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132 for a beast of their size and structure to pass except at the cost of broken limbs or a broken neck. On the bluffs of the Musselshell river I found places where they had leaped down bare ledges three or four feet in height with nothing but ledges of rocks for a landing-place; sometimes, too, through passages between high rocks but little wider than the thickness of their own bodies, with also a continuous precipitous descent for many feet below. Nothing in their history ever surprised me more than this revelation of their expertness and fearlessness in climbing."

Ordinarily the buffalo laid out his road with commendable sagacity, "usually choosing the easiest grades and the most direct courses, so that a buffalo trail can be depended upon as affording the most feasible road possible through the region it traverses." This was because their weight demanded the most stable courses and they were thus very sure of avoiding