THE BLACK HILLS. 
99 
t FEW months later Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell and 
her sister found themselves at Cheyenne. 
Their boarding-place was with the family of a 
professional - hunter, and many and marvellous 
were the accounts he gave of game among the 
Black Hills. At length it was proposed that both 
families unite and form a camping party to that 
happy hunting-ground ! Mr. Maxwell was to 
take his camp equipage and team, Mrs. Maxwell 
and her sister; Mr. C -, similarly provided, his 
wife and their two boys ; and together proceed a 
couple of days’ journey into the hills. They 
were to take provisions for ten days, but to 
return sooner if game enough to load both 
wagons should be found before the expiration of 
that time. 
The weather had been beautiful ; the exquisite 
Indian summer of the Rocky Mountains, so mild 
as to make out-door life a delight, so clear that 
the far-off hills seemed only a pleasant walk away, 
the delicate veil of most transparent purple haze 
resting upon all distant objects, softening but not 
obscuring their outlines. 
To memory, the Cheyenne of this date is like 
a point at sea : “ One could look the farthest there 
and see nothing of any spot in the world ! ” Land, 
land everywhere, but not a tree, not a rock, not 
