Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/160

142 wild beasts, the grizzly bear among the number. In the more grassy spaces mustangs, sure-footed as mountain goats, roam uncaught; and at the foot of the hills the slopes are well stocked with antelope, deer, and hares, here called rabbits. The principal birds are the sage-hen (Tetrao urophasianus) and the prairie-hen (T. pratensis). The former, also called the cock of the plains, is a fine, strong-flying grouse, about the size of a full-grown barn-door fowl, or, when younger, of a European pheasant, which, indeed, the form of the tail, as the name denotes, greatly resembles, and the neck is smooth like the partridge of the Old World. Birds of the year are considered good eating: after their first winter the flesh is so impregnated with the intolerable odor of wild sage that none but a starving man can touch it. The prairie-hen, also called the "heath-hen" and the "pinnated grouse," affects the plains of Illinois and Missouri, and is rarely found so far west as the Black Hills: it is not a migratory bird. The pinnæ from which it derives its name are little wing-like tufts on both sides of the neck, small in the female, large in the male. The cock, moreover, has a stripe of skin running down the neck, which changes its natural color toward pairing-time, and becomes of a reddish yellow: it swells like a turkey-cock's wattles, till the head seems buried between two monstrous protuberances, the owner spreading out its tail, sweeping the ground with its wings, and booming somewhat like a bittern. Both of these birds, which are strong on the wing, and give good sport, might probably be naturalized in Europe, and the "Société d'Acclimatisation" would do well to think of it.

Returning to the station, I found that a war-party of Arapahoes had just alighted in a thin copse hard by. They looked less like warriors than like a band of horse-stealers; and, though they had set out with the determination of bringing back some Yuta scalps and fingers, they had not succeeded. On these occasions the young braves are generally very sulky—a fact which they take care to show by short speech and rude gestures, throwing about and roughly handling, like spoiled children, whatever comes in their way. At such times one must always be prepared for a word and a blow; and, indeed, most Indian fighters justify themselves in taking the initiative, as, of course, it is a great thing to secure first chance. However we may yearn toward our "poor black brother," it is hard not to sympathize with the white in