7* Grouse. 



ly fond of frequenting the long grass in the bottoms of the 

 coulies and ravines and the dense brush along the edges 

 of the creeks and in the valleys ; there they will invariably 

 be found at mid-day, and will lie till they are almost trod- 

 den on before rising. 



Late in the month of August one year we had been 

 close-herding a small bunch of young cattle on a bottom 

 about a mile square, walled in by bluffs, and with, as an 

 inlet, a long, dry creek running back many miles into the 

 Bad Lands, where it branched out into innumerable 

 smaller creeks and coulies. We wished to get the cattle 

 accustomed to the locality, for animals are more apt to 

 stray when first brought on new ground than at any later 

 period; so each night we "bedded" them on the level 

 bottom that is, gathering them together on the plain, one 

 of us would ride slowly and quietly round and round the 

 herd, heading off and turning back into it all beasts that 

 tried to stray off, but carefully avoiding disturbing them or 

 making any unusual noise ; and by degrees they would all 

 lie down, close together. This " bedding down " is always 

 done when travelling with a large herd, when, of course, it 

 needs several cowboys to do it ; and in such cases some 

 of the cowboys keep guard all the time, walking their 

 horses round the herd, and singing and calling to the 

 cattle all night long. The cattle seem to like to hear the 

 human voice, and it tends to keep them quiet and free 

 from panic. Often when camping near some great cattle 

 outfit I have lain awake at night for an hour or over 

 listening to the wild, not unmusical, calls of the cowboys 

 as they rode round the half-slumbering steers. In the 



