6 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



southeast. They stretch from the rich wheat farms 

 of central Dakota to the Rocky Mountains, and 

 southward to the Black Hills and the Big Horn 

 chain, thus including all of Montana, northern 

 Wyoming, and extreme western Dakota. The 

 character of this rolling, broken plains country is 

 everywhere much the same. It is a high, nearly 

 treeless region, of light rainfall, crossed by streams 

 which are sometimes rapid torrents and sometimes 

 merely strings of shallow pools. In places it stretches 

 out into deserts of alkali and sage brush, or into 

 nearly 'level prairies of short grass, extending for 

 many miles without a break; elsewhere there are 

 rolling hills, sometimes of considerable height; and 

 in other places the ground is rent and broken into 

 the most fantastic shapes, partly by volcanic action 

 and partly by the action of water in a dry climate. 

 These latter portions form the famous Bad Lands. 

 Cottonwood trees fringe the streams or stand in 

 groves on the alluvial bottoms of the rivers; and 

 some of the steep hills and canyon sides are clad with 

 pines or stunted cedars. In the early spring when 

 the young blades first sprout, the land looks green 

 and bright ; but during the rest of the year there is 

 no such appearance of freshness, for the short bunch 

 grass is almost brown, and the gray-green sage 

 brush, bitter and withered-looking, abounds every- 

 where, and gives a peculiarly barren aspect to the 

 landscape. 



It is but little over half a dozen years since these 

 lands were won from the Indians. They were their 



