United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For these stood guardian the gaunt coal chutes of the town, with the demands of a population of twenty-five hundred, to say nothing of the settlers round about, a hundred tons for a thousand families, scattered, dwelling out along breaks and coulees, and on worn hillsides, and at the ends of long, faint, wandering trails, which the first whirl of snow would softly and cruelly wipe away.
"What makes them look so-so 'way behind the times, Robert?" "Well, I suppose they are," said Robert. "Life in these coulees goes on rather slower than in Chicago. Then there are a great many Welsh and Germans and Norwegians living way up the coulees, and they're the ones you notice. They're not all so."
Till sundown he climbed toilfully up the steep hills and then scrambled as toilfully into the coulees, taking the straightest course he knew for the mouth of Suction Creek; that, as a last resort, while he watched keenly for the white flake against green which would tell of a tent pitched there in the wilderness. He was hungry when he forgot other discomforts long enough to think of it.
This scout goes on ahead, travelling in the ravines and coulées, and keeps himself well hidden. After he has reconnoitred and made signs that he sees nothing, the party proceeds straight toward him. The party usually starts early in the morning and travels all day, making camp at sundown.
Excited into activity, Shag galloped after her, his huge feet making the forest echo with the crack of smashing timber as he slid through the bush like an avalanche; but the Cow was swift of foot, and pig-jinked around stumps and over timber, and down coulees and up hills until Shag was fairly blown and forced to give up the pursuit.
As for drink! why, one day in a single tramp I crossed sixteen streams of beautiful running water." "Are you dreaming, A'tim?" asked Shag, touching the Dog-Wolf's back with the battered point of his stub-horn. "No, Bull; and there are few hunters in that land, and few of your kind; and shelter of forest against the White Storm; and buttes and coulees everywhere."
He would go out far ahead on the high hills, and look over the country, acting as scout for the party. At length they came to the south branch of the Saskatchewan River, above Seven Persons' Creek. In those days there were many war parties about, and this party travelled concealed as much as possible in the coulées and low places.
Thereafter, we tramped silently across high, dry benches, slid and scrambled to the bottoms of an endless succession of coulées, and wearily climbed the steep banks that lay beyond. The cool morning wind died away; the sun reeled up on its appointed circle, glaring brazenly into every nook and cranny in the land.
Harris rode with her up a long ridge that led up to the divide; they followed another into the next bottoms and ascended the second divide. This was sharp and rocky, its crest a maze of ragged pinnacles. He chose the highest of these and dismounted to sweep the range with his glasses. The low country beyond them was broken and choppy, a succession of tiny box canyons and rough coulees.
The cows were drifted slowly south, well spread out and grazing as they moved. Harris detailed two men to ride the "points," the two forward extremities of the herd; two others rode the "drags," holding to either flank of the rear end of the drive. In choppy country he detailed a third pair to skirt the middle flanks and prevent leakage up any feathering coulees.
Word Of The Day