What a wide and wonderful prospect opened up to view from this lofty
point! Ridge after ridge sloped up to the Wyoming hills, and these
in turn raised their bleak, dark heads toward the mountains, looming
pale and gray, with caps of snow, in the distance. Out beyond the
ridges, indistinct in the glare, stretched an illimitable expanse,
gray and dull--that was the prairie-land. An eagle, lord of all he
surveyed, sailed round and round in the sky.

Below this grassy summit yawned a valley, narrow and long, losing
itself by turns to distant east and west; and through it ran a
faint, white, winding line which was the old St. Vrain and Laramie
Trail.

There came a moment when the wavering in the grass ceased on the
extreme edge of the slope. Then it parted to disclose the hideous
visage of a Sioux Indian in war paint. His dark, piercing, malignant
glance was fixed upon the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. His half-
naked body rested at ease; a rifle lay under his hand.

There he watched while the hours passed. The sun moved on in its
course until it tipped the peaks with rose. Far down the valley
black and white objects appeared, crawling round the bend. The
Indian gave an almost imperceptible start, but there was no change
in his expression. He watched as before.

These moving objects grew to be oxen and prairie-schooners--a small
caravan traveling east. It wound down the trail and halted in a
circle on the bank of a stream.

The Indian scout slid backward, and the parted grass, slowly