And this is the truth; I was
becoming a savage. I truly wanted nothing better. I think this might
happen to many a man, at least of that day.
We forded several streams, one a large one, which I now think must have
been the North Platte; but no river ran as we fancied the Platte must
run. So we kept on, until we came one day to a spot whence we saw
something low and unmoving and purple, far off in the northwest. This we
studied, and so at length saw that it was the mountains. At last our
journeying would change, at least, perhaps terminate ere long. A few
more days would bring us within touch of this distant range, which, as I
suppose now, might possibly have been a spur of what then were still
called the Black Hills, a name which applied to several ranges far to
the west and south of the mountains now so called. Or perhaps these were
peaks of the mountains later called the Laramie Range.
Then came a thing hard for us to bear. Our horse, hobbled as usual for
the night, and, moreover, picketed on a long rope I had made from
buffalo hides, managed some time in the night to break his hobbles and
in some way to pull loose the picket pin. When we saw that he was gone
we looked at each other blankly.
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