ROUGH RIDING. When a range man is asked if he can ride, as a matter of course he says "No." But if he really wants to come up against the champion outlaw horse of the {180} neighbourhood his denial is not emphatic. Like a professional singer asked for a song, he excuses himself, and pleads to a certain dryness in the throat, but, when the money inducements are sufficient, owns up that he thinks he can ride. The rough riding of the range is incomparable, but as the broncho buster is usually smashed internally if not killed outright within three years of practice, this worst possible method of breaking a horse is lacking in practical value. [Sidenote: Rough-driving] ROUGH-DRIVING. Our rough-drivers are perhaps the greatest horsemen living, and their feats are the more glorious because there are no spectators to give the stimulus of their applause. A single example may be permitted here: Constable Harty, of D Division in the Royal North-West Mounted Police, was driving a four-horse team with a waggonette, his passengers being the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen, Viceroy and Vicereine of Canada. Fording one of the fiendish Alberta rivers the near wheeler lay down and drowned herself, while the waggonette, half afloat, was being tilted in danger of capsizal. The teamster swam under and with his knife attempted to cut the {181} dead mare out of harness. Failing in this he climbed up, stood astride with bent knees on the waggon seat, and lifted the team up the river bank to safety while the dead mare dragged under the wheels. [Sidenote: Rough riding] So varied are the styles in horsemanship that nobody pretends to leadership, and every man of real experience counts himself a student rather than a master. Only the other day an Instructor in Equitation showed me how to trot a horse straight down a steep slope of grass, explaining it was so good to supple the animal's shoulders. Of course I always knew I was a fool, but never before had I realized the abysmal depths of my own ignorance. So far then as an old fool may be permitted, I venture to submit some gossip on the average range practice of a day's march in the wilderness. The equipment for horse and man is already dealt with, except in regard to packing, a subject which would need a special volume. [Sidenote: The art of travel] In Mounted Police regiments there is a rule that no constable may travel alone on journeys exceeding a day's march. It is a good rule, because a chap may get hurt or be left afoot, and so perish for lack of a helping hand.