14 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



Butte, lie along the eastern border of the cattle 

 country, where the Little Missouri flows through the 

 heart of the Bad Lands. This, like most other 

 plains rivers, has a broad, shallow bed, through 

 which in times of freshets runs a muddy torrent, 

 that neither man nor beast can pass ; at other sea- 

 sons of the year it is very shallow, spreading out 

 into pools, between which the trickling water may 

 be but a few inches deep. Even then, however, it 

 is not always easy to cross, for the bottom is filled 

 with quicksands and mud-holes. The river flows 

 in long sigmoid curves through an alluvial valley 

 of no greath width. The amount of this alluvial 

 land inclosed by a single bend is called a bottom, 

 which may be either covered with cottonwood trees 

 or else be simply a great grass meadow. From the 

 edges of the valley the land rises abruptly in steep 

 high buttes whose crests are sharp and jagged. 

 This broken country extends back from the river 

 for many miles, and has been called always, by In- 

 dians, French voyageurs, and American trappers 

 alike, the "Bad Lands," partly from its dreary and 

 forbidding aspect and partly from the difficulty ex- 

 perienced in traveling through it. Every few miles 

 it is crossed by creeks which open into the Little 

 Missouri, of which they are simply repetitions in 

 miniature, except that during most of the year they 

 are almost dry, some of them having in their beds 

 here and there a never-failing spring or muddy 

 alkaline-water hole. From these creeks run coulies, 

 or narrow, winding valleys, through which water 



