We read of the big game which once frequented the Western part of the United States in such large numbers; yet in traveling over that section in a Pullman it is surprising that we seldom see any evidence of it. Leaving the line of the railway and settlement, the monotony of the sterile plain covered with sagebrush is unrelieved by signs of animal life, except horses and cattle and occasionally herds of sheep. The old life has passed and the new has hardly developed sufficiently to supply its place.

Here and there may be found spots which excite the ardor of sportsmen, but they are generally inaccessible except through the agency of a competent guide. The great herds of buffalo which once swept over the plains in such vast numbers as to endanger the life of the pioneer, have disappeared entirely; the elk have almost vanished and their annual migrations have ceased to be a terror to the ranchman, who fenced in his hay to protect it from the famished herds. Even the smaller game has greatly diminished.

There are yet some localities where primeval conditions still continue to a great extent; of these the most noted is the country south of the Yellowstone National Park. To the providential care of the National Government, in laying out this great preserve, is due the preservation of the principal sport which now remains. Large bands of elk frequent this preserve during the greater part of the year, until the heavy snows drive them down from the higher elevations to obtain pasturage. Other game besides elk may be hunted in the country adjacent to the park, such as sheep, antelope and blacktail deer, besides smaller animals. With a pack of well trained dogs it is also possible to hunt with success cougars, bobcats, lynx and sometimes bear. Elk and deer do not, as a rule, frequent the same locality to any extent. If one desires to hunt sheep and goats a still different plan of operation must be adopted, while antelope inhabit a country where neither elk, deer, sheep, nor goats are likely to be found, except by merest accident.

The time when a sportsman could pitch his tent most anywhere and expect the wild animal life of forest and plain to come to him as they came to Adam when he first named them, has long since vanished. To hunt with success one must be thoroughly versed in woodcraft, be possessed of a good knowledge of the habits of game and the localities where they are to be found at different seasons of the year, have a quick eye to pick out a desirable head, and must be a reasonably fair judge of distance, to gauge the proper elevation of a rifle. The happy combination of these qualities make the skilled hunter; marksmanship, provided it be fair, is the least important of all his qualifications. There are a great many men who are good shots at a stationary target who are bad shots at game; there are men who are good shots at game, who are by no means experts in shooting at a mark. This statement may seem paradoxical but readily admits of explanation. The marksman has his range given him, he takes his time, and is not betrayed into sudden action. Change these conditions and he is out of his element. If his eye is not trained to judge distance in timber or on the plain, he can easily misgauge it, and shooting at a moving object he cannot take his time; the absence of any spot on the animal near the point he is aiming at is another disadvantage to the man of the target. The practiced hunter knows his distance; his keen eye readily distinguishes his quarry, although it may blend with the landscape, so that the unpracticed eye might easily overlook it; he is accustomed to take a quick sight and shoot, making proper allowances for the moving object; if a rapid advance is possible and necessary to cut off the game before it can pass a given point for which it is heading, the hunter chooses his course, as if by intuition, and often has a chance to get several more shots where another would fail of his opportunity. The skill of a hunter generally brings him within such proximity of game as to relieve him of the necessity of making an extra difficult shot. It is surprising how seldom the huntsman discharges his rifle compared to one who practices at a target. The man who is fond of target practice will probably use up as many rounds of ammunition in one afternoon shooting at a mark as the average huntsman will consume in an entire year.

A sportsman who is a fair shot, and who goes to a locality where game is fairly plentiful, has every reason in the world to expect success, provided he is accompanied by a real hunter, such an one as I have above described. It is very important to employ a competent guide if one expects a successful hunt. When I speak of a competent guide I mean a man who is a good hunter and also capable of managing a hunting outfit.

Guides may be divided into three classes:

(1) Ordinary frauds who are watching an opportunity to “work” some “dude,” by which name sportsmen are sometimes designated in the slang of the country.

(2) Backwoodsmen who are good hunters and tireless and will supply a sportsman with the best they know how to provide, but being ignorant of the ordinary comforts of civilized life, treat their sportsmen with the same cruel neglect to which they have accustomed themselves.

(3) The man who makes a regular business of acting as a guide, who is a good hunter and who also knows how to provide a first-class outfit.

Game has greatly decreased before the advance of civilization and the wanton slaughter which took no thought of the future; the wild life which survives owes its preservation to the almost inaccessible character of the country in which it has taken refuge, and to its own cunning, which of necessity has become very acute.

To know the habitat of game and outwit its wariness requires the skill of the practiced hunter.

We have heard a great deal about roughing it. That phrase as formerly understood must be greatly qualified if the modern sportsman patronizes an up-to-date outfit.

Going to a wild and rather inaccessible country has about it a certain charm of novelty, and part of that charm grows out of the idea of roughing it. Some people have a tendency to greatly exaggerate the ordeals through which they pass in order that they may enhance the interest of their experience. This goes with the weakness for overstating the distance and increasing the apparent difficulty of the shots which they make in securing their trophies, in which error they are too frequently sustained by the somewhat elastic conscience of the guide. This is an age of progress, and that phrase applies to methods of enjoying sport quite as well as it does to anything else. Having good sport with comfort in camp life is simply a question of dollars and cents. The average person does not understand the present conditions of sporting life in a wild country.

It must be borne in mind that in traveling in rough sections of the West, where big game still abounds, although in much smaller numbers than formerly, everything has to be carried on pack horses. What you are to take is limited simply by the supply of pack horses you are to engage. In an up-to-date outfit the open camp-fire, such a picturesque feature in an illustration, has been supplanted by a plain sheet-iron stove which is placed in the tent, with a few feet of pipe attached to carry off the smoke. If one wants the open fire it of course can be easily supplied, and at first a good many sportsmen desire it on account of the romance and novelty of the experience, but the same pampered tastes, which have forced man from a savage life to adopt the comforts which civilization supplies, will invariably lead to the open camp-fire being abandoned for the commonplace sheet-iron stove—very unromantic but thoroughly practical and useful. The open camp-fire, with the smoke blowing in your eyes from every direction, which gives the sensation of being scorched on one side and frozen on the other, does not appeal to the modern sportsman who disassociates sport from martyrdom.

Folding tables and chairs can be “packed” quite easily, and it is much pleasanter to sit in a chair and eat off of a table than to sit on a log trying to make a table of your knees, and occasionally converting your lap into a plate for your spilled victuals. A portable rubber bathtub, if one objects to jumping into cold water, satisfies the desire for cleanliness. With a fire in the stove one can take a bath as easily and comfortably in camp as at home. For thorough cleansing it is best for one to take a bath in a tent in warm water, but I strongly recommend to those who can stand it a plunge in cold water or being soused with a bucket or two every morning before dressing for the day. This stimulates the body and gets the system in fine condition.

For those who find it uncomfortable to sleep on the hard surface of the ground I would recommend a pneumatic mattress. An ample supply of canned stuff insures against the chance of bad cooking, because it requires little or no skill to prepare canned provisions, if the other food in camp is not particularly appetizing.

This article is not intended for the experienced hunter who has had plenty of experience of Western hunting; nor is it intended for the man who has his heart set upon roughing it in the sense that he desires to see how much he can go through and survive. A great deal of the advice given to people has been in the opposite direction, namely, to cut out as much as possible from their hunting outfit. I claim that the average person who desires sport with as little hardship as possible, except what is unavoidable, should be very careful about reducing his outfit too much. Most sportsmen are accustomed to the ordinary comforts and conveniences of life. It is perfect folly for such people to attempt in a short time to harden themselves to the frontier life so they may endure its hardships with the same indifference as the hunter or trapper who lives that way all the time. I have run across sportsmen who have had their hunting trips spoiled by attempting to rough it too much. If you are accustomed to living well and in comfort, it would be wise to recognize the fact that you are a “tenderfoot” and act accordingly. For the average sportsman the object of a hunting trip in the West is to obtain diversion and acquire health. All the roughing it one requires is the vigorous exercise, the fresh air, with an occasional dip in ice cold water, which is conducive to health; the rest of the hardship it is well to leave out as far as possible.

My experience has led me to add to a hunting outfit, the oftener I go out, rather than depleting it. The first time I really saw an up-to-date outfit was in 1902, when I engaged as my guide Edward Sheffield, of Idaho. I joked him about all the things he was taking along and called him a “tenderfoot.” He replied that “he had had all the roughing it he wanted in his time, and those who really knew what it was generally preferred a camp as comfortable as possible.” I experienced during that trip and a subsequent one I took next fall such comfort, combined with good sport, as I never had before.

I would advise taking an emergency medical case supplied with all the ordinary remedies. I have known the time when such a thing has proved extremely useful, and I have also known of sportsmen who have had their outing ruined through lack of some simple remedy.