2 Ranching in tke Bad Lands. 



The northern cattle plains occupy the basin of the 

 Upper Missouri ; that is, they occupy all of the land 

 drained by the tributaries of that river, and by the river 

 itself, before it takes its long trend to the southeast. They 

 stretch from the rich wheat farms of Central Dakota to 

 the Rocky Mountains, and southward to the Black Hills 

 and the Big Horn chain, thus including all of Montana, 

 Northern Wyoming, and extreme Western Dakota. The 

 character of this rolling, broken, plains country is every- 

 where much the same. It is a high, nearly treeless region, 

 of light rainfall, crossed by streams which are sometimes 

 rapid torrents and sometimes merely strings of shallow 

 pools. In places it stretches out into deserts of alkali and 

 sage brush, or into nearly level prairies of short grass, 

 extending for many miles without a break ; elsewhere 

 there are rolling hills, sometimes of considerable height ; 

 and in other places the ground is rent and broken into the 

 most fantastic shapes, partly by volcanic action and partly 

 by the action of water in a dry climate. These latter por- 

 tions form the famous Bad Lands. Cotton-wood trees 

 fringe the streams or stand in groves on the alluvial bot- 

 toms of the rivers ; and some of the steep hills and can- 

 yon sides are clad with pines or stunted cedars. In the 

 early spring, when the young blades first sprout, the land 

 looks green and bright ; but during the rest of the year 

 there is no such appearance of freshness, for the short 

 bunch grass is almost brown, and the gray-green sage bush, 

 bitter and withered-looking, abounds everywhere, and 

 gives a peculiarly barren aspect to the landscape. 



It is but little over half a dozen years since these lands 



