CHAPTER XIII. 



FROM CUSTER TO KEOUGH. 



IN THE BIG HORN RANGE THE BLACK CANYON A PERILOUS DESCENT 



JACK LOADED FOR BEAR BEAR LOADED FOR JACK HUFFMAN'S 



TRAIL SCALING A MOUNTAIN WALL CUSTER'S GRAVE UP THE 



BIG PORCUPINE FLAGGING THE ANTELOPE ANTELOPES AS CURIOUS 



' AS WOMEN NO COUNTRY LIKE THE BIG HORN FOR SPORT. 



AT about eleven o'clock next morning we reached the Black 

 Canyon, one of the grandest in the Big Horn range. It is 

 from two thousand to three thousand feet deep, and from an 

 eighth to a quarter of a mile wide. Its walls are precipitous, 

 almost perpendicular in many places, great ledges of white 

 limestone and red sandstone cropping out here and there, and 

 towering hundreds of feet toward the heavens, their faces split 

 and waterworn into fantastic shapes resembling the ruins of 

 some ancient mosque or castle. Through the bottom of this 

 canyon runs one of those clear, cold, rapid mountain streams 

 that poets love to linger over, and that always fills the heart of 

 the true sportsman with rapture when he beholds its crystal 

 fluid and listens to its joyous music. This one is ten to 

 twenty feet wide at this point, and very swift. It boils and 

 foams over large boulders and beds of snow white gravel. Its 

 waters are so pure and cold that not a particle of moss or 

 fungus of any kind can be found on the rocks or logs that lie 

 in its pathway. 



On either side of the stream are beautiful little parks 

 where green grass grows luxuriantly, and these are surrounded 

 and shaded by tall, handsome pines, cottonwoods and other 

 varieties of timber. We halted on top of the wall, and 



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