nal fires
and columns of smoke made by their comrades. At length, about two days
previously, when almost spent by anxiety and hard riding, they came,
to their great joy, upon the "trail" of the party, which they had since
followed up steadily.

Those only who have experienced the warm cordiality that grows up
between comrades in wild and adventurous expeditions of the kind, can
picture to themselves the hearty cheering with which the stragglers were
welcomed to the camp. Every one crowded round them to ask questions,
and to hear the story of their mishaps; and even the squaw of the moody
half-breed, Pierre Dorion, forgot the sternness of his domestic rule,
and the conjugal discipline of the cudgel, in her joy at his safe
return.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Black Mountains.--Haunts of Predatory Indians.--Their
Wild and Broken Appearance.--Superstitions Concerning Them--
Thunder Spirits.--Singular Noises in the Mountains--Secret
Mines.-Hidden Treasures.--Mountains in Labor.--Scientific
Explanation.-Impassable Defiles.--Black-Tailed Deer.-The
Bighorn or Ahsahta.-Prospect From a Lofty Height.--Plain
With Herds of Buffalo.-Distant Peaks of the Rocky
Mountains.--Alarms in the Camp.-Tracks of Grizzly Bears.--
Dangerous Nature of This Animal.-Adventures of William
Cannon and John Day With Grizzly Bears.

MR. Hunt and his party were now on the skirts of the Black Hills, or
Black Mountains, as they are sometimes called; an extensive chain, lying
about a hundred miles east of the Rocky Mountains, and stretching in
a northeast direction from the south fork of the Nebraska, or Platte
River, to the great north bend of the Missouri. The Sierra or ridge of
the Black Hills, in fact, forms the dividing line between the waters of
the Missouri and those of the Arkansas and the Mississippi, and gives
rise to the Cheyenne, the Little Missouri, and several tributary streams
of the Yellowstone.

The wild recesses of these hills, like those of the Rocky Mountains, are
retreats and lurking-places for broken and predatory tribes, and it was
among them that the remnants of the Cheyenne tribe took refuge, as has
been stated, from their conquering enemies, the Sioux.

The Black Hills are chiefly composed of sandstone, and in many places
are broken into savage cliffs and precipices, and present the most
singular and fantastic forms; sometimes resembling towns and castellated
fortresses. The ign