The Black-Tail Deer 187 



right when a week or two afterward we sent out the 

 buckboard to bring it back. 



A stout buckboard is very useful on a ranch, 

 where men are continually taking short trips on 

 which they do not wish to be encumbered by the 

 heavy ranch wagon. Pack ponies are always a nui 

 sance, though of course an inevitable one in making 

 journeys through mountains or forests. But on the 

 plains a buckboard is far more handy. The blank 

 ets and provisions can be loaded upon it, and it can 

 then be given a definite course to travel or point to 

 reach; and meanwhile the hunters, without having 

 their horses tired by carrying heavy packs, can strike 

 off and hunt wherever they wish. There is little or 

 no difficulty in going over the prairie, but it needs 

 a skilful plainsman, as well as a good teamster, to 

 take a wagon through the Bad Lands. There are 

 but two courses to follow. One is to go along the 

 bottoms of the valleys ; the other is to go along the 

 tops of the divides. The latter is generally the best ; 

 for each valley usually has at its bottom a deep wind 

 ing ditch with perpendicular banks, which wanders 

 first to one side and then to the other, and has to be 

 crossed again and again, while a little way from it 

 begin the gullies and gulches which come down from 

 the side hills. It is no easy matter to tell which 

 is the main divide, as it curves and twists about, and 

 is all the time splitting up into lesser ones, which 

 merely separate two branches of the same creek. 

 If the teamster does not know the lay of the land 

 he will be likely to find himself in a cul-de-sac, from 



