a look-out upon the adjacent country; it is more dangerous to ride over them than to charge a field of East Indian "T'hur," and many a broken leg and collar-bone have been the result. The holes, which descend in a spiral form, must be deep, and they are connected by long galleries, with sharp angles, ascents and descents, to puzzle the pursuer. Lieutenant Pike had 140 kettles of water poured into one without dislodging the occupant. The village is always cleared of grass, probably by the necessities of the tenants, who, though they enjoy insects, are mainly graminivorous, and rarely venture half a mile from home. The limits are sometimes three miles square, and the population must be dense, as a burrow will occur every few paces. The Cynomys Ludovicianus prepares for winter by stopping the mouth of its burrow, and constructing a deeper cell, in which it hibernates till spring appears. It is a graceful little animal, dark brown above and white below, with teeth and nails, head and tail somewhat like the gray sciurus of the States. The Indians and trappers eat this American marmot, declaring its flesh to be fatter and better than that of the squirrel. Some travelers advise exposing the meat for a night or two to the frost, by which means the rankness of subterranean flavor is corrected. It is undoubted that the rattlesnake—both of the yellow and black species—and the small white burrowing-owl (Strix cunicularia) are often found in the same warren with this rodent, a curious happy family of reptile, bird, and beast, and in some places he has been seen to associate with tortoises, rattlesnakes, and horned frogs (Phrynosoma). According to some naturalists, however, the fraternal harmony is not so perfect as it might be: the owl is accused of occasionally gratifying his carnivorous lusts by laying open the skull of Wish-ton-Wish with a smart stroke of the beak. We sighted, not far from the prairie-dog village, an animal which I took to be a lynx; but the driver, who had often seen the beast in Minnesota and Old "Ouisconsinc," declared that they are not to be found here.
At 12 45 P.M., traveling over the uneven barren, and in a burning sirocco, we reached Lodge-Pole Station, where we made our "noonin." The hovel fronting the creek was built like an Irish shanty, or a Beloch hut, against a hill side, to save one wall, and it presented a fresh phase of squalor and wretchedness. The mud walls were partly papered with "Harper's Magazine," "Frank Leslie," and the "New York Illustrated News;" the ceiling was a fine festoon-work of soot, and the floor was much like the ground outside, only not nearly so clean. In a corner stood the usual "bunk,"[1] a mass of mingled rags and buffalo
- ↑ American writers derive this word from the Anglo-Saxon benc, whence the modern English "bench." It means a wooden case used in country taverns and in offices, and serving alike for a seat during the day and a bed at night. In towns it is applied to the tiers of standing bed peculiar to the lowest class of lodging-houses. In the West, it is a frame-work, in size and shape like a berth on board ship, sometimes single, sometimes double or treble.
