214 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



pale before the first streak of dawn. By the time I 

 left the river bottom and struck off up the valley of 

 a winding creek, which led through the Bad Lands, 

 the eastern sky was growing rosy; and soon the 

 buttes and cliffs were lighted up by the level rays 

 of the cloudless summer sun. The air was fresh and 

 sweet, and odorous with the sweet scents of the 

 springtime that was but barely past; the dew lay 

 heavy, in glittering drops, on the leaves and the 

 blades of grass, whose vivid green, at this season, 

 for a short time brightens the desolate and sterile- 

 looking wastes of the lonely Western plains. The 

 rose-bushes were all in bloom, and their pink blos- 

 soms clustered in every point and bend of the 

 stream; and the sweet, sad songs of the hermit 

 thrushes rose from the thickets, while the meadow 

 larks perched boldly in sight as they uttered their 

 louder and more cheerful music. The round-up 

 had passed by our ranch, and all the cattle with our 

 brands, the Maltese cross and cut dewlap, or the elk- 

 horn and triangle, had been turned loose; they had 

 not yet worked away from the river, and I rode by 

 long strings of them, walking in single file off to 

 the hills, or standing in groups to look at me as I 

 passed. 



Leaving the creek I struck off among a region of 

 scoria buttes, the ground rising into rounded hills 

 through whose grassy covering the red volcanic 

 rock showed in places, while bowlder-like frag- 

 ments of it were scattered all through the valleys 

 between. There were a few clumps of bushes here 



