A Trip on the Prairie. 1 97 



magpies, who lit on an old buffalo skull, bleached white 

 by sun and snow. Magpies are birds that catch the eye 

 at once from their bold black and white plumage and long 

 tails ; and they are very saucy and at the same time very 

 cunning and shy. In spring we do not often see them ; 

 but in the late fall and winter they will come close round 

 the huts and out-buildings on the look-out for any thing to 

 eat. If a deer is hung up and they can get at it they will 

 pick it to pieces with their sharp bills ; and their car- 

 nivorous tastes and their habit of coming round hunters' 

 camps after the game that is left out, call to mind their 

 kinsman, the whiskey-jack or moose-bird of the northern 

 forests. 



After passing the last line of low, rounded scoria 

 buttes, the horse stepped out on the border of the great, 

 seemingly endless stretches of rolling or nearly level 

 prairie, over which I had planned to travel and hunt for 

 the next two or three days. At intervals of ten or a dozen 

 miles this prairie was crossed by dry creeks, with, in places 

 in their beds, pools or springs of water, and alongside a 

 spindling growth of trees and bushes ; and my intention was 

 to hunt across these creeks, and camp by some water-hole 

 in one of them at night. 



I rode over the land in a general southerly course, 

 bending to the right or left according to the nature of the 

 ground and the likelihood of finding game. Most of the 

 time the horse kept on a steady single-foot, but this was 

 varied by a sharp lope every now and then, to ease the 

 muscles of both steed and rider. The sun was well up, 

 and its beams beat fiercely down on our heads from out of 



