A mountain lion sneaked past my saddle-pillowed head




I.

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