ur men as if by
mutes. Long before the noon hour, we passed out of sight of Forty
Islands, and in the next few days, with the change of scene, the gloom
gradually lifted. We were bearing almost due north, and passing
through a delightful country. To our left ran a range of mountains,
while on the other hand sloped off the apparently limitless plain. The
scarcity of water was beginning to be felt, for the streams which had
not a source in the mountains on our left had dried up weeks before
our arrival. There was a gradual change of air noticeable too, for we
were rapidly gaining altitude, the heat of summer being now confined
to a few hours at noonday, while the nights were almost too cool for
our comfort.

When about three days out from the North Platte, the mountains
disappeared on our left, while on the other hand appeared a
rugged-looking country, which we knew must be the approaches of the
Black Hills. Another day's drive brought us into the main stage road
connecting the railroad on the south with the mining camps which
nestled somewhere in those rocky hills to our right. The stage road
followed the trail some ten or fifteen miles before we parted company
with it on a dry fork of the Big Cheyenne River. There was a road
house and stage stand where these two thoroughfares separated, the one
to the mining camp of Deadwood, while ours of the Montana cattle trail
bore off for the Powder River to the northwest. At this stage stand we
learned that some twenty herds had already passed by to the northern
ranges, and that after passing the next fork of the Big Cheyenne we
should find no water until we struck the Powder River,--a stretch of
eighty miles. The keeper of the road house, a genial host, informed us
that this drouthy stretch in our front was something unusual, this
being one of the dryest summers that he had experienced since the
discovery of gold in the Black Hills.

Here was a new situation to be met, an eighty-mile dry drive; and with
our experience of a few months before at Indian Lakes fresh in our
memories, we set our house in order for the undertaking before us. It
was yet fifteen miles to the next and last water from the stage stand.
There were several dry forks of the Cheyenne beyond, but as they had
their source in the tablelands of Wyoming, we could not hope for water
in their dry bottoms. The situation was serious, with only this
encouragement: other herds had crossed this arid belt since the
stream