Old Times in the Black Hills. 
In the spring of 75 I found myself one of 
a party of six occupying a rude but strongly 
fortified stockade on French Creek, in the 
Black Hills, almost under the shadow of Ca- 
lamity Peak, and not far from where Custer 
City was afterward built. 
I had left Denver the previous fall, quite a 
tenderfoot, and, like Lord Lovel of milk-white 
steed fame, wanting “strange countries for to 
see,’ I determined to join a party that I heard 
was outfitting at Cheyenne to go into the 
Black Hills upon a hunting and prospecting 
tour, under the guidance of old California Joe, 
one of the most noted scouts and hunters in 
the West. At this time the presence of gold 
in the Black Hills was hardly known, and the 
country, being an Indian reservation, had not 
even been explored by white men, or surveyed 
by the government. The plans of the party 
in question suited my ideas exactly, and I 
soon found myself on the back of a “cayuse,” 
UE. 
