The Black-Tail Deer 179 



trip next day back in the broken country, away from 

 the river, where black-tail were almost sure to be 

 found. 



We breakfasted hours before sunrise, and then 

 mounted our horses and rode up the river bottom. 

 The bright prairie moon was at the full, and was 

 sunk in the west till it hung like a globe of white 

 fire over the long row of jagged bluffs that rose 

 from across the river, while its beams brought into 

 fantastic relief the peaks and crests of the buttes 

 upon our left. The valley of the river itself was in 

 partial darkness, and the stiff, twisted branches of 

 the sage brush seemed to take on uncanny shapes as 

 they stood in the hollows. The cold was stinging, 

 and we let our willing horses gallop with loose reins, 

 their hoofs ringing on the frozen ground. After 

 going up a mile or two along the course of the river 

 we turned off to follow the bed of a large dry creek. 

 At its mouth was a great space of ground much cut 

 up by the hoofs of the cattle, which was in summer 

 overflowed and almost a morass ; but now the frost- 

 bound earth was like wrinkled iron beneath the 

 horses feet. Behind us the westering moon sank 

 down out of sight ; and with no light but that of the 

 stars, we let our horses thread their own way up the 

 creek bottom. When we had gone a couple of miles 

 from the river the sky in front of our faces took 

 on a faint, grayish tinge, the forerunner of dawn. 

 Every now and then we passed by bunches of cattle, 

 lying down or standing huddled together in the 

 patches of brush or under the lee of some shelving 



