94 Bird-NeMing 



CHAPTER XIV. 



v' EAVING Rush Lake and going westward, the rail- 

 ivb- way skirts the base of the Cypress Hills for many 

 'rl^M^^ miles, following what seems to be a broad vallej- 

 ^ and crossing many clear little streams making 

 Ml their way from the hills northward to the Sas- 



Wi katchewan. At Maple Creek we see the red coats of the 

 mounted ]Dolice, who are looking after a large encamp- 

 ment of Indians near by ; the Indians are represented on the 

 station platform by braves of high and low degree, squaws, 

 and papooses, mostly bent on trading pipes and trinkets 

 for tobacco or silver ; a pictures(|ue-looking lot, but dirtj^ 

 withal. Leaving tlie station, we catch sight of their encamp- 

 ment a mile away — tall, conical tepees of well smoked cloths 

 or skins ; Indians in blankets of Ijrilliant colours, hundreds of 

 ponies feeding in the rich grasses, a line of graceful trees in 

 the- background, seemingly more beautiful than ever because 

 of their rarity, all making, with the dark Cypress Hills rising 

 in the distance, a picture most novel and striking. Two hours 

 later we descend to the valley of the South Saskatcliewan, 

 and soon arrive at Medicine Hat. The broad aud beautiful 

 Saskatchewan river affords steamboat navigation a long wa}- 

 above, and for a thousand miles below Medicine Hat. Cross- 

 ing the river on a long iron bridge, we ascend to the high 

 prairie, now a rich pasture, dotted with lakelets which swarm 

 with pelicans, gulls, plovers, ducks and geese. Ever3^where 

 the flower-sprinkled sward is marked by the deep, narrow 

 trails of the buffalo, and the saucer-like hollows wliere the 

 "shaggy monsters used to wallow, and strewing the plains in 

 all directions are the whitened skulls of these noble animals, 

 now so nearh" extinct. The bones are now being gathered 

 and are used extensivel}' for sugar refining, and we see great 

 piles of bones and .skulls at intervals along 'the railway sid- 



