposed portion of the way and within about 
three hundred yards of them, when I looked off to my 
left, ?nd there, less than a hundred j^ards away, was a 
medium sized buck going to join the bunch, and just 
passing the nearest point to me. I rose up on my knees 
and he stopped. Just as I pulled the trigger he started, 
and I made a clean miss. I took three rumiing shot'Ji at 
him, but failed to stop or even check him. On following 
the trail a short distance, I failed to find any sien of his 
being hit. I went right through where the bunch had 
been, and of course there had been a general stampede. 
I never saw a bunch of deer so thoroughly scattered : 
each one took its own course., and there remained a very 
discouraging outlook from every standpoint except from 
that of the deer. I wandered along in the general direc- 
tion they had taken for some distance, when I singled 
out a track and resolved to follow it the remainder of the 
day. I had only followed it. a few minutes through a 
dense thicket of jack-pines, when I caught a glimpse of 
the game only a few steps ahead of me. I fired when I 
saw it, and then raced after it and got a glimpse of it 
every few steps for quite a distance, and saw it was not 
gaining, but, rather, that I was coming closer to it. It 
seemed to be staggering and made no headway; then I 
was convinced it was the one I had been shooting at be- 
fore. After a lively chase through the thicket I got a 
fair shot and killed it, and besides getting a good piece of 
meat secured a fine set of antlers, the first of my present 
collection. I could not find a mark about it except the 
shot which killed it, and not until two or three months 
later, when I skinned it, did I learn where the other shot 
had hit it which had affected it so queerly: it was shot 
through the neck, close to the jaw, and while this did not 
appear to disable it bodily, it seemed to paralyze it, and 
affected it in a way entirely different from anything I 
have ever seen since. The deer was nearly 300 yards 
away and running when it received the shot in the neck, 
and it was by mere chance that I happened to strike the 
trail of this one among all the others, so that it was only 
by combined good luck, rather than good hunting, that 
I secured it, but I went home in the evening proud of my 
day's work, for I felt that I had meat to begin house- 
keeping with. 
In My Own Cabin. . 
On New Year's day I moved into my cabin, and re- 
alized that, for the first time, I was in my own house 
and on my own land, and felt like a king. The accom- 
modations of my new home were conspicuous by their 
absence; it was all in one room with an open fireplace 
for heating and cooking. The method of closing the 
cracks between the logs was first to chink them with 
pieces of wood to make them small enough to be closed 
up^ with mud. I did not even have my cabin chinked 
when I moved in, but could stick my arm out almost any 
place. The temperature was ranging from zero down- 
ward every nieht. I would make my bed down in front 
'of the fireplace, throw some big logs on the fire, and 
sleep till wakened by the cold, then get up and pile on 
more wood. The floor was that made by nature before 
the house was built, and was covered with the chips and 
pieces of timbers left from the building operations; there 
were neither chairs, table, nor bedstead. I was roughing 
it, sure enough, but was enjoying the freedom of such 
living, and soon had the cracks stopped with mud, and 
bunk and stools made, etc. 
Snowshoes were the easiest means of locomotion in that 
section, as the snow became very deep. I went to_ the 
woods, cut a straight-grained pine, and split out pieces 
of which I made a pair of Norwegian snowshoes, or 
skis. They were ten feet long, four inches wide, and one 
inch thick at the middle, tapering to one-half inch at 
either end, the front end being pointed, then steamed and 
bent so that it turned up like a sled runner; lastly the 
bottoms were burned over a slow fire, and tallow nibbed 
on and burnt in until they were a rich brown color, which 
made them slide easy. IMany a good long slide I had on 
them during the winter, when I did not have mueh else 
to do. % 
I made one trip to Walden, Golo., thirty-five miles dis- 
tant, which was the nearest store. The nearest post-office 
when I first went there was twenty-eight miles away, but* 
soo^i we had one established within three miles of my 
place. One stormy winter evening I started to the post- 
office on my snowshoes ; the storm was something awful, 
but as it was on my back I went all right for a while. 
When I got out on the higher ground and began to go a 
little down grade, all I needed was to steer my snow- 
shoes and the wind sent me along at a good rate. For a 
while I thought it was fun, but soon I realized that I 
was going altogether too fast for fun. I was carrying no 
FOREST ANjD stream. 
pole, as srtowshoers generally do, and I couldn't stop, and 
before I realized the situation I was going at a fearful 
rate, which would have made it dangerous to fall or try 
lo jump off. There was no way for me to stop; I 
couldn't see three rods ahead, on account of the flying 
snow, so went to yelling at tlse top of my voice to warn 
any living thing that might be in my way. After goini; 
about a mile at that rate, I got down in lower ground 
where the wind did not strike so hard and slacked up 
enough to get control of my slippery steeils, and was soor. 
safely at the post-office. The night was one of the worst 
I ever saw. The mail got in late at night, and T tarried 
with Bert Reed, who lived near the post-office all night, 
rather than face the stonn. 
By the first of April my supply of meat was exhausted, 
as was that of some of my neighbors. Harry Baugh, a 
brother bachelor and neighbor, and myself plotted a cam- 
paign whereby we might get some meat. We loaded a 
wagon with bed and a few days' provisions, and, after 
pulling through many old snow drifts, got out on the 
"Hunter Flats" and into the foothills along the Platte 
River, where both deer and antelope ranged all winter. 
As we were pulling into the proposed camping ground 
we saw a deer rounding a point in front of us and dis- 
appearing in the foothills. It was nearly night, but I took 
my gun and went after it, while Harry made camp. I 
found plenty of deer sign, and saw several during the lit- 
tle time I was out, but failed to get any. The ground 
was tfere and dry, as the snow had been gone from there 
for some time. We made our bed under the wagon, tied 
the horses to the wheels and rolled in. In the morning, a 
little before daybreak, I looked out and found everything 
covered with snow. Even my shoes had been laid a little 
too far out and were full of snow. We had a hasty 
breakfast and were out in the hills early to take advantage 
of the; snow. When we had gone only a short distance, 
we found a fresh trail of a half dozen deer which we 
followed till the tracks led down a steep hill into the 
woods. T thought from the way things looked that they 
would be found down in the woods nearby. 
I told Harry to wait there a few minutes while I would 
go a half mile to a wooded knoll which looked like a 
likely place for them to pass if he scared them out. After 
waiting till he had time to drive them out, I left my 
place of watching and hunted till noon without seeing 
anything. We met at camp at noon, moved our bed and 
camp outfit into a deserted cabin, had dinner, and then 
started out on the open rolling country for antelope. 
We soon saw a bunch of perhaps twenty, but they were 
in a hard place lo come up to; we maneuvered nearly 
all afternoon, and finally had them in position. I sent 
Harry to a point past which I felt confident I could drive 
them. There was a steep bluff along a dry stream bed 
along which he could travel and be out of their sight. I 
waited awhile, then started to crawl as near to them as 
I could before opening fire. Before I got nearly to where 
I wanted, I heard him shoot, and raising up I saw them 
crossing at the place he had started for. They had taken 
alarm and spoiled our plans. They only went a short 
distance till one went off to one side and laid down, show- 
ing that his shooting was not all wild. We felt quite cer- 
tain of getting it, and went' after it; before we got very 
close it was up and off, and though we made the grave! 
fly on all sides of it, we did not hit it. Had we waited 
patiently for an hour or two we could easily have gotten 
it, but we kept right after it until the sun was nearly 
down, when I started for camp to care for the horses, 
while he kept on as long as he could see, but failed to 
get it. 
The next morning we went into the hills after deer; 
we were separated, and I was passing the place where I 
had been watching the morning before, when I saw in the 
wet ground very fresh tracks of deer in a sort of path 
which led down to the river which was near by. They 
had been going both ways, and I followed carefully until 
I saw plainly that they had come up from the river last. 
When I got the right end of the trail I started after them 
carefully, and only went a few steps until I saw one 
down in the woods with its head directly away from me. 
I knew I was not seen, and the wind was in my favor, so 
I took my time, to make sure of getting a good shot. I 
got behind a big tree and crawled down several yards 
nearer; when I got to the tree I looked around it and 
saw the one I had first seen standing as it had been, and 
another standing broadside near by it. I was within 
easy range, and gave the first deer the first shot, which 
killed it dead in its tracks. Of course the other one 
naturally stood still, and I just as naturally sent the next 
shot after it, which sent it tearing through the woods 
out of sight. I saw no more just then and went down to 
the one I had killed. Just when I got to it I saw another 
one away up on the hillside making off by great bounds ; 
I fired a couple of times at it, but it only served to hurry 
it along, I took the trail of the second one I had shot at 
and found it dead only a few rods away. Harry had 
heard me shoot, and, after several calls and answers, he 
came to me and when I said I had two deer to my credit 
he did not look a bit more dejected that he did the 
evening before when I left him on the antelope trail. 
That was all the game we got on our trip, and we were 
well satisfied, as neither of us were experienced in 
hunting. 
Amos Pennoyer was camped near the Hunter ranch, a 
large stock ranch in Wyoming, ten miles from my place, 
and was getting out fencing and building timber from the 
mountains for use on the ranch. He expected soon to 
move up into the mountains about four miles from the 
ranch, where he had already built a cabin, and wanted 
to hire some one who could cook, hunt, chop in the 
woods or drive team. I was recommended to him by one 
of my neighbors as possessing all the required qualifica- 
tions, and was employed. The camp was still in the big 
meadow near the ranch when I began work. There was 
no meat in camp, and I took my gun along the first day 
we went to the mountains for a load of tirnber. When 
coming down the mountain in the evening with a load, I 
saw a deer cross the road ahead of us. 
I told them to drive on and I would tarry a while on 
the deer trail and come in later. I soon found it was no 
use following it, and went on down the timber road till 
it emerged into the open foothills, when I saw a bunch 
of antelope directly on my way to camp. It was rolling, 
hilly ground. I went out of sight of them to get nearer, 
t§EPT. 2(5^ i0X 
and when I came up on the next rise of ground 1 saw 
nothing but a lone buck, and he was going straight away 
from me and toward the meadow where the camp was. 
He was nearly a half mile ahead, and I would go on a 
smart run while on low ground and out of his sight, then 
when I would come up over a rise and he was in sight I 
would wait until he was gone over the next ridge, then 
make another run. Thus I worked until he went over 
the last bluff which overlooked the meadow, where I 
thought he would surely stop. When nearing the rise 
where he had last disappeared, I crawled through the 
sagebrush with great care, and when just about the toj) 
I raised my head to investigate, and there he stood, 
broadside, _ not over forty yards away, and, fortunately 
for me, with his head turned around so that T did not 
come within his vision. Mr. Pennoyer and some others 
were at work in the meadow, and he was watching them. 
J rose up in position to shoot when he turned his head 
and of course saw me, but it was too late ; the gun 
cracked, and he reeled, fell partly down, got up and ran 
a few rods and fell dead. Mr. P. heard the shot) and saw 
the antelope run and fall, and needed no further notice. 
He gave orders to his son, which I could plainly hear, to 
hitch the oxen to the wagon and go up where I was, 1 
dressed my antelope, which was a fine buck with perfect 
horns, and waited until the wagon arrived, congratulat- 
ing myself all the while that I had started out so well 
with my hunting, for I hoped to retain that part of my 
employment anyhow. Even in that land of pure air, pure 
water and all that was conducive to good health, the 
human body was not exempt from the ills that some- 
times break in upon us to spoil the fun. For two days 
and nights I suffered all the tortures which an aching 
tooth can inflict. Then I realized, as I have many times 
since, that all the good things and all the conveniences 
cannot be centered in one place. While I was enjoying 
to the fullest extent the wilderness and grandeur of the 
.«uroundings and the abundance of game, I would need 
ride fifty miles to have a tooth extracted or secure the 
services of a doctor. Some years later, in mid-winter, 
while living on my ranch, I had a siege of the same kind ; 
for two days and nights I suffered without closing my 
eyes in sleep, knowing what a trip to a doctor meant at 
that time of year. There was no doctor nearer than 
twenty-eight miles. I stood it as long as possible, then 
mounted my horse, and for two long days I rode through 
the deep snow with the thermometer away below zero. 
The second day on the road the tooth stopped aching, but 
I kept on, and when at last I got to the doctor's I had 
two pulled to be sure of getting the right one. 
A Game Country. 
The time soon came, and was hailed with delight, when 
we moved into our cabin up in the mountains, where we 
had plenty of firewood, ice-cold mountain water at the 
door, and abundance of game all around us, besides being 
right at our work. It was my business to do the cook- 
ing, which necessitated my getting up about four o'clock 
in the morning. How enjoyable life was: living in the 
woods, chopping in the pine timber, going to bed at dark 
and getting up at early dawn full of vigor, and working 
in peace, without the din, turmoil and vexations of 
thickly populated surroundings. 
One evening, after supper, at the suggestion of my em- 
ployer, I took my rifle and went out to look around for 
the most likely places to find game, as we w-ere about 
out of meat. He said he would prefer elk meat, if it was 
all the same to me. When I got about a mile from the 
camp I found a swampy piece of ground where weeds 
and grass were grown rank. 
I could see by fresh sign that it was a favorite feeding 
ground for elk, but it commenced raining, and rained all 
evening, so that I took a straight cut for home without 
hunting any more. I was wearing a pair of moccasins 
made of raw elk hide, and when I got to camp they were 
something like two old dish-rags. My orders were to 
go out the next morning and hunt till I got meat. The 
next morning was bright and clear, and I started 
straight to the place where I had seen the fresh elk sign, 
for I had never had a shot at an elk up to that time, and 
was especially desirous of trj'ing my luck. I was making 
my way through a thicket of jack-pines, near to the place 
I was going, when I saw, lying on top of a little rocky 
ledge, a lynx. Of course my first impulse was to try and 
kill it. I crawled through the pines until within about 
forty yards of it, when I felt sure I could kill it. I laid 
my gun across a log to get a deadly aim, and was press- 
ing the trigger, when I thought thus : "My employer has 
sent me to get meat, and here I am wasting my time and 
jeopardizing my chances for meat at the favorite place to 
which I was going by shooting something that will not 
be worth anything to me or anyone else." I just lowered 
my gun and crawled back out of sight and left the lynx 
there, the first, last, and only chance I ever had to shoot 
a lynx when I had a gun. They are very shy, and sel- 
dom seen, but some years later, while Bert Reed and I 
were in the woods with an ax, prospecting for a good 
pole patch where we might find good fencing timber, we 
saw a large lynx standing on a log about fifty yards away, 
looking at us without any apparent fear. We started 
slowly toward it, expecting every minute for it to break 
into the thick cover of a jack-pine thicket nearby, but 
to our surprise, when we were within thirty yards of it, 
it started walking leisurely around us and came within 
twenty yards of us. I picked up a large stone and pro- 
posed making a sudden dash at it, thinking to get a few 
steps closer and then throw the stone, with a bare possi- 
bility of killing it, but I hadn't figured that while I ^yas 
making a dash of a few steps, it was capable of making 
a dash of a much greater distance in the same time, so 
that, although I made an ineffectual throw, I might have 
done so before startling it. Only another case of the 
"hind sight better than the fore sight !" So it is that 
sometimes an ordinarily shy and wild animal will act 
stupidly and so entirely different from that which is ex- 
pected of it, that there is no wonder authorities differ in 
dealing with the habits of wild animal life. 
In a few minutes I was at the place I had started for, 
and while walking silently and cautiously along saw, 
alKiut 100 yards away, two bull elk start slowly trotting 
off, alarmed at my approach; they soon stopped and one 
turned broadside. I shot at it, then they went ^ ]\\\]^ 
