44 ADVENTURES OF DR. ALLEN. 



Lyons. Among the men were lawyers, doctors, dentists, 

 carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers all kind of profes- 

 sional men and mechanics. We had also two traveling sa- 

 loons, cows, chickens,, and everything necessary to establish 

 a first-class colony. 



We were climbing a high hill, overlooking a vast coun- 

 try. With our field-glasses we saw, about ten miles off, a 

 small party of Indians, loaded with plunder. I longed to 

 get hold of them and relieve them of their burdens, but it 

 would have been folly to try to overtake them,, so we moved 

 leisurely upward, mounting higher and higher, until we 

 landed on Belle Fourche Heights, which we chose to call 

 Mt. Zion. Here is a wonderful lookout. With the aid of 

 our glasses from this elevation we sighted the great Sugar- 

 Loaf monument, standing clear and white in the sunshine. 

 Our pleasurable excitement was still further augmented 

 when we beheld, for the first time, the snow-capped peaks 

 of the grand old Rockies. From boyhood I had looked 

 forward to this moment. I had longed passionately for a 

 glimpse of these mountains and of the game that inhabits 

 their fastnesses. I had read and heard much of them, and 

 vowed to myself that when I became a man I would visit 

 them. 



Now that I really beheld them, though a long way off, 

 I could not withdraw my gaze. As the sun poured down its 

 fiery rays,, the snow upon their summits gleamed like great 

 diamonds. Off to the northwest lay the gliding Belle 

 Fourche, twisting and writhing like a serpent in its winding 

 bed ; the current was almost stopped with innumerable 

 beaver dams. On the north the rimrock stretched far away, 

 shelves of sand rock projecting far out over the stream, 

 which is thickly fringed with spruce and hemlock. I stood 

 lost in contemplation of the scene, when a voice behind me 



