2 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



The country throughout this great Upper Missouri basin has a won- 

 derful sameness of character ; and the rest of the arid belt, lying to the 

 southward, is closely akin to it in its main features. A traveler seeing it 

 for the first time is especially struck by its look of parched, barren desola- 

 tion ; he can with difficulty believe that it will support cattle at all. It is 

 a region of light rainfall ; the grass is short and comparatively scanty; there 

 is no timber except along the beds of the streams, and in many places 

 there are alkali deserts where nothing grows but sage-brush and cactus. 

 Now the land stretches out into level, seemingly endless plains or into 

 rolling prairies ; again it is broken by abrupt hills and deep, winding val- 

 leys ; or else it is crossed by chains of buttes, usually bare, but often clad 

 with a dense growth of dwarfed pines or gnarled, stunted cedars. The 

 muddy rivers run in broad, shallow beds, which after heavy rainfalls are 

 filled to the brim by the swollen torrents, while in droughts the larger 

 streams dwindle into sluggish trickles of clearer water, and the smaller 

 ones dry up entirely, save in occasional deep pools. 



All through the region, except on the great Indian reservations, there 

 has been a scanty and sparse settlement, quite peculiar in its character. 

 In the forest the woodchopper comes first; on the fertile prairies the 

 granger is the pioneer ; but on the long, stretching uplands of the far 

 West it is the men who guard and follow the horned herds that prepare 

 the way for the settlers who come after. The high plains of the Upper 

 Missouri and its tributary rivers were first opened, and are still held, by 

 the stockmen, and the whole civilization of the region has received the 

 stamp of their marked and individual characteristics. They were from 

 the South, not from the East, although many men from the latter region 

 came out along the great transcontinental railway lines and joined them 

 in their northern migration. 



They were not dwellers in towns, and from the nature of their indus- 

 try lived as far apart from each other as possible. In choosing new ranges, 

 old cow-hands, who are also seasoned plainsmen, are invariably sent ahead, 

 perhaps a year in advance, to spy out the land and pick the best places. 

 One of these may go by himself, or more often, especially if they have to 

 penetrate little known or entirely unknown tracts, two or three will go 

 together, the owner or manager of the herd himself being one of them. 

 Perhaps their herds may already be on the border of the wild and unin- 

 habited country : in that case they may have to take but a few days' jour- 

 ney before finding the stretches of sheltered, long-grass land that they 

 seek. For instance, when I wished to move my own elkhorn steer brand 

 on to a new ranch I had to spend barely a week in traveling north among 



