238 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



in the twilight. The horse splashed across the shal- 

 low ford, and then spent half an hour in climbing 

 up through the rugged side hills, till we reached 

 the top of the first great plateau that had to be 

 crossed. As soon as I got on it I put in the spurs 

 and started off at a gallop. In the dusk the brown 

 level land stretched out in formless expanse ahead of 

 me, unrelieved, except by the bleached white of a 

 buffalo's skull, whose outlines glimmered indistinctly 

 to one side of the course I was riding. On my left 

 the sun had set behind a row of jagged buttes, that 

 loomed up in sharp relief against the western sky; 

 above them it had left a bar of yellow light, which 

 only made more intense the darkness of the sur- 

 rounding heavens. In the quarter toward which I 

 was heading there had gathered a lowering mass of 

 black storm-clouds, lit up by the incessant play of 

 the lightning. The wind had totally died away, and 

 the death-like stillness was only broken by the con- 

 tinuous, measured beat of the horse's hoofs as he 

 galloped over the plain, and at times by the muttered 

 roll of the distant thunder. 



Without slacking pace I crossed the plateau, and 

 as I came to the other edge the storm burst in sheets 

 and torrents of water. In five minutes I was 

 drenched through, and to guide myself had to take 

 advantage of the continual flashes of lightning ; and 

 I was right glad, half an hour afterward, to stop and 

 take shelter in the log hut of a couple of cowboys, 

 where I could get dry and warm. 



