Hard Times—Health restored—Rabbit-catching—Hunting in Iowa—A Gentleman Tramp—The Hobo Business—Free Travelling.

It was certainly a hard struggle which ended in my breakdown in Chicago and going to Iowa, but I have never regretted going through it. I got small helps—first and last $150—and to be sure they came at opportune times. For instance, one of the remittances came just after the incident I mentioned about the penny saving-bank. We never starved, but I have eaten free lunches once in a while—that is, a good lunch you can get in most saloons, with a glass of beer, which you purchase for 5 cents.

I have borne these things in mind since I became an employer, and I can feel for poor fellows who are clamouring for work; for man must eat, and, if he is willing to work, he will have work, or some one will suffer. I have really once or twice had the thought flash through my mind to take my pistol and hold up the first man I met, if things got any worse than they were at the time. However, God has been very 65good to me, and I have always pulled through when things looked their blackest. It is in moments like this that one thinks of one’s family, and would die rather than bring disgrace on them. How any man with experience such as I have had could deny the existence of a God is more than I can understand, and yet lots of them pretend to do so.

My wife’s uncle had a farm a couple of miles from Iowa City; he had also a vineyard. The family consisted of himself, wife, and five children, all grown up. Most of their grapes they made into wine, of which they kept a liberal supply for home consumption, and the old man believed it to be a cure for everything. The first thing when we drove up to the door, he was there to welcome us with a jug of wine and some glasses. For the first month I was there it used to be, every couple of hours, “You are looking pale or tired; you must have a glass of wine,” and, willy-nilly, I had to down a tumblerful, as he did not believe in wineglasses. I drank more wine in the three months we stayed at his house than I have ever drunk before or since in my life. Under this treatment, plenty of good food, and no worry, I was strong as a mule in no time. The boys were all great hunters, and, as work is very slack in wintertime on a farm, they had plenty of time to indulge 66themselves. At first I used to walk out about a mile and then go slowly home, but it was not long before I could carry my gun and keep up my end with any of them over ten or fifteen miles of heavy walking in the snow. My wife, too, bloomed out (she was much pulled down with looking after me), having nothing to do but eat and sleep and amuse herself. Here I was initiated into the method of catching a rabbit alive in the snow. In the winter, after a rabbit has fed, he hunts up a nice place to keep warm and take his siesta. His method is as follows: After reaching the neighbourhood where he wishes to camp, he will stop in his tracks, crouch, and take a prodigious leap off to one side or the other; this he will continue till he has made eight or ten such jumps and reaches the place he had in his mind, when he will burrow a hole in the snow parallel with the surface and only about a foot underneath it, coil up, and go to sleep. This jumping business is to throw any coyote or fox off the track, and makes it a hard job even for a man to track him. We would come to one of these tracks, follow it, and, when we came to the jumping-off place, look carefully for the place he landed, and so on to his hole. Now if the hole was very long and the snow loose, you generally had to get your rabbit with a gun as he bolted; but if there was a slight 67crust to the snow, and the hole fairly short, you quietly inserted your hand in the hole. Then with a rush you followed up the hole with your hand and arm, and you had the rabbit by the hind-legs before he could kick his way out. I have seen the boys catch half-a-dozen rabbits in succession in this way, and even got pretty good at it myself. It is quite exciting, and should you miss him, you still have a chance with your gun.

The hunting of small game round Iowa was very good—quail, rabbit, squirrels (red and black), and duck in the fall of the year. There was also excellent fishing to be had in the river, and splendid skating in the winter. We also had some luck with pole-cats, or skunks, as they are called, but skinning a skunk is worth all one gets for the hide. My uncle-in-law had a very fine colt, which had thrown all his boys, and when they found out I had broken horses on a ranch, they asked me to break him. I took him out into the deep snow, saddled and mounted him against his protests, but he could not do much in the way of bucking on account of the snow. After I had galloped him a mile or two through the drifts, he was as gentle as a cat, and I rode him back to the house. When I arrived, the boys were outside waiting for me; and to show them how quiet he was, I threw one leg over 68the horn of the saddle and joked them a little about their horsemanship. This was more than one of the boys could stand, so he threw a snowball at the horse from behind, which hit him on the inside of the flank. How I got my leg back into position I don’t know, for ............