It was afternoon when they reached the ford. The hills had sunk away
to low up-sweepings of gray soil, no longer hiding the plain which lay
yellow against a cobalt sky. As the wagons rolled up on creaking
wheels the distance began to darken with the buffalo. The prospect was
like a bright-colored map over which a black liquid has been spilled,
here in drops, there in creeping streams. Long files flowed from the
rifts between the dwarfed bluffs, unbroken herds swept in a wave over
the low barrier, advanced to the river, crusted its surface, passed
across, and surged up the opposite bank. Finally all sides showed the
moving mass, blackening the plateau, lining the water's edge in an
endless undulation of backs and heads, foaming down the faces of the
sand slopes. Where the train moved they divided giving it right of
way, streaming by, bulls, cows, and calves intent on their own
business, the earth tremulous under their tread. Through breaks in
their ranks the blue and purple of the hills shone startlingly vivid
and beyond the prairie lay like a fawn-colored sea across which dark
shadows trailed.
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