We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming¹ vast and solitary—a deep, dark, rich indigo² blue in hue³, so portentously⁴ did the old colossus frown under his beetling⁵ brows of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he only seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge⁶ at our right. We breakfasted at Horse-Shoe Station, six hundred and seventy-six miles out from St. Joseph. We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort⁷ all the time we were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the trees we dashed by at arm’s length concealed⁸ a lurking⁹ Indian or two. During the preceding night an ambushed¹⁰ savage¹¹ had sent a bullet through the pony-rider’s jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except when killed. As long as they had life enough left in them they had to stick to the horse and ride, even if the Indians had been waiting for them a week, and were entirely¹² out of patience. About two hours and a half before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it had fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air that the Indian had “skipped around so’s to spile everything—and ammunition’s blamed skurse, too.” The most natural inference conveyed by his manner of speaking was, that in “skipping around,” the Indian had taken an unfair advantage.

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