A Trip on the Prairie 215 



and there, and near one of them were two magpies, 

 who lighted 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 outbuild- 

 ings on the lookout for anything 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 carnivorous 

 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 



