OF A RANCHMAN 237 



ing round among a particular set of ravines 

 and coulies, where the feed is good, and 

 ^e water can be obtained without going 

 too far out of the immediate neighborhood. 

 Throughout the plains country the black- 

 tail lives in the broken ground, seldom com- 

 ing down to the alluvial bottoms or out on 

 the open prairies and plateaus. But he is 

 found all through this broken ground. 

 Sometimes it is rolling in character with 

 rounded hills and gentle valleys, dotted here 

 and there with groves of trees ; or the hills 

 may rise into high chains, covered with an 

 open pine forest, sending off long spurs and 

 led by deep valleys and basins. Such 

 places are favorite resorts of this deer ; but 

 it is as. plentiful in the Bad Lands proper. 

 There are tracts of these which are in part 

 or wholly of volcanic origin ; then the hills 

 are called scoria buttes. They are high and 

 very steep, but with rounded tops and edges, 

 and are covered, as is the ground round 

 about, with scoriae boulders. Bushes, and 

 sometimes a few cedar, grow among them, 



