TEN

Ten AN’ ALL WE DO IS HUNT

Tex here begins with a theme that also appears in “Tex Reads his Permit,” namely the idea that guides are nothing but poachers who have gone legal—this was an issue which was close to the bone for Tex, and the Warden in question certainly knew that. The jibe sounds right for the macho culture of western Canada in general and mountain men in particular, then or now. A similar sense of what is work and what is not still leads to a certain amount of mockery directed at people who work indoors, who “lay around close to the stove all winter, and [buy] their meat.” The story is largely about the frustrations of guiding inexperienced “pilgrims” (big game hunters) in the mountains.

—AG