I 12 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



men drove in their herds, all of Northern stock, the Texans not passing 

 north oi the country around the head-waters of the river until the follow- 

 ing" \ear. while until 1885 the territory through which it ran for the final 

 hundred and fifty miles before entering the Big Missouri remained as 

 little known as ever. 



Some of us had always been anxious to run down the river in a boat 

 during the time of the spring floods, as we thought we might get good 

 duck and goose shooting, and also kill some beaver, while the trip would, 

 in addition, have all the charm of an exploring expedition. Twice, so far 

 as we knew, the feat had been performed, both times by hunters, and in 

 one instance with very good luck in shooting and trapping. A third 

 attempt, b)- two men on a raft, made the spring preceding that on which 

 we made ours, had been less successful ; for, when a score or so of miles 

 below our ranch, a bear killed one of the two adventurers, and the sur- 

 vivor returned. 



We could onlv £ro down durino^ a freshet; for the Little Missouri, like 

 most plains' rivers, is usually either a dwindling streamlet, a mere slender 

 thread of sluggish water, or else a boiling, muddy torrent, running over a 

 bed of shifting quicksand, that neither man nor beast can cross. It rises 

 and falls with extraordinary suddenness and intensity, an instance of 

 which has just occurred as this very page is being written. Last evening, 

 when the moon rose, from the ranch veranda we could see the river-bed 

 almost dry, the stream having shrunk under the drought till it was little 

 but a string of shallow pools, with between them a trickle of water that 

 was not ankle deep, and hardly wet the fetlocks of the saddle-band when 

 driven across it; yet at daybreak this morning, without any rain having 

 fallen near us, but doubtless in consequence of some heavy cloudburst near 

 its head, the swift, swollen current was foaming brim high between the 

 banks, and even the fords were swimming-deep for the horses. 



Accordingly we had planned to run down the river sometime towards 

 the end of April, taking advantage of a rise ; but an accident made us 

 start three or four weeks sooner than we had intended. 



In 1886 the ice went out of the upper river very early, during the first 

 part of February; but it at times almost froze over again, the bottom ice 

 did not break up. and a huge gorge, scores of miles in length, formed in 

 and above the bend known as the Ox- bow, a long distance up-stream 

 from my ranch. About the middle of March this great Ox-bow jam came 

 down past us. It moved slowly, its front forming a high, crumbling wall, 

 and creaming over like an immense breaker on the seashore : we could 

 hear the dull roaring and crunching as it plowed down the river-bed long 



