78 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
The dry-land farmer has gradually encroached upon the open range, 
and before long large flocks feeding upon it will be seen no more. 
Conditions will become more and more like those in the East, and 
finally the sheep herder, like his enemy the cowboy, will pass out of 
existence and will live only on the canvas of some Remington or 
Russell. 
The next station is Bighorn, which is only a short distance east of 
Bighorn River. This is historic ground also, for it has been occupied 
almost continuously since it was first visited by Capt. 
Bighorn. Clark July 26,1806. In the year immediately follow- 
gine eens ing Clark’s visit Manuel Lisa, one of the restless, 
Sis ' adventurous spirits of the frontier, established a 
trading post here which afforded a rendezvous for many of the 
hunters of the region. In 1822 Col. William H. Ashley, president of 
the Rocky Mountain Fur Co., built a trading post 2 miles below the 
mouth of Bighorn River which he called Fort Van Buren. It was 
here also that Gen. Gibbon, in 1876, crossed the Yellowstone and 
proceeded overland with his detachment of 450 men to cooperate in 
the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which Custer had already lost. 
A little beyond Bighorn station the train crosses Bighorn River 
and, skirting the base of sandstone bluffs for a distancs of 3 miles, 
plunges into the blackness of the Bighorn tunnel, to 
Custer. emerge at the town of Custer. This town derived its 
<a ee name from the fact that it was the stopping place 
St. Paul 839 miles. for persons going to old Fort Custer, at the mouth 
of Little Bighorn River, but, despite the fact that the 
post has been abandoned, Custer retains its importance on account 
of its situation in the center of a fine agricultural district. Several 
years ago the skeleton of a Triceratops was found in the Lance forma- 
tion which makes the river bluff opposite this place. 
West of Custer the bluffs on both sides of the river are composed of 
sandstone of the Lance formation, but they are not so prominent as 
those below the mouth of Bighorn River. In places the low hills 
rise abruptly from the water’s edge and the roadbed of the railway 
was made by blasting the solid rock. Generally, however, the hills 
are back half a mile or so from the track. 
From Waco (see sheet 13, p. 82) to Bull Mountain the same kind 
of topography hae except that the bluffs on the north side 
_ Of the river are more pronounced and rise abruptly 
as — the water level. Near Bull Mountain the hills on 
Sgiomapncntee he south are farther from the track, lower, and less 
: rugged than they are farther east. Such changes in the 
appearance of surface features are due to the presence of softer rocks. 
Here the formations are rising westward, and at Bull Mountain 
the Bearpaw shale, underlying the Lance formation, is again brought — 
