208 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 



tie water, to clothe itself luxuriantly ; the course 

 of a brook or even an irrigating ditch, if perma- 

 nent, is marked by a thick and varied border of 

 greenery. What the poor creatures who wan- 

 dered over those dreary wastes could find to eat 

 was a problem to be solved only by close obser- 

 vation of their ways. 



" H. H." said some years ago that the mag- 

 nificent yucca, the glory of the Colorado mesas, 

 was being exterminated by wandering cows, who 

 ate the buds as soon as they appeared. The cat- 

 tle of Utah or their owners have a like 

 crime to answer for ; not only do they constantly 

 feed upon rose-buds and leaves, notwithstanding 

 the thorns, but they regale themselves upon 

 nearly every flower-plant that shows its head ; 

 lupines were the chosen dainty of my friend's 

 horse. The animals become expert at getting 

 this unnatural food ; it is curious to watch the 

 deftness with which a cow will go through a cur- 

 rant or gooseberry bush, thrusting her head far 

 down among the branches, and carefully picking 

 off the tender leaves, while leaving the stems 

 untouched, and the matter-of-course way in which 

 she will bend over and pull down a tall sapling, 

 to despoil it of its foliage. 



In a pasture such as I have described, on the 

 western slope of one of the Rocky Mountains, 

 desolate and forbidding though it looked, many 



