A Trip After Mountain Sheep 243 



route lay through the heart of the Bad Lands, but 

 of course the country was not equally rough in all 

 parts. There were tracts of varying size, each cov- 

 ered with a tangled mass of chains and peaks, the 

 buttes in places reaching a height that would in the 

 East entitle them to be called mountains. Every 

 such tract was riven in all directions by deep chasms 

 and narrow ravines, whose sides sometimes rolled 

 off in gentle slopes, but far more often rose as sheer 

 cliffs, with narrow ledges along their fronts. A 

 sparse growth of grass covered certain portions of 

 these lands, and on some of the steep hillsides, or in 

 the canyons were scanty groves of coniferous ever- 

 greens, so stunted by the thin soil and bleak weather 

 that many of them were bushes rather than trees. 

 Most of the peaks and ridges, and many of the val- 

 leys, were entirely bare of vegetation, and these, had 

 been cut by wind and water into the strangest and 

 most fantastic shapes. Indeed it is difficult, in look- 

 ing at such formations, to get rid of the feeling 

 that their curiously twisted and contorted forms are 

 due to some vast volcanic upheavals or other subter- 

 ranean forces; yet they are merely caused by the 

 action of the various weathering forces of the dry 

 climate on the different strata of sandstones, clays, 

 and marls. Isolated columns shoot up into the air, 

 bearing on their summits flat rocks like tables; 

 square buttes tower high above surrounding depres- 

 sions, which are so cut up by twisting gullies and 

 low ridges as to be almost impassable; shelving 

 masses of sandstone jut out over the sides of the 



