260 The Lordly Buffalo. 



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, gently 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, semicircular 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 morning, 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, scanning 

 the country far and near from ever}' divide, but seeing no 

 trace of game. The air was hot and still, and the brown, 

 barren land stretched out on every side for leagues of 

 dreary sameness. Once we came to a canyon which ran 

 across our path, and followed along its brink for a mile to 

 find a place where we could get into it ; when we finally 

 found such a place, we had to back the horses down to the 

 bottom and then lead them along it for some hundred 

 yards before finding a break through which we could climb 

 out 



It was late in the afternoon before we saw any game ; 



