I almost always carried a rifle when I rode, either in a scabbard under my thigh, or across the pommel.

Often I would pick up a deer or antelope while about my regular work, when visiting a line camp or riding after the cattle.

At other times I would make a day's trip after them.

In the fall we sometimes took a wagon and made a week's hunt, returning with eight or ten deer carcasses, and perhaps an elk or a mountain sheep as well.

I never became more than a fair hunter, and at times I had most exasperating experiences, either failing to see game which I ought to have seen, or committing some blunder in the stalk, or failing to kill when I fired.