pay ten dollars additional; besides that, he hires guides, saddle and pack animals, pays railroad and stage fare, and purchases provisions to last him for his hunt.  In other words, at a modest calculation, each man who spends from two weeks to a month hunting in Wyoming pays to the State and its citizens not less than one hundred and fifty dollars.  Statistics as to the number of hunters who visit Wyoming are not accessible; but if we assume that they are only two hundred in number, this means an actual contribution to the State of thirty thousand dollars in cash.  Besides this, the protection of the game in such a refuge insures a never-failing supply of meat to the settlers living in the adjacent country, and offers them work for themselves and their horses at a time when, ranch work for the season being over, they have no paying occupation.

[Illustration:  A BIT OF SHEEP COUNTRY]

The value of a few skins taken by local hunters is very inconsiderable when compared with such a substantial inflow of actual cash to the State and the residents of the territory neighboring to such a refuge.  Moreover, it must be remembered that, failing to put in operation some plan of this kind, which shall absolutely protect the game and enable it to re-establish itself, the supply of meat and skins, now naturally enough regarded as their own peculiar possession by the settlers living where such a refuge might be established, will inevitably grow less and less as time goes on; and, as it grows less, the contributions to State and local resources from the non-resident tax will also grow less.  Thirty years ago the buffalo skinner declared that the millions of buffalo could never be exterminated; yet the buffalo disappeared, and after them one species of big game after another vanished over much of the country.  The future can be judged only by the past.  Thirty years ago there were elk all over the plains, from the Missouri River westward to the Rocky Mountains; now there are no elk on the plains, and, except in winter, when driven down from their summer range by the snows, they are found only in the timbered mountains.  What has been so thoroughly accomplished will be sure to continue; and, unless the suggested refuges shall be established, there will soon be no game to protect—­a real loss to the country.

It has long been customary for Western men of a certain type to say that Eastern sportsmen are trying to protect the game in order that they themselves may kill it, the implication being that they wish to take it away from those living near it, and who presumably have the greatest right to it.  Talk of this kind has no foundation in fact, as is shown by the laws passed by the Western States, which often demand heavy license fees from non-residents, and hedge about their hunting with other restrictions.  Many Eastern sportsmen desire to preserve the game, not especially that they themselves may kill it, but that it shall be preserved; if they desire to kill this game they must and do comply with the laws established by the different States, and pay the license fees.