Hunting the Pi^ong-Btick. 93 



the range the preceding spring. When we did camp it 

 was by a pool of stagnant water, in a creek bottom, and 

 the mosquitoes were a torment. Nevertheless, as even- 

 ing fell, it was pleasant to climb a little knoll nearby and 

 gaze at the rows of strangely colored buttes, grass-clad, 

 or of bare earth and scoria, their soft reds and purples 

 showing as through a haze, and their irregular outlines 

 gradually losing their sharpness in the fading twilight. 



Next morninor the weather chano-ed, crrowing- cooler, 

 and we left the tangle of ravines and Bad Lands, striking 

 out across the vast sea-like prairies. Hour after hour, 

 under the bright sun, the wagon drew slowly ahead, over 

 the immense rolling stretches of short grass, dipping 

 down each long slope until it reached the dry, imperfectly 

 outlined creek bed at the bottom, — wholly devoid of 

 water and without so much as a shrub of wood, — and 

 then ascending the gentle rise on the other side until at 

 last it topped the broad divide, or watershed, beyond 

 which lay the shallow winding coulies of another creek 

 system. From each rise of ground we looked far and 

 wide over the sunlit prairie, with its interminable undu- 

 lations. The sicklebill curlews which in spring, while 

 breeding, hover above the travelling horseman with cease- 

 less clamor, had for the most part gone southward. We 

 saw only one small party of half a dozen birds ; they paid 

 little heed to us, but piped to one another, making short 

 flights, and on alighting stood erect, first spreading and 

 then folding and settinsf their winors with a slow, oraceful 

 motion. Little horned larks continually ran along the 

 ruts of the faint wagon track, just ahead of the team, and 



