36 HUNTING TRIPS 



while boulder-like fragments of it were scat- 

 tered all through the valleys between. 

 There were a few clumps of bushes here and 

 there, and near one of them were two mag- 

 pies, who lit on an old buffalo skull, bleached 

 white by sun and snow. Magpies are birds 

 that catch the eye at once from their bold 

 black and white plumage and long tails ; and 

 they are very saucy and at the same time 

 very cunning and shy. In spring we do not 

 often see them ; but in the late fall and win- 

 ter they will come close round the huts and 

 out-buildings on the look-out for any thing 

 to eat. If a deer is hung up and they can 

 get at it they will pick it to pieces with their 

 sharp bills ; and their carnivorous tastes and 

 their habit of coming round hunters' camps 

 after the game that is left out, call to mind 

 their kinsman, the whiskey- jack or moose- 

 bird of the northern forests. 



After passing the last line of low, rounded 

 scoria buttes, the horse stepped out on the 

 border of the great, seemingly endless 

 stretches of rolling or nearly level prairie, 



