ON THE PRAIRIE 137 



will be interrupted by a long, gentle sloping 

 ridge, the divide between two creeks ; or by 

 a narrow canyon, perhaps thirty feet deep 

 and not a dozen wide, stretching for miles 

 before there is a crossing place. The 

 smaller creeks were dried up, and were 

 merely sinuous hollows in the prairie; but 

 one or two of the larger ones held water 

 here and there, and cut down through the 

 land in bold, semicircular sweeps, the out- 

 side of each curve being often bounded by a 

 steep bluff with trees at its bottom, and oc- 

 casionally holding a miry pool. At one of 

 these pools we halted, about ten o'clock in 

 the morning, and lunched; the banks were 

 so steep and rotten that we had to bring 

 water to the more clumsy of the two ponies 

 in a hat. 



Then we remounted and fared on our 

 scanning the country far and near 

 from every divide, but seeing no trace of 

 game. The air was hot and still, and the 

 brown, barren land stretched out on every 

 side for leagues of dreary sameness. Once 



