ON THE PRAIRIE 79 



lay through the heart of the Bad Lands, but 

 of course the country was not equally rough 

 in all parts. There were tracts of varying 

 size, each covered with a tangled mass of 

 chains and peaks, the buttes in places reach- 

 ing a height that would in the East entitle 

 them to be called mountains. Every such 

 tract was riven in all directions by deep 

 chasms and narrow ravines, whose sides 

 sometimes rolled off in gentle slopes, but far 

 more often rose as sheer cliffs, with nar- 

 row ledges along their fronts. A sparse 

 growth of grass covered certain portions of 

 these lands, and on some of the steep hill- 

 sides, or in the canyons were scanty groves 

 of coniferous evergreens, so stunted by the 

 thin soil and bleak weather that many of 

 them were bushes rather than trees. Most of 

 the peaks and ridges, and many of the val- 

 leys, were entirely bare of vegetation, and 

 these had been cut by wind and water into 

 the strangest and most fantastic shapes. In- 

 deed it is difficult, in looking at such forma- 

 tions, to get rid of the feeling that their 



