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Show doubt cleared. He picked up the skillet, leaned out the door, and hurled the meat as far as he could into the sagebrush. "What did you do that for?" his friend asked, suddenly regretful before his bitter-faced partner. "Oh hell," ground the other, "you with your talk about eatin' your best friend, and cam'bells and such! I couldn't 've choked it down." Few of our Nada people preyed on the mustangs. But adventurers from farther away made forays on them for saddle horses, hides, or meat for various by-products. As I mentioned earlier, when we arrived in 1913 we saw at Hot Springs a huge circular corral made palisade-style of railroad ties. Before and during World War I many "wild ones" were rounded up and broken to ride or killed there. The choicest became horses for the cavalry, the smaller and older animals became hides and meat for cats and dogs. Mention has been made of bounty. The county paid $5 a scalp for coyotes because they killed sheep, five cents a pair of ears for jackrabbits and for a time the same amount for heads of "chiselers" or ground squirrels. Although any furbearer was eligible, a trapper aimed mainly at the coyotes because he could collect the bounty for each scalp and also sell the pelts to fur companies. We boys cut ears from the rabbits we killed or found dead. We strung the ears on baling wire and dried them for evidence to present to county officials. A few of the thriftiest boys beheaded chiselers and strung the heads like beads on wire to dry. But the fat, greasy gopher heads gave off a rancid reek in the summer sun. To keep the trophies out of cats' reach, boys would festoon the string of ears |