ii2 The Wilderness Hunter 



They carried us all day at a rack, pace, single-foot, 

 or slow lope, varied by rapid galloping when we 

 made long circles after game; the trot, the favorite 

 gait with Eastern park-riders, is disliked by all peo- 

 ples who have to do much of their life-work in the 

 saddle. 



The first day's ride was not attractive. The heat 

 was intense and the dust stifling, as we had to drive 

 some loose horses for the first few miles, and after- 

 ward to ride up and down the sandy river bed, where 

 the cattle had gathered, to look over some young 

 steers we had put on the range the preceding spring. 

 When we did camp it was by a pool of stagnant 

 water, in a creek bottom, and the mosquitoes were 

 a torment. Nevertheless, as evening fell, it was 

 pleasant to climb a little knoll nearby and gaze at 

 the rows of strangely colored buttes, grass-clad, or 

 of bare earth and scoria, their soft reds and purples 

 showing as through a haze, and their irregular out- 

 lines gradually losing their sharpness in the fading 

 twilight. 



Next morning the weather changed, growing 

 cooler, and we left the tangle of ravines and Bad 

 Lands, striking out across the vast sea-like prairies. 

 Hour after hour, under the bright sun, the wagon 

 drew slowly ahead, over the immense rolling 

 stretches of short grass, dipping down each long 

 slope until it reached the dry, imperfectly outlined 

 creek bed at the bottom, wholly devoid of water 



