76 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



to the northwest, skirts the eastern base of the Black Hills, and 

 sweeping roiuid to the south rises in the vicinity of the mountain 

 valley called the New Park, receiving the Laramie, IMedicine 

 Bow, and Sweet Water creeks. The other, or " South Fork," 

 strikes toward the mountains in a southwesterly direction, hug- 

 ging the base of the main chain of the Rocky IMountains ; and, 

 fed by several small creeks, rises in the uplands of the Bayou Sa- 

 lade, near which is also the source of the Arkansas. To the forks 

 of the Platte the .valley of that river extends from three to five 

 miles on each side, inclosed by steep sandy bluffs, from the summits 

 of which the prairies stretch away in broad undulating expanse to 

 the north and south. The " bottom," as it is termed, is but thinly 

 covered with timber, the cotton-woods being scattered only hero 

 and there ; but some of the islands in the broad bed of the stream 

 are well wooded, leading to the inference that the trees on the 

 banks have been felled by Indians who formerly frequented the 

 neighborhood of this river as a chosen hunting-groun.l. As, dur- 

 mg the long winters, the pasture in the vicinity is scarce and 

 withered, the Indians feed their horses on the bark of the sweet 

 cotton-wood, upon which they subsist and even fatten. Thus, 

 wherever a village has encamped, the trunks of these trees strew 

 the ground, their upper limbs and smaller branches peeled of their 

 bark, and looking as white and smooth as if scraped with a 

 knife. 



On the forks, however, the timber is heavier and of greater va- 

 riety, some of the creeks being well Avooded with ash and cherry, 

 which break the monotony of the everlasting cotton-wood. 



Dense masses of buffalo still continued to darken the plains, 

 and numerous bands of wolves hovered round the outskirts of the 

 vast herds, singling out the sick and wounded animals, and prey- 

 ing upon such calves as the j'ifles and arrows of the hunters had 

 bereaved of their mothers. The white wolf is the invariable at- 

 tendant upon the buffalo ; and when one of these persevering ani- 



