3 8 HUNTING TRIPS 



was scanned carefully far and near ; and the 

 greatest caution was used in riding up over 

 any divide, to be sure that no game on the 

 opposite side was scared by the sudden ap- 

 pearance of my horse or myself. 



Nowhere, not even at sea, does a man feel 

 more lonely than when riding over the far- 

 reaching, seemingly never-ending plains ; 

 and after a man has lived a little while on or 

 near them, their very vastness and loneliness 

 and their melancholy monotony have a 

 strong fascination for him. The landscape 

 seems always the same, and after the trav- 

 eller has plodded on for miles and miles he 

 gets to feel as if the distance was indeed 

 boundless. As far as the eye can see there is 

 no break; either the prairie stretches out 

 into perfectly level flats, or else there are 

 gentle, rolling slopes, whose crests mark the 

 divides between the drainage systems of the 

 different creeks ; and when one of these is 

 ascended, immediately another precisely like 

 it takes its place in the distance, and so roll 

 succeeds roll in a succession as intermin- 



