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[[underlined]] Alkali Creek [[/underlined]]

[[underlined]] June 3 [[/underlined]] Sunday. Got only one Sitomys in the traps. Loring got an Otocaris nest. Broke camp and traveled about 10 miles & camped on Alkalie Creek 13 miles east of Sturgis. Camped in the shade of a little elm tree & took a rest, the first rest since leaving Newcastle. Came over the same kind of prairie as yesterday till we struck down into the creek valley. The Belle Fourche is off 15 miles to the N.E. The valley that we followed in sight of yesterday afternoon was the Alkalie, a branch of the Belle. Barometer at morning camp read read 2500, at Alkalie 2400 at 1 P.M.

[[underlined]] June 4 [[underlined]] Got up at 4:30 and started at 7. Loring caught a Thomomys. I shot a Lepus campestris. We got 6 Colaptes of various forms of intermediacy. I shot a pair at rest but the young had no feathers & were not fit to save. Shot a Tamias at Ft. Meade. Took full notes on plants along route. Ft. Meade is in a pretty valley at foot of hills, is a large post. Bear Butte rises a few miles to the east & looks like a volcanic cone but probably is not. Should think it was 1000 feet high from base. Bear Butte Creek is a fine stream flowing through the fort & through Sturgis, is clear & pure. Pines begin on the hills at fort. Oaks are common & Populus angustifolia begins & extends up to Deadwood. After passing through Sturgis we turned into end of caƱon, passed through toll gate & followed up the canon of Bear Butte Creek