"Do tell Mrs. Selous how sorry I am to miss her, as well as you. I feel rather melancholy to think that my own four small boys will practically see no hunting on this side at all, and indeed no hunting anywhere unless they have the adventurous temper that will make them start out into wild regions to find their fortunes. I was just in time to see the last of the real wilderness life and real wilderness hunting. How I wish I could have been with you this year! But, as I wrote you before, during the last three seasons I have been able to get out West but once, and then only for a fortnight on my ranch, where I shot a few antelope for meat.
"You ought to have Hough's 'Story of the Cowboy' and Van Dyke's 'Still Hunter.' Also I think you might possibly enjoy small portions of the three volumes of the Boone and Crockett Club's publications. They could be obtained from the 'Forest and Stream' people at 346 Broadway, New York, by writing. Have you ever seen Washington Irving's 'Trip on the Prairie,' and Lewis and Clarke's Expedition? And there are two very good volumes, about fifty years old, now out of print, by a lieutenant in the British Army named Ruxton, the titles of which for the moment I can't think of; but I will look them up and send them to you. He describes the game less than the trappers and hunters of the period; men who must have been somewhat like your elephant-hunters. When I was first on the plains there were a few of them left; and the best hunting-trip I ever made was in the company of one of them, though he was not a particularly pleasant old fellow to work with.
"Now, to answer your question about ranching; and of course you are at liberty to quote me.
"I know a good deal of ranching in western North Dakota, eastern Montana and north-eastern Wyoming. My ranch is in the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri, a good cattle-country, with shelter, traversed by a river, into which run here and there perennial streams. It is a dry country, but not in any sense a desert. Year in and year out we found that it took about twenty-five acres to support a steer or cow. When less than that was allowed the ranch became overstocked, and loss was certain to follow. Of course where hay is put up, and cultivation with irrigation attempted, the amount of land can be reduced; but any country in that part of the West which could support a steer or cow on five acres would be country which it would pay to attempt to cultivate, and it would, therefore, cease to be merely pastoral country.
"Is this about what you wish? I have made but a short trip to Texas. There are parts of it near the coast which are well-watered, and support a large number of cattle. Elsewhere I do not believe that it supports more cattle to the square mile than the north-western country, and where there are more they get terribly thinned out by occasional droughts. In Hough's book you will see some description of this very ranching in Texas and elsewhere. I really grudge the fact that you and Mrs. Selous got away from this side without my even getting a glimpse of you."
As he had only shot two wapiti with fair heads and one mule-deer with average horns, Selous decided to have a second hunt in the Rockies, with the object of obtaining better specimens. In November, as a rule, there is heavy snow in the mountains, and this has the effect of driving the game down out of the heavy timber into more open ground where "heads" can more easily be seen and judged. Accordingly in October, 1898, Selous went to Red Lodge in Montana and there met the hunter Graham. This time he went up the north fork of Stinking Water to the forest and about twelve miles east of the Yellowstone Park. Mild weather, however, throughout November was all against seeing any quantity of game, so Selous was again somewhat disappointed with the results of this hunt.
After this trip, in 1898, he wrote to me:—
"Come here yourself as soon as you can. Vous serez toujours le bienvenu. A damned newspaper reporter (an American, who came here whilst I was in London, and would not go away until he had seen me) said I have got some good wapiti heads, but I only got one fair one. I got four wapiti bulls altogether, but two had very small heads—not worth taking. I got four mule-deer stags, one with a very nice head and a second not at all bad. I also shot another lynx; but I had very unfortunate weather, hardly any snow, and when I left the Mountains the wapiti were still up in their early autumn range."
Selous was rather disappointed in not obtaining better wapiti heads, and wrote in his book ("Travels East and West") that bigger heads of deer could now be killed in Hungary than in the Rockies. Commenting on this, Roosevelt, in a letter to him at a later date, says:—
"By the way, I was in the winter range of the deer (Colorado), and I have never seen them so numerous. They were all black-tail (mule-deer). Every day I saw scores, and some days hundreds. There were also elk (wapiti). I did not shoot either deer or elk, of course; but I saw elk-antlers shot last fall, ranging from 52 to 56 inches in length. I think you were a few years ahead of time (although only a few years) when you stated that already bigger antlers could be secured in Hungary than in the Rockies."