OF A RANCHMAN 81 



and crawled up to it, so as to see if any ani- 

 mal had come down to drink. Field glasses 

 are almost always carried while hunting on 

 the plains, as the distances at which one can 

 see game are so enormous. On looking over 

 the crest with the glasses the valley of the 

 creek for about a mile was stretched before 

 me. At my feet the low hills came closer 

 together than in other places, and shelved 

 abruptly down to the bed of the valley, 

 where there was a small grove of box-alders 

 and cotton-woods. The beavers had, in 

 times gone by, built a large dam at this 

 place across the creek, which must have pro- 

 duced a great back-flow and made a regular 

 little lake in the times of freshets But the 

 dam was now broken, and the beavers, or 

 most of them, gone, and in the place of the 

 lake was a long green meadow. Glancing 

 toward this my eye was at once caught by 

 a row of white objects stretched straight 

 across it, and another look showed me that 

 they were snow-geese. They were feeding, 

 and were moving abreast of one another 



