120 The Wilderness Hunter 



neatly taken off, the remaining shots representing 1 

 spoiled birds and misses. 



For the last sixty or seventy miles of our trip 

 we left the river and struck off across a great, deso 

 late gumbo prairie. There was no game, no wood 

 for fuel, and the rare water-holes were far 

 apart, so that we were glad when, as we toiled 

 across the monotonous succession of long, swelling 

 ridges, the dim, cloud-like mass, looming vague and 

 purple on the rim of the horizon ahead of us, gradu 

 ally darkened and hardened into the bold outline of 

 the Black Hills. 



