The Lordly Buffalo 281 



again turned away and made off; and, being evi 

 dently very shy and accustomed to being harassed 

 by hunters, must have traveled a long distance be 

 fore stopping, for we followed his trail for some 

 miles until it got on such hard, dry ground that his 

 hoofs did not leave a scrape in the soil, and yet did 

 not again catch so much as a glimpse of him. 



Soon after leaving his trail we came out on the 

 great, broken prairies that lie far back from the 

 river. These are by no means everywhere level. 

 A flat space of a mile or two will be bounded by a 

 low cliff or a row of small round-topped buttes ; or 

 will be interrupted by a long, gentle sloping ridge, 

 the divide between two creeks; or by a narrow 

 canyon, perhaps thirty feet deep and not a dozen 

 wide, stretching for miles before there is a crossing 

 place. The smaller creeks were dried up, and were 

 merely sinuous hollows in the prairie; but one or 

 two of the larger ones held water here and there, 

 and cut down through the land in bold, semicircu 

 lar sweeps, the outside of each curve being often 

 bounded by a steep bluff with trees at its bottom, 

 and occasionally holding a miry pool. At one of 

 these pools we halted, about ten o clock in the morn 

 ing, and lunched ; the banks were so steep and rotten 

 that we had to bring water to the more clumsy of 

 the two ponies in a hat. 



Then we remounted and fared on our way, scan 

 ning the country far and near from every divide, 

 but seeing no trace of game. The air was hot and 

 still, and the brown, barren land stretched out on 



