\ 
CHAP. V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN I4I 
still numerous, bands of deer that originally roamed 
over them, and gave sustenance to a much larger 
population of Indians than we are now accustomed 
to remember, these vast pastures teemed with small 
creatures. Everywhere, in spite of their early rep- 
utation as a desert, the plains were clothed with 
vegetation, and this harbored hordes of insects. 
Thousands of square miles of grasses, forage 
plants, and low, fruit-bearing shrubs not only fur- 
nished almost unlimited pasture for the bison, 
antelope, and deer, but also gave, in the way of 
stems, leaves, seeds, and fruits, food for an in- 
numerable population of small animals able to 
exist without a great amount of water. Thus the 
plains abounded in a large variety of seed-eating, 
ground-haunting birds, together with many insect- 
catching and predatory kinds; in snakes of many 
species and certain other land reptiles; and in a 
long list of rodents — ground-squirrels, gophers, 
and the like; while even some aquatic and arboreal 
animals followed the larger rivers far into the 
plains country. 
Such an aggregation of peaceful animal life, 
whose unfortunate part it seems to be, in the 
inscrutable ordering of the world, to furnish food 
for the other, fiercer, half of the denizens of the 
globe, would of course attract an army of flesh- 
eating creatures, eager to prey upon their weaker 
brethren, and able to struggle with one another 
for the spoils of rapine and robbery. After the 
