Rocky Mountains. 137 



to see them disputing with the wolves and buzzards for their 

 share of the carcasses of bisons, and other animals, which have 

 been left by the hunters, or have died of disease. Grapes had 

 evidently been very abundant here, but had been devour- 

 ed, and the vines torn in pieces by the bears and turkies. 



In the middle of the day we found the heat more oppres- 

 sive, with the mercury at 96**, than we had known it in ma- 

 ny instances when the thermometer had indicated a high- 

 er temperature by six or eight degress. This sultry calm 

 was, however, soon succeeded by thunder showers, attended 

 with their ordinary effects upon the atmosphere. In the af- 

 ternoon, the country we passed was swarming with innumer- 

 able herds of bison, wild horses, deer, elk, &c., while great 

 numbers of minute sandpipers, yellow-shanked snipes, kill- 

 deer plovers (charadrius vociferus) and tell-tale godwits, 

 about the river, seemed to indicate the vicinity of larger 

 bodies of water than we had been accustomed of late to see. 

 During the afternoon and the night, there was a continual 

 and rapid alternation of bright, calm, and cloudless skies, 

 with sudden and violent thunder storms. Our horizon was 

 a little obscured on both sides by the hills and the scattered 

 trees which skirted along the sides of the valley. As we looked 

 out of our tent, to observe the progress of the night, we found 

 sometimes a pitchy darkness veiling every object; at oth- 

 ers, by the clear light of the stars, and the constant flashing 

 from some unseen cloud, we could distinguish all the features 

 of the surrounding scene; our horses grazing quietly about 

 our tent, and the famished prairie wolf prowling near, to 

 seize the fragments of our plentiful supper. The thunder 

 was almost incessant, but its low and distant mutterings were, 

 at times, so blended with the roaring of the bisons, that 

 more experienced ears than ours might have found a dif- 

 ficulty in distinguishing between them. At a late hour in 

 the night some disturbance was perceived among the horses, 

 occasioned by a herd of wild horses, which had come in and 

 VOL. II. 18 



