22 HUNTING TRIPS 



long dash with which one will cut out a cow 

 marked with his own brand from a herd of 

 several hundred others, or will follow at full 

 speed the twistings and doublings of a re- 

 fractory steer over ground where an eastern 

 horse would hardly keep its feet walking. 



My own ranches, the Elkhorn and the 

 Chimney Butte, lie along the eastern border 

 of the cattle country, where the Little Mis- 

 souri flows through the heart of the Bad 

 Lands. This, like most other plains rivers, 

 has 3 broad, shallow bed, through which in 

 times of freshets runs a muddy torrent, that 

 neither man nor beast can pass ; at other 

 seasons of the year it is very shallow, spread- 

 ing out into pools, between which the trick- 

 ling water may be but a few inches deep. 

 Even then, however, it is not always easy to 

 cross, for the bottom is filled with quicksands 

 and mud-holes. The river flows in long 

 sigmoid curves through an alluvial valley 

 of no great width. The amount of this allu- 

 vial land enclosed by a single bend is called 

 a bottom, which may be either covered with 



