t of game is by no means so smooth
a career as those may imagine who have only the idea of an open level
plain. It is true, the prairies of the hunting-ground are not so much
entangled with flowering plants and long herbage as the lower prairies,
and are principally covered with short buffalo-grass; but they are
diversified by hill and dale, and where most level are apt to be cut up
by deep rifts and ravines, made by torrents after rains; and which,
after yawning from an even surface, are almost like pitfalls in the way
of the hunter, checking him suddenly when in full career, or subjecting
him to the risk of limb and life. The plains, too, are beset by
burrowing holes of small animals, in which the horse is apt to sink to
the fetlock, and throw both himself and his rider. The late rain had
covered some parts of the prairie, where the ground was hard, with a
thin sheet of water, through which the horse had to splash his way. In
other parts there were innumerable shallow hollows, eight or ten feet in
diameter, made by the buffaloes, who wallow in sand and mud like swine.
These being filled with water, shone like mirrors, so that the horse was
continually leaping over them or springing on one side. We had reached,
too, a rough part of the prairie, very much broken and cut up; the
buffalo, who was running for life, took no heed to his course, plunging
down break-neck ravines, where it was necessary to skirt the borders in
search of a safer descent. At length we came to where a winter stream
had torn a deep chasm across the whole prairie, leaving open jagged
rocks, and forming a long glen bordered by steep crumbling cliffs of
mingled stone and clay. Down one of these the buffalo flung himself,
half tumbling, half leaping, and then scuttled along the bottom; while
I, seeing all further pursuit useless, pulled up, and gazed quietly
after him from the border of the cliff, until he disappeared amidst the
windings of the ravine.

Nothing now remained but to turn my steed and rejoin my companions. Here
at first was some little difficulty. The ardor of the chase had betrayed
me into a long, heedless gallop. I now found myself in the midst of a
lonely waste, in which the prospect was bounded by undulating swells of
land, naked and uniform, where, from the deficiency of landmarks and
distinct features, an inexperienced man may become bewildered, and lose
his way as readily as in the wastes of the ocean. The day, too, was
overcast, s