124 The Wilderness Hunter 



plateaus, and along smooth wooded coulies; but 

 after a few miles the ground became very rugged 

 and difficult. At last I got into the heart of the Bad 

 Lands proper, where the hard, wrinkled earth was 

 torn into shapes as sullen and grotesque as those of 

 dreamland. The hills rose high, their barren flanks 

 carved and channeled, their tops mere needles and 

 knife crests. Bands of black, red, and purple varied 

 the gray and yellow-brown of their sides ; the tufts 

 of scanty vegetation were dull green. Sometimes 

 I rode my horse at the bottom of narrow washouts, 

 between straight walls of clay, but a few feet apart ; 

 sometimes I had to lead him as he scrambled up, 

 down, and across the sheer faces of the buttes. The 

 glare from the bare clay walls dazzled the eye; the 

 air was burning under the hot August sun. I saw 

 nothing living except the rattlesnakes, of which there 

 were very many. 



At last, in the midst of this devil's wilderness, I 

 came on a lovely valley. A spring trickled out of a 

 cedar canyon, and below this spring the narrow, deep 

 ravine was green with luscious grass and was smooth 

 for some hundreds of yards. Here I unsaddled, and 

 turned old Manitou loose to drink and feed at his 

 leisure. At the edge of the dark cedar wood I 

 cleared a spot for my bed, and drew a few dead 

 sticks for the fire. Then I lay down and watched 

 drowsily until the afternoon shadows filled the wild 

 and beautiful gorge in which I was camped. This 



