Winding first through a pass between hills of sandstone and rubble,
where moss-agates are found (an excellent place for an ambush), we
followed the same sort of country as before over a succession of small
creeks and divides. These table-lands were always barren, and covered
with the same thin gray vegetation, but sometimes adorned with a few
flowers--the beautiful agemone or prickly poppy, with its blue-green
leaves, large white petals and crown of golden stamens; the pretty
fragrant abronia, and the white oenothera. A deep pink convolvulus was
common, which grew upon a bush, not on a vine, and was a large and
thrifty plant. Sage and wormwood were seen everywhere, and on the
streams we found larkspur, aconite, little white daisies and lungwort,
lupines and the ever-present sunflower. But usually all was
barren--barren hills, barren valleys, barren plains. Sometimes we came
upon tracts of buffalo-grass, a thin, low, wiry grass that grows in
small tufts, and does not look as if there were any nourishment in it,
but is said to be more fattening than corn. Our animals ate it with
avidity.
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