164 TEN DAYS IN MONTANA. 



shouts of merriment from all who saw them. And thus was a 

 tragedy suddenly transformed into a farce. 



As soon as we recovered from the effects of the scene we 

 had witnessed, several of our horsemen mounted, pursued, and 

 overtook the herd, charged them, and killed three of them. 

 Then we resumed our difficult and perilous journey through 

 the bad lands. We wound through narrow defiles where there 

 was barely room for a team to move ; we drove along the very 

 brink of deep gulches, where a swerve of a foot out of the 

 proper course would have sent team and driver on even a 

 worse plunge than the buffaloes made. We crossed deep 

 gullies, the banks of which were so abrupt that, as we went 

 down, we had to brace ourselves and hang on with all our 

 strength to avoid tumbling over the dashboard, and as the 

 mules started up the opposite bank we could easily take hold 

 of their ears without leaving our seats. 



Finally, after four hours of this toiling, we ascended onto 

 the high, open prairie again. There we halted, and with one 

 accord congratulated Major Bell upon the ingenuity and skill 

 with which he had selected the route and piloted us through 

 this seemingly impassable region. 



During the passage through this strip of bad lands we 

 jumped several mule deer, but owing to the character of the 

 ground only succeeded in killing one. This is a favorite 

 cover for them, and a large number of them could easily be 

 killed in a day's hunting. This variety of the cervida is 

 generally known throughout Dakota, Montana, and other 

 adjacent territories, as the black-tailed deer, but this is not its 

 proper name. Judge Caton, than whom there is no better 

 authority on the cervida of America, proves conclusively that 

 the black-tail deer inhabits Oregon and Washington territo- 

 ries only, and has never been found east of the Sierra Nevada 

 mountains. In the black-tailed deer almost the entire tail is 



