TENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 183 



prairie country to the northwest and southeast, others into smaller 

 valleys, and still others to rough-timbered draws or guUeys, where 

 the shelter of the high hills and timber gives fine protection from 

 sun and storms, and where there is plenty of fine grazing. The 

 most notable of these draws leads to a fine sheltered gully through 

 which Cache Creek flows, and where water of the finest quality 

 can be had at all times of the year. Properly speaking, it is a 

 timbered " coulee " cut into the prairie. 



Standing on the prairie a few hundred yards from the brink of 

 this coulee one looks over it to the rocky, timber-covered hills 

 beyond without being aware of its existence. Descending to the 

 creek, however, he finds himself 150 feet below the prairie level 

 in a grove of post-oak and jack-oak timber of large size. Con- 

 tinuing south the coulee broadens. Beautiful, open, grass-covered 

 parks, containing fine grazing grounds, occur here and there, 

 or wind in and out of the timber. This coulee is about a mile 

 long by three-quarters of a mile wide, and it extends through a 

 thickly timbered pass to " Winter Basin." 



A hard climb for about fifteen minutes brings one to the sum- 

 mit of a high, rocky mountain a quarter of a mile to the east of 

 the coulee, from which one can survey with the naked eye all but 

 a small section of the range to the north. Here the view is ob- 

 structed by mountains. It would be an excellent spot on which to 

 establish a lookout station, which a keeper could visit daily to 

 locate the buft'alo. 



A mile and a half west of the grand coulee is another coulee of 

 similar character, but smaller. Both of these coulees broaden at 

 the mouth and empty into the prairie. Leading into the smaller 

 coulee, and close to the western line of the preserve, there is a 

 deep, narrow canyon that contains permanent water. This canyon 

 is three-quarters of a mile long, 100 feet deep, and very rocky, 

 having in places perpendicular sides. There is another small 

 ravine on the east side of the proposed buffalo range. 



The bulk of the grazing country on the proposed range is 

 gently rolling prairie, three-fourths of a mile wide, that extends 

 over the southern part (4 miles) of the range, and a flat of 

 about two and a half square miles in the northwest corner of the 

 preserve. While there is no section on which mesquite grass grew 

 in such abundance as I found it on Mr. Charles Goodnight's 

 ranch, the grazing on that ranch seemed to be confined to one 

 area, outside of which little of the choice mesquite and buft'alo 

 grass were found. On the Wichita buft'alo range, however, the 

 mesquite grass is mixed with the blue-stem. Sometimes a patch 



