Old Times in the Black Hills 



us in ; one command, under Lieutenant Mix, 

 returning after several weeks' unsuccessful 

 search with a large percentage of the men 

 suffering from frozen extremities. 



In the early part of the winter game was 

 plentiful; it was a perfect hunter's paradise, 

 it being necessary only to sit in the stockade 

 gate and shoot deer coming down to water. 

 We frequently had eight or ten carcasses 

 swung to our corner-poles, and did not deign 

 to eat other than the choice pieces, throwing 

 the remainder over the stockade walls to at- 

 tract wolves at night. These we shot for their 

 pelts. In the early spring the Indians coming 

 in for *'tepee" poles burned the country for 

 miles around us, and quite a little jaunt be- 

 came necessary to find game. We generally 

 took turn about at supplying the table with 

 meat, and it eventually proved anything but 

 a sinecure. 



On one such hunt I met with a rather 

 curious misadventure. It being my turn to 

 replenish the larder, which, by the way, had 

 for several weeks contained absolutely nothing 

 but meat, — not even coffee, — I placed a raw- 

 hide hackamore and a pack on "Coffee," an 



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