120 The Wilderness Hunter 



neatly taken off, the remaining shots representing 

 spoiled birds and misses. 



For the last sixty or seventy miles of our trip 

 we left the river and struck off across a great, deso- 

 late gumbo prairie. There was no game, no wood 

 for fuel, and the rare water-holes were far 

 apart, so that we were glad when, as we toiled 

 across the monotonous succession of long, swelling 

 ridges, the dim, cloud-like mass, looming vague and 

 purple on the rim of the horizon ahead of us, gradu- 

 ally darkened and hardened into the bold outline of 

 the Black Hills. 



