214 THE AMERICAN" BEAVER. 



beaver, and the gray wolf are seen from the mouth of 

 Cannon-ball River, where game first becomes abund- 

 ant, through all the intermediate region to the mount- 

 ains, with the exception of the Bad Lands. 



Buffaloes are the most numerous, and are often seen 

 in herds of several thousands. They are easily shot 

 from the deck of a steamboat, while swimming across 

 the river. However eager a person may be for buf- 

 falo-shooting, he will find it in such ample measure on 

 this river that he will finally put aside his gun from 

 mere weariness.^ 



The grizzly bear is the great animal of North Amer- 

 ica, not excepting the buffalo or the moose. We first 

 saw this monster among the "white walls," galloping 

 along the sloping banks beneath them. His bulky 

 and powerful form gave him a dangerous as well as 

 commanding appearance. 



Among the lesser animals upon this river is the 

 prairie dog, a rodent resembling the squirrel. We 

 stopped at one of their "villages," as a collection of 

 their burrows is familiarly called, and were not a 

 little surprised at the number and spread of their 

 habitations. 



The antelope is the most beautiful animal of the 

 plains. We often saw them in small herds of one or 



^ When the first pair of buffaloes had been shot and taken on 

 board the steamer, at the time I went up the river, the mate called 

 upon the trappers on board for volunteers to dress the animals. 

 Two men stepped forward, one of them a Frenchman, as might 

 have been expected, but the other, strange to say, was a Greek, 

 born at Athens, as he afterward informed me. For two years he 

 had been pursuing the vocation of a trapper in the Rocky Mount- 

 ains. He found his way to New Orleans in a merchant vessel, 

 and thence went to the mountains as an adventurer. 



