Time, Ed. by E. Yates (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THREE TRIPS WITH ROCKY-MOUNTAIN TRAPPERS. Bi William A. Baillie-grahman. 'BoREiS, the doggarned old hoss, has, after all, a better nose than any of us for finding a camp,' remarked jovial and burly Port, one fine crisp September evening, as, riding at the head of our little pack- train, through a glade traversing a grand old forest, he came up to where the writer was sitting on a fallen pine, awaiting his arrival. And it was not an idle compliment either; for truly the old horse seemed to sniff a good camping-place from afar. As usual, I had taken an evening stalk on foot through the twilight forest, not so much for sporting purposes as to stretch my legs after a long day's ride, and also to examine the ground for tracks of wapiti and moose. Boreas, my favourite saddle-horse, as on all such occasions, had the reins thrown over his neck, fastened to a spring buckle, cunningly concealed behind the horn of the saddle, and, after receiving a slap or a mild kick, as a signal that he was not wanted and need not wait for me, would amble off alone after the pack-train, strolling ahead of it, till he found an especially inviting bit of grass, upon which he would feast till his companions were half a mile or so ahead, when he would repeat his tactics. The sun was down, and both horses and men were on the look-out for camp. A loud neigh? ' nicker' the trapper calls it?from Boreas, and an answering one from his favourite mare, had caused the remark destined to introduce our little party to the notice of the reader. Looking round, we discovered the old horse standing two hundred yards off, with head outstretched, in the middle of a most inviting little clearing, evincing in his pose an anxious signal, as plainly as if he had said that' this was the boss camping-place for us.' As yet we coul...