Adventure Magazine Cover — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

oe Nee Ree an pee ed gS » —_ 104 collapsed in a heap. At Scissors’ intercession Crazy Horse said his wrists could be freed. No shelters were put up and after a meal of jerked meat guards were posted and the men rolled up in their blankets. Scissors was not tied, and Dinsdale was secured only by his legs. From the chief down to the youngest buck it was firmly believed that thongs of rawhide could not hold Scissors, and as an extra precaution against his attempting flight Sorrel Horse offered to stand watch over him. Nor could there have been a more zealous guard, for when- ever the picture-man opened his eyes it was to find the baleful orbs of the medicine-man staring at him. When they resumed their journey in the morning the course still held northerly, and Crazy Horse informed Scissors they were to pass through Prospect Valley be- tween the Short Pine Hills, and then turn east and skirt the bad-lands and make a hard ride of some forty miles before reach- ing. the Slim Butte village. The chief _seemed to be very confident that his village was inaccessible for the soldiers, should they ever come. The country continued forbidding, with the sage and weeds interspersed with small plates of gypsum. Scissors sought per- mission to speak with his friend. Consent was reluctantly given, but before the two could barely exchange a morning’s greeting the privilege was withdrawn and Scissors was harshly commanded to return to the head of the column. Short Pine Hills, a soft, sandy Hees were very light in color and easily could be lost against a distant skyline if not for the growth of pine extending up their five hundred feet of elevation to within twenty or forty feet of the top. The next camp was made on a wooded branch of the Little Missouri, the valley furnishing excellent grass and water. Now the surroundings were as pleasing as they had been dismal and explained General west side of the hills. Adventure Custer’s selection of a name for the valley; for in addition to the appeal of the immedi- ate environment there were beautiful vistas in the distance. The eye leaped the long stretch of sun-— baked earth and straggling sage to enjoy the bold outlines of the Black Hills stand- ing high and somber sixty miles away. Despite the distance Scissors had no diffi- culty in identifying several separate peaks. In the east rose Slim Butte. In Dinsdale’s judgment the name was a misnomer, as the ‘butte most resembled a high and heavily wooded plateau. Some excitement was caused at this camp when several braves returned from a scout and displayed the vertebre of an extinct species of lizard, and a description of two turtles of great size. The bones and the turtles they had found in a fossil bed on the deeply agitated and loudly proclaimed that Tunkan had sent him a new medicine and that he had dreamed it would be forth- coming at this very camp. He requested the scouts fo go back and bring in the remains of the turtles, but they insisted the turtles had “spoiled”’ and could not be moved without falling in pieces. In proof of this statement one produced a thigh-bone that measured two inches in diameter and declared the rest of the struc- ture was in too frail a condition to be moved. Sorrel Horse bartered some of his influence with the gods for this relic of ancient days and arranged for the men to guide him to the bed on the morrow. Because of the medicine-man’s desire to examine the fossils, and the likelihood of receiving information through smoke sig- nals, Crazy Horse remained by the little stream for two days. But neither smoke, nor the return of a messenger rewarded his waiting, and as Sorrel Horse had exhausted the wakan possibilities of the fossil bed, the journey to Slim Butte was commenced on the third day. # TO BE CONCLUDED CE@nnielocm< Sorrel Horse was (E@) OEP oe OG ee RR aN ee ee eT ae eee een tee . “ P<. aes. = “2 — S|