66 HUNTING TRIPS 



plains dialect, I may explain, " Medicine " 

 has been adopted from the Indians, among 

 whom it means any thing supernatural or 

 very unusual. It is used in the sense of 

 " magic," or " out of the common." 



Over an irregular tract of gently rolling 

 sandy hills, perhaps about three quarters of 

 a mile square, were scattered several hun- 

 dred detached and isolated buttes or cliffs of 

 sandstone, each butte from fifteen to fifty 

 feet high, and from thirty to a couple of 

 hundred feet across. Some of them rose as 

 sharp peaks or ridges, or as connected 

 chains, but much the greater number had flat 

 tops like little table-lands. The sides were 

 perfectly perpendicular, and were cut and 

 channelled by the weather into the most ex- 

 traordinary forms; caves, columns, battle- 

 ments, spires, and flying buttresses were 

 mingled in the strangest confusion. Many 

 of the caves were worn clear through the 

 buttes, and they were at every height in the 

 sides, while ledges ran across the faces, and 

 shoulders and columns jutted out from the 



