120 Deer of the River Bottoms. 



caught us a few hundred yards from the creek, almost 

 taking us from the saddle, and driving the rain and 

 hail in stinging level sheets against us. We galloped 

 to the edge of a deep wash-out, scrambled into it at the 

 risk of our necks, and huddled up with our horses under- 

 neath the windward bank. Here we remained pretty 

 well sheltered until the storm was over. Although it was 

 August, the air became very cold. The wagon was fairly 

 caught, and would have been blown over if the top had 

 been on ; the driver and horses escaped without injury, 

 pressing under the leeward side, the storm coming so 

 level that they did not need a roof to protect them from 

 the hail. Where the centre of the whirlwind struck it 

 did great damage, sheets of hailstones as large as pigeons' 

 eggs striking the earth with the velocity of bullets ; next 

 day the hailstones could have been gathered up by the 

 bushel from the heaps that lay in the bottom of the 

 gullies and ravines. One of my cowboys was out in the 

 storm, during whose continuance he crouched under his 

 horse's belly ; coming home he came across some ante- 

 lope so numb and stiffened that they could barely limp 

 out of the way. 



Near my ranch the hail killed quite a number of lambs. 

 These were the miserable remnants of a flock of twelve 

 thousand sheep driven into the Bad Lands a year before, 

 four fifths of whom had died during the first winter, to 

 the delight of all the neighboring cattle-men. Cattle-men 

 hate sheep, because they eat the grass so close that cattle 

 cannot live on the same ground The sheep-herders are 

 a morose, melancholy set of men, generally afoot, and 



