40 The Wilderness Hunter 



the southward, across a dozen leagues of rolling 

 and broken prairie, loomed Sentinel Butte, the chief 

 landmark of all that region. Behind us, beyond the 

 river, rose the weird chaos of Bad Lands which at 

 this point lie for many miles east of the Little 

 Missouri. Their fantastic outlines were marked 

 against the sky as sharply as if cut with a knife; 

 their grim and forbidding desolation warmed into 

 wonderful beauty by the light of the dying sun. 

 On our right, as we loped onward, the land sunk 

 away 'in smooth green-clad slopes and valleys; on 

 our left it fell in sheer walls. Ahead of us the sun 

 was sinking behind a mass of blood-red clouds ; and 

 on either hand the flushed skies were changing their 

 tint to a hundred hues of opal and amethyst. Our 

 tireless little horses sprang under us, thrilling with 

 life ; we were riding through a fairy world of beauty 

 and color and limitless space and freedom. 



Suddenly a short hundred yards in front three 

 blacktail leaped out of a little glen and crossed our 

 path, with the peculiar bounding gait of their kind. 

 At once I sprang from my horse and, kneeling, fired 

 at the last and largest of the three. My bullet sped 

 too far back, but struck near the hip and the crippled 

 deer went slowly down a ravine. Running over 

 a hillock to cut it off, I found it in some brush a 

 few hundred yards beyond and finished it with a 

 second ball. Quickly dressing it, I packed it on my 

 horse, and trotted back leading him; an hour after- 



