A Trip on the Prairie 217 



measureless expanse, and as he journeys over them 

 they will for many miles be lacking in all signs of 

 life. Although he can see so far, yet all objects 

 on the outermost verge of the horizon, even though 

 within the ken of his vision, look unreal and strange; 

 for there is no shade to take away from the bright 

 glare, and at a little distance things seem to shim- 

 mer and dance in the hot rays of the sun. The 

 ground is scorched to a dull brown, and against its 

 monotonous expanse any objects stand out with a 

 prominence that makes it difficult to judge of the 

 distance at which they are. A mile off one can see, 

 through the strange shimmering haze, the shadowy 

 white outlines of something which looms vaguely 

 up till it looks as large as the canvas-top of a prairie 

 wagon ; but as the horseman comes nearer it shrinks 

 and dwindles and takes clearer form, until at last 

 it changes into the ghastly staring skull of some 

 mighty buffalo, long dead and gone to join the rest 

 of his vanished race. 



When the grassy prairies are left and the traveler 

 enters a region of alkali desert and sage-brush, the 

 look of the country becomes even more grim and 

 forbidding. In places the alkali forms a white frost 

 on the ground that glances in the sunlight like the 

 surface of a frozen lake; the dusty little sage-brush, 

 stunted and dried up, sprawls over the parched 

 ground, from which it can hardly extract the small 

 amount of nourishment necessary for even its weaz- 

 ened life; the spiny cactus alone seems to be really 

 in its true home. Yet even in such places antelope 



j VOL. IV. 



