The Virginia enterprise., 1904-12-30
A MIx.uP WITH CUPID,
BY BERTRAND w. SINCLAIR.

I'D EAR huntin' don't always pan
~ out just the way you've got it
figured volunteered Jack Gordon
from his perch on the top rail of the
horse corral. Sometimes you hunt
the bear, and sometimes the bear hunts
you-and once in a while extraneous
circumstances, as the Professor calls
'em, hops in and mixes things up in
good shape"
Jack deftly twisted paper and tobac-
co into brown cylinder; the touch of
a match sent blue spirals of smoke
curling up above his head. He leaned
back against post and breathed q
deep sigh Of content.
Across the bottom Of the canon a
coZy cabin nestled close under the
brown earth wall that slanted back
toward the hills. Snowy lace curtains
and pots of green-leaved, towering
things In the window proclaimed a
feminine presence. At one end of the
cabin a brown bear paced ceaselessly
to and fro with the stealthy, noiseless
tread Of his kind.
'Why is it," I queried, plaintively,
that when 1 ask you anything about
that bear you always appear to be
struggling with some strong emotion? I?
And yesterday, when I remarked to
Tony that Cupid was a rather pecul-
lar name for creature as ungainly
as a bear, he got as red in the face as
a turkey gobbler. What's the joker"
"Well, I'll tell you," said Jack, "and
NJ you can judge for yourself. Last
spring they had a big horse roundup
along the river here. Three or four
outfits throwed in together and ran
a wagon for about a month. There
was lots of stray horses in this ccuu-
try then, and one or two outfits in
the Judith basin sent men down to
ride with us. Tony was workin' for
the D-Cross, and they sent him down
because he was familiar with this
country.
There was quite bunch of us
II riders, guess. The Professor was
runnin' the layout, and the way We
got over the country wasn't slow.
One day we moved down and camped
on the mouth of the Musselshell; there
was little bunch of wild horses run
ming on the river ten miles or so
below there that the Professor wanted
mighty bad. So next morning he
tells Tony and me to mount our ridge
runners, for he wanted us to ride the
river bottom and get that bunch OF
brOom-talls.
You never was on a roundup with
the Professor was you, Kid? Don't
ever go! Life amt worth livin' then,
He forgets about bugs and beetles and
rock formations long enough to send
you out on herd or on circle, and then
goes to meditatin' about things that
would give Powder river horse
wrangler the lock-jaw to talk about.
Petriied things-trees, fish and shells
which is as common as dirt in this
country, has a horrible fascination for
him. Once he sent Bud Wilkes and me
to hold herd, and then clean forgot
us till 1t was time to set the night
guard. We come in pretty hostile,
but when the Professor fixed his mild
gray eyes on us kind o. reproachflll,
we faded away and looked around for
a prairie-dog hole that we could crawl
into.
THAT was his way, so we had to
figure on getting those horses with=,
out any help from him. After starting
us ont, he'd forget we was on the
earth, and if we run our horses down
and got afoot, we knew we'd have to
walk to camp-which was against our
religious principles, to say nothing of
the way the rest of the crowd would
roast us.
I'VE poked along slow, keepin' an
eye open for horses. We'd rode along
the ridges till we come to the lower
edge Of Sun-Dance fiat, where this par
ticular bunch was supposed to be. AS
we was amblin' down the hill into the
river bottom, sees somthing pokin'
around among the sage-brush, which
growed like young trees along there
, I could see it wasn't no horse and it
( didn't much resemble a COW. I was
tryin' to figure out what it was be-
fore said anything, when Tony
who's got an eye like an eagle-blurts
6. out. "A bear. b'gosh!' =