FOLLOWING THE DIVIDE. 57 



beasts of prey and other enemies. The consequence 

 is that divides are very often marked out by a 

 well-defined game path, and we have the autho- 

 rity of Colonel Dodge for stating, as regards 

 the American bison (Bos Americanus), that where a 

 regular beaten path of these animals exists, it almost 

 invariably, in such situations, follows the divide, and 

 that " nine times out of ten waggons can follow, wherever 

 a well-marked buffalo trail may lead." The Colonel 

 also relates an excellent instance of the way in which 

 an Indian guide led a waggon train by means of the 

 divides, through an otherwise almost impassable country. 



" I received my best lesson, " (he says) " on plains craft, 

 from a Pawnee Indian, who took a party under my command, 

 with waggons, without delay or the slightest accident, over 

 a section of 'Bad Lands,' which after examination I believed 

 utterly impassable. The 'divide' followed was extremely 

 narrow and tortuous; in one place so very narrow as to re- 

 quire skilful driving for the passage of the waggons; the 

 ravines on each side being generally perpendicular banks, 

 from thirty to eighty feet deep." * 



Some useful diagrams are given in Colonel Dodge's 

 book, showing the winding course generally followed 

 by "divides," and how it is possible, by following 

 their meanderings, to pass through a country, avoiding 

 both ravines and stream beds a matter which it is 

 not easy to explain in words. 



The bed of a river however may be taken to repre- 

 sent the exact opposite of the " divide" and the level 

 lands along its edges are known as "bottoms." The 



* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, by Colonel Richard 

 J. Dodge, U.S.A., 1877, p. 56. 



