WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY FREDERIC REMINGTON NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Brothers . All rights reserved. THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE FELLOWS WHO RODE THE PONIES THAT MADE THE TRACKS BY THE AUTHOR...

The car had been side-tracked at Fort Keough, and on the following morning the porter shook me, and announced that it was five o’clock. An hour later I stepped out on the rear platform, and observed that the sun would rise shortly, but that meanwhile the air was chill, and that the bald, square-topped hills of the “bad lands” cut rather hard against the gray of the morning. Presently a trooper galloped up with three led horses, which he tied to a stake. I inspected them, and saw that one had a “

The train bearing the Cheyenne scout corps pulled into Rapid City somewhat late. It is possible you may think that it was a train of Pullman palace cars, but you would be mistaken, for it was a freight train, with the horses in tight box-cars, the bacon and Chis-chis-chash [1] on flat gravel cars, and Lieutenants Casey and Getty in the caboose. Evidently the element of haste was woven into this movement. We were glad to meet again. Expansive smiles lit up the brown features of the Indian scouts

We discussed the vague reports of the Wounded Knee fight in the upper camps of the cordon, and old hands said it could be no ordinary affair because of the large casualty. Two days after I rode into the Pine Ridge Agency, very hungry and nearly frozen to death, having ridden with Captain Baldwin, of the staff, and a Mr. Miller all night long. I had to look after a poor horse, and see that he was groomed and fed, which require considerable tact and “hustling” in a busy camp. Then came my breakfas

The hacienda San José de Bavicora lies northwest from Chihuahua 225 of the longest miles on the map. The miles run up long hills and dive into rocky cañons; they stretch over never-ending burnt plains, and across the beds of tortuous rivers thick with scorching sand. And there are three ways to make this travel. Some go on foot—which is best, if one has time—like the Tahuramaras; others take it ponyback, after the Mexican manner; and persons with no time and a great deal of money go in a coach.

The sun beat down on the dry grass, and the punchers were squatting about in groups in front of the straggling log and adobe buildings which constituted the outlying ranch of Los Ojos. Mr. Johnnie Bell, the capitan in charge, was walking about in his heavy chaparras , a slouch hat, and a white “biled” shirt. He was chewing his long yellow mustache, and gazing across the great plain of Bavicora with set and squinting eyes. He passed us and repassed us, still gazing out, and in his long Texas draw

On a chill, black morning the cabins of Los Ojos gave up their inmates at an early hour. The ponies, mules, and burros were herded up, and stood shivering in an angle, while about them walked the men, carefully coiling their hair lariats, and watching for an opportunity to jerk them over the heads of the selected ones. The patron’s black pet walked up to him, but the mounts of my companion and self sneaked about with an evident desire not to participate in the present service. Old Cokomorachie a

The morning broke gray and lowering, and the clouds rolled in heavy masses across the sky. I was sitting out on a log washing a shirt, and not distinguishing myself as a laundryman either, for one shirt will become excessively dirty in a week, and no canoeist can have more than that, as will be seen when you consider that he has to carry everything which he owns on his back. My guide had packed up our little “kit” and deposited it skilfully in the Necoochee —a sixteen-foot canoe of the Rice Lake

That coaching is a grand sport I cannot deny, for I know almost nothing of it beyond an impression that there is a tremendous amount of mystery connected with its rites. As a sport I have never participated in it, but while travelling the waste places of the earth I have used it as a means on occasion. I never will again. There is no place to which I desire to go badly enough to go in a coach, and such points of interest as are inaccessible except by coach are off my trail. I am not in the least

Now I am conscious that all my life I have seen men who owned shot-guns and setter-dogs, and that these persons were wont at intervals to disappear from their usual haunts with this paraphernalia. Without thinking, I felt that they went to slay little birds, and for them I entertained a good-natured contempt. It came about in this wise that I acquired familiarity with “mark,” and “hie-on,” and “No. 6 vis No. 4’s”: by telegram I was invited to make one of a party in Chicago, bound West on a hunti

“Captain Anderson—he’s the superintendent, you know—started to-day for the south of the Park; some trouble, I believe, down there. A scout thought the buffalo were being disturbed,” said Lieutenant Lindsley to me at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, near the entrance to the Park. “That’s unfortunate. Can I overtake him?” “It’s nearly four o’clock, but as I am going down to our camp at the Lower Geyser Basin, we can start now, and by travelling at night we can catch him before he pulls out in the mo

I am not quite sure that I should not say “The Model Colonel,” since every one knows men and horses are much alike when they have first passed under the eye of the recruiting officer and the remount board, and every one knows that colonels are very unlike, so that a model squadron or a model troop is certain to owe its superiority to its commander; but as we are observing the product in this instance, let the title stand as above stated. The model squadron aforesaid is quartered across the Potom

The following is a letter from a young military aide-de-camp who was in position to see a great deal of the great riots in Chicago. Chicago, July — 18— My Dear Friend ,—In your last you ask me to give you my experiences in the affair of the other day here in Chicago, and although I played but a small part, yet I do not mind adding my little quota to the volumes of matter already written on the subject. To begin with, we at headquarters had known for sometime that the turbulent elements were orga

“You certainly are a tough outfit, colonel—you and your night-hawks of the First Bikes—and I am not sure you could not have us cavalrymen going to bed with our boots on, if we were on the other side,” said Major Ladigo, as he bit at the end of a fresh cigar. “Yes—bless me—Pedal’s outfit might come into camp on top of yours, Ladigo, and where would my guns be then? I can’t have my gunners sitting on their trails all day and all night too,” sighed the big gunner, from the other end of the tent. “I

“Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.” Not a good excuse, but it has been sufficient on many occasions to be true. The soldier on campaign passes life easily. He holds it in no strong grip, and the Merry Christmas evening is as liable to be spent in the saddle in fierce contact with the blizzard as in his cosey tepee with his comrades and his scant cheer. The jug containing the spirits of the occasion may have been gotten from a town fifty miles away on the railroad. It is certainly n

Mr. Montague Stevens is an Englishman who for the most part attends to the rounding-up of his cattle, which are scattered over the northwestern quarter of New Mexico; but he does not let that interfere with the time which all Englishmen set duly apart to be devoted to sport. His door-yard is some hundreds of miles of mountain wilderness and desolate mesa—a more gorgeous preserve than any king ever dreamed of possessing for his pleasure—with its plains dotted with antelope, and its mountains fill