After the bull was killed, I had the greatest difficulty in keeping Tiger from following the herd which was out of sight in order to take the hide of the white cow, and it was not till I assured him that the hide of the dead one belonged to him and that I would purchase it of him, that he remained with us. An hour later the bargain was concluded, and my Indian perfectly contented. White deer, antelopes, and bears are more common, but for all that are regarded as rarities. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XX. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. We now reached open plains, where only here and there an isolated musquito tree or a thickly foliaged elm offers a little shade on the boundless glowing surface, and the sky forms the horizon all around. To these single shady trees the deer and antelopes fly in the midday heat, and lie down close together, so that you may be always certain to find game under these trees, so long as their leaves are standing. At the same season the grass is high also, and it is easy for the hunter to creep unseen within shot, and shoot the fattest deer through the head. Even at the time of our visit, when the leaves had fallen, these animals frequently reposed under the scattered trees and rose as we passed, forty or fifty in number, gazing anxiously at us. The buffalo, on the other hand, always remains in the sunshine, and seems able to endure the greatest heat, but also the greatest cold before all other quadrupeds. It marks its endless marches from north to south and from south to north by its skeletons, which bleach for many a year in the sun. Now, when the grass was short, the whole surface in the distance had a whitish tinge, which is produced by these bones, out of which the skulls rise like shining dots. For about a week we rode through such land, only here and there interrupted by small elevations, and frequently suffered with our animals from drought. During this period we were often obliged to quench our thirst with standing water, with which the heavy showers fill great hollows in the prairies, and which remains in them even at the driest season. As the inhabitants of these plains, and especially the buffaloes, must also quench their thirst in them, and also wallow there, we frequently found the water as thick and warm as chocolate, and were obliged to strain it through a cloth to get rid of the hairs before we could drink it.