We traveled eastward for two days, and then the gloomy ridges of the
Black Hills rose up before us. The village passed along for some
miles beneath their declivities, trailing out to a great length over
the arid prairie, or winding at times among small detached hills or
distorted shapes. Turning sharply to the left, we entered a wide
defile of the mountains, down the bottom of which a brook came
winding, lined with tall grass and dense copses, amid which were
hidden many beaver dams and lodges. We passed along between two
lines of high precipices and rocks, piled in utter disorder one upon
another, and with scarcely a tree, a bush, or a clump of grass to
veil their nakedness. The restless Indian boys were wandering along
their edges and clambering up and down their rugged sides, and
sometimes a group of them would stand on the verge of a cliff and
look down on the array as it passed in review beneath them. As we
advanced, the passage grew more narrow; then it suddenly expanded
into a round grassy meadow, completely encompassed by mountains; and
here the families stopped as they came up in turn, and the camp rose
like magic.
The lodges were hardly erected when, with their usual precipitation,
the Indians set about accomplishing the object that had brought them
there; that is, the obtaining poles for supporting their new lodges.
Half the population, men, women and boys, mounted their horses and
set out for the interior of the mountains. As they rode at full
gallop over the shingly rocks and into the dark opening of the defile
beyond, I thought I had never read or dreamed of a more strange or
picturesque cavalcade. We passed between precipices more than a
thousand feet high, sharp and splintering at the tops, their sides
beetling over the defile or descending in abrupt declivities,
bristling with black fir trees. On our left they rose close to us
like a wall, but on the right a winding brook with a narrow strip of
marshy soil intervened. The stream was clogged with old beaver dams,
and spread frequently into wide pools. There were thick bushes and
many dead and blasted trees along its course, though frequently
nothing remained but stumps cut close to the ground by the beaver,
and marked with the sharp chisel-like teeth of those indefatigable
laborers. Sometimes we were driving among trees, and then emerging
upon open spots, over which, Indian-like, all galloped at full speed.
As Pauline bounded over the rocks I felt her saddle-girth slipping,
and alighted to draw it tighter; when the whole array swept past me
in a moment, the women with their gaudy ornaments tinkling as they
rode, the men whooping, and laughing, and lashing forward their
horses. Two black-tailed deer bounded away among the rocks; Raymond
shot at them from horseback; the sharp report of his rifle was
answered by another equally sharp from the opposing cliffs, and then
the echoes, leaping in rapid succession from side to side, died away
rattling far amid the mountains.
After having ridden in this manner for six or eight miles, the
appearance of the scene began to change, and all the declivities
around us were covered with forests of tall, slender pine trees. The
Indians began to fall off to the right and left, and dispersed with
their hatchets and knives among these woods, to cut the poles which
they had come to seek. Soon I was left almost alone; but in the deep
stillness of those lonely mountains, the stroke of hatchets and the
sound of voices might be heard from far and near.
Reynal, who imitated the Indians in their habits as well as the worst
features of their character, had killed buffalo enough to make a
lodge for himself and his squaw, and now he was eager to get the
poles necessary to complete it. He asked me to let Raymond go with
him and assist in the work. I assented, and the two men immediately
entered the thickest part of the wood. Having left my horse in
Raymond's keeping, I began to climb the mountain. I was weak and
weary and made slow progress, often pausing to rest, but after an
hour had elapsed, I gained a height, whence the little valley out of
which I had climbed seemed like a deep, dark gulf, though the
inaccessible peak of the mountain was still towering to a much
greater distance above. Objects familiar from childhood surrounded
me; crags and rocks, a black and sullen brook that gurgled with a
hollow voice deep among the crevices, a wood of mossy distorted trees
and prostrate trunks flung down by age and storms, scattered among
the rocks, or damming the foaming waters of the little brook. The
objects were the same, yet they were thrown into a wilder and more
startling scene, for the black crags and the savage trees assumed a
grim and threatening aspect, and close across the valley the opposing
mountain confronted me, rising from the gulf for thousands of feet,
with its bare pinnacles and its ragged covering of pines. Yet the
scene was not without its milder features. As I ascended, I found
frequent little grassy terraces, and there was one of these close at
hand, across which the brook was stealing, beneath the shade of
scattered trees that seemed artificially planted. Here I made a
welcome discovery, no other than a bed of strawberries, with their
white flowers and their red fruit, close nestled among the grass by
the side of the brook, and I sat down by them, hailing them as old
acquaintances; for among those lonely and perilous mountains they
awakened delicious associations of the gardens and peaceful homes of
far-distant New England.
Yet wild as they were, these mountains were thickly peopled. As I
climbed farther, I found the broad dusty paths made by the elk, as
they filed across the mountainside.
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