EARLY DAY STORIES. 145 



old Oregon Trail, going right through the place where 

 Douglas now stands, the grand old Laramie mountain being 

 in plain sight for several days, a broad patch of snow partly 

 covering its northern slope. On this hunting trip, it was at 

 Douglas that we first struck the old Oregon Trail, and Lar- 

 amie Peak was the first familiar object that was recognized. 



The Black Hills and the Laramie mountains are out- 

 lying ranges of the Rocky mountains, and are separated 

 therefrom by a high country of broken hills, steep gulches, 

 narrow valleys and level or undulating plains, some of them 

 of considerable size, but much of it sterile and more or less 

 thickly strewn with rocks. What we now call the Black 

 Hills lying partly in South Dakota and partly in Wyoming, 

 north of the North Platte river, and what we call the Lara 

 mie mountains, lying south of the North Platte, were until 

 quite recently all called Black Hills. The two ranges in 

 fact do form one continuous range, the North Platte river 

 having ages ago forced its way through a low place in the 

 range, thereby forming what is known as the North Platte 

 canyon. 



Arriving at Glenrock about ten o'clock at night, it was 

 decided not to go up town to spend the balance of the night, 

 but instead to find some place to camp until the morning. 

 There was no moon, but the night was starlit and not very 

 dark. Having already eaten luncheon on the train, we 

 shouldered our packs and taking our guns in hand picked 

 our way through the darkness down along the bank of Deer 

 Creek until a level grassy place was found among the trees 

 that lined the banks of the stream. The bed was soon made, 

 and here we spent our first night in camp. The night was 

 clear and cold, but we had plenty of covers and as we re- 

 moved only our coats and boots before getting into bed we 

 were warm and comfortable throughout the night. 



The next morning was clear and very frosty, and as 

 soon as it was fairly daylight, leaving everything in camp 



