THE PRAIRIES OF THE FAR WEST. 165 



Few of us have not experienced the excitement of a 

 gallop over a good grass country with the spotted 

 beauties leading the way, getting over the ground at a 

 racing pace, while your mount is nearly hauling you 

 out of the saddle with enthusiasm and inclination to 

 make himself on still more familiar terms with the 

 pack. By Jove, how reckless such excitement makes 

 you feel ! Fear is banished for the time being all 

 sense of danger is dispelled to the winds, and sooner 

 than be thrown out you would ride at a canal, or 

 charge any height of timber. You may be old yet 

 for the time feel young : you may be blase yet you feel 

 as buoyant as when you made your debut. But it is far 

 from the grass countries, across three thousand miles 

 of water and fifteen hundred of land far beyond the 

 giant Mississippi, to the illimitable prairies of the 

 Far West I wish you, in thought, to travel. Ima- 

 gine a boundless expanse of undulating land, covered 

 with grass; here and there a sparse scattering of 

 brush, with perhaps one or two lines of timber that 

 mark the margin of tributaries of some mighty river, 

 and you have the landscape without entering into 

 .detail. What a place for a gallop ! what a place 

 for a buffalo run, or any other kind of run that will 

 give your mettlesome nag an opportunity of showing 

 his pluck and endurance. But take care, don't ride 

 with a slack rein, keep your eyes open ; all may look 

 plain sailing from the distance, but on closer inspection 

 you may come upon a densely populated dog town, or 

 collection of cayotte earths, each hole of which is big 

 enough to use a Newfoundland in for a fox terrier. 



Wolves of each species are found numerous all over 

 this elysium ; game is abundant, and the marauder is 



