TEN DAYS IN MONTANA. 163 



herd, several of the largest and fleetest bulls, were seen to plant 

 all four of their feet firmly in the ground and throw their 

 huge bodies backward upon their haunches in a vain endeavor 

 to stop. What is it that can thus check their mad career? 

 We look quickly ahead of them, and a single glance explains 

 it all. There, just ahead of them, under the very feet of the 

 leaders, is a perpendicular precipice seventy feet high. Great 

 heavens, must they go down this? Must they take this dizzy 

 plunge? They will be dashed to pieces, mutilated beyond 

 description or recognition. But there is no help for it. 

 Their momentum exceeds all their great strength. Besides, 

 those in their rear rush headlong against them, impelling them 

 irresistibly to destruction, and losing their footing they fall 

 headlong, summersaulting through the air, down this frightful 

 precipice ! They piled up at the foot of the embankment 

 three, six, ten deep, in a struggling, writhing, surging 

 mass. 



A few of those farther back in the herd, when they saw 

 their leaders halt and plunge out of sight, wavered, checked 

 th :ir speed in time to save themselves and, sheering off to the 

 left, went down a ravine, and thus escaped the fate of those in 

 front ; but not until seventeen of them had taken this fearful 

 leap was the line broken. We rushed to the brink of the 

 precipice fully expecting to find all, or nearly all, of those who 

 had gone over lying dead in a heap, but to our utter amaze- 

 ment not one of them was killed. Fortunately for them, there 

 were no rocks there for them to fall on, but on the contrary a 

 large alkali bed, of about the consistency of mortar. In this 

 they were rolling and struggling, and when they finally 

 emerged from it it would have been difficult to determine to 

 what species they belonged. As they galloped away across 

 the valley, plastered from head to foot with this white mud, 

 they presented such a ludicrous appearance as to provoke 



