24 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



sable at first glance, through canons and gulches you 

 can thread your way, perhaps for many, many miles, 

 when, perchance, a beautiful meadow,* thousands of 

 acres in extent, opens before you, rich and bright in 

 the abundance of its grasses, while the slopes that gird 

 these retired retreats are covered with the densest and 

 loveliest of indigenous trees. Such spots as these are a 

 naturalist's elysium, for game of every variety select 

 them for retreats. The buffalo cow comes to them 

 frequently to calve ; the worn-out fierce-looking bull, 

 over whose head so many years have passed that he no 

 longer has strength to keep pace with the migratory 

 herd, and struggle in its dense phalanx for female 

 favour or choice croppings of pasture, retires to them 

 to spend in abundance the winter of life ; while the 

 graceful deer, the timid hare, and the sagacious beaver 

 here pass their lives in peaceful, happy contentment, 

 except some adventurous white man or snake -visioned 

 redskin should pay it a visit, destroying, as man ever 

 does, the serenity that reigned around previous to his 

 advent. 



But come, the morning has broken clear and invigo- 

 rating, breakfast has already been discussed, and the 

 horses have got a rough rub over. The neighbour- 

 hood is well suited for a gallop, for from the slight 

 shower of the previous evening the soil is springy, and 

 fewer of the indefatigable little burrowers the prairie 

 dogs have undermined our vicinity. Meat is wanted, 

 and as we start our minds are made up that, unless 

 successful, the sun must dip the western horizon ere 

 we return. Each attending to his own nag, and giving 

 an extra pull upon the girths ere getting into the saddle, 

 * In America termed park. 



