Part 2

A LIST OF FULL-PAGE DRAWINGS.

Costume for cross saddle riding

Tears starting from your smoke-inflamed eyes

Saddle cover for wet weather Policeman's equestrian rain coat

She was postmistress twice a week

The trail was lost in a gully

Whetted one to a razor edge and threw it into a tree where it stuck quivering

Not three hundred yards away ... were two bull elk in deadly combat

Down the path came two of the prettiest Blacktails

A misstep would have sent us flying over the cliff

Thus I fought through the afternoon

We whizzed across the railroad track in front of the Day Express

Five feet full in front of us, they pulled their horses to a dead stop

The coyotes made savage music

The horrid thing was ready for me I started on a gallop, swinging one arm

The warm beating heart of a mountain sheep

I could not keep away from his hoofs

We started forward, just as the rear wheels were hovering over the edge

"You better not sit down on that kaig ... It's nitroglycerine"

The tunnel caused its roof to cave in close behind me

A mountain lion sneaked past my saddle-pillowed head

THE WHY OF IT.

Theoretically, I have always agreed with the Quaker wife who reformed her husband--"Whither thou goest, I go also, Dicky dear." What thou doest, I do also, Dicky dear. So when, the year after our marriage, Nimrod announced that the mountain madness was again working in his blood, and that he must go West and take up the trail for his holiday, I tucked my summer-watering-place-and-Europe-flying-trip mind away (not without regret, I confess) and cautiously tried to acquire a new vocabulary and some new ideas.

Of course, plenty of women have handled guns and have gone to the Rocky Mountains on hunting trips--but they were not among my friends. However, my imagination was good, and the outfit I got together for my first trip appalled that good man, my husband, while the number of things I had to learn appalled me.

In fact, the first four months spent 'Out West' were taken up in learning how to ride, how to dress for it, how to shoot, and how to philosophise, each of which lessons is a story in itself. But briefly, in order to come to this story, I must have a side talk with the Woman-who-goes-hunting-with-her-husband. Those not interested please omit the next chapter.

II.

OUTFIT AND ADVICE FOR THE WOMAN-WHO-GOES-HUNTING-WITH-HER-HUSBAND.

Is it really so that most women say no to camp life because they are afraid of being uncomfortable and looking unbeautiful? There is no reason why a woman should make a freak of herself even if she is going to rough it; as a matter of fact I do not rough it, I go for enjoyment and leave out all possible discomforts. There is no reason why a woman should be more uncomfortable out in the mountains, with the wild west wind for companion and the big blue sky for a roof, than sitting in a 10 by 12 whitewashed bedroom of the summer hotel variety, with the tin roof to keep out what air might be passing. A possible mosquito or gnat in the mountains is no more irritating than the objectionable personality that is sure to be forced upon you every hour at the summer hotel. The usual walk, the usual drive, the usual hop, the usual novel, the usual scandal,--in a word, the continual consciousness of self as related to dress, to manners, to position, which the gregarious living of a hotel enforces--are all right enough once in a while; but do you not get enough of such life in the winter to last for all the year?