Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/400

 an angry sea whose waves had been suddenly stilled at the climax of a storm. The juiciest grama covered the pink hillocks from base to crest, but scarcely a leaf could be seen; it was pasturage, pure and simple—the paradise of the grazier and the cowboy. We gave free rein to our fancy in anticipating the changes ten years would effect in this noble region, then the hunting ground of the savage and the lair of the wild beast.

We crossed the country to the east, going down Beaver Creek and finding indications that the hostiles knew that we were on their trail, which now showed signs of splitting; we picked up four ponies, abandoned by the enemy, and Frank Gruard, who brought them in, was sure that we were pressing closely upon the rear of the Indians, and might soon expect a brush with them. A soldier was bitten in the thumb by a rattlesnake; Surgeon Patzki cauterized the wound, administered ammonia, and finished up with two stiff drinks of whiskey from the slender allowance of hospital supplies. The man was saved. The trail kept trending to the south, running down towards the "Sentinel" Buttes, where our advance had a running fight with the enemy's rear-guard, killing one or two ponies.

The next point of note was the Little Missouri River, into the valley of which we descended on the 4th of September, at the place where General Stanley had entered it with the expedition to survey the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1873. This is called by the Indians the "Thick Timber" Creek, a name which it abundantly deserves in comparison with the other streams flowing within one hundred miles on either side of it. We emerged from the narrow defile of Andrus' Creek, into a broad park, walled in by precipitous banks of marl, clay, and sandstone, ranging from one hundred to three hundred feet high. Down the central line of this park grew a thick grove of cottonwood, willow, and box-elder, marking the channel of the stream, which at this spot was some thirty yards wide, two to three feet deep, carrying a good volume of cold, sweet water, rather muddy in appearance. The bottom is of clay, and in places miry, and the approaches are not any too good. A small amount of work was requisite to cut them down to proper shape, but there was such a quantity of timber and brush at hand that corduroy and causeway were soon under construction. The fertility of the soil was attested by the luxuriance of the grass, the thickness of