£be Warbler 7 



For the mid-day luncheon I sat beneath the shadow of the over-haneingr 

 north-aspect of the great rock and made survey of the valley of Skull Creek; 

 which wound its way desert-ward, not far below. The outlook bespoke 

 Wyoming as being a land of fairly startling contrasts. 



No positively-quaint landscape that I have ever seen was comparable to 

 the valley of Skull Creek as observed while I had wound my tortuous way 

 through it, on my way to make the widower and the widow one. Often 

 one could see but a few feet ahead; for the turns in the road and the luxur- 

 iance of the shrubby and the annual growths. One instant a low vertical 

 wall of sandstone would press my buggy down to the very margin of the 



KRIDER'S HAWK, MAROONED AND PROSPECTING 



creek, with its deep fringe of alders; and the next, after passing through an- 

 other gate, a bit of sumptuous alfalfa, no larger than a city lawn, would 

 fringe the road-margin. And always and everywhere great over-hanging 

 masses of "threatening rock" looked down upon the little vistas of sun- 

 sparkling waters that laughed their glad way onward over their boulders; 

 only, at the last to be quietly lost in the level sands far out upon the plains. 

 Truly fascinating was the luxuriant creek-marge as I looked down upon it 

 from the dead greyness of my fortress rock. For there, along the stream, 

 were birds in no sense common in Northeastern Wyoming; with one, (the 

 Lazuli Bunting), nowhere else observed in all the great stretches of Weston 

 County. The songs, so seldom heard, came faintly up to me; as my eyes 



