CHAP. V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 141 



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 



