“That’s nothing in this country.  Something’s always happening here which would kill folks anywhere else.  You stay here awhile and you’ll be as tough as your old black horse.”

Brooks had an outfit of five spans of mules and two wagons.  We stayed with him a half-hour, and then went on.  As we could not reach Deadwood that day, he advised us to camp that night where the trail crossed Thunder Butte Creek, a branch of La Belle Fourche.

The trail led for the most part through valleys or along the sides of hills, and was generally not far from level, though there was, of course, a constant though hardly perceptible rise as we got farther into the mountains.  We camped at noon at Elk Creek, and made further progress at drying our household effects.  We pressed on during the afternoon, and passed through the town of Sturgis, where we laid in some stores of provisions to take the place of those spoiled by the water, and also a quantity of horse-feed.  Later we congratulated ourselves on our good-luck in doing this.

As the afternoon wore away we found ourselves getting up above the timber-line.  The mountains began to shut in our view in all directions, and the valleys were narrowing.  As night drew nearer, Jack said: 

“Seems to me it’s about time we got to this Thunder Butte Creek.  ’Gene said that if we passed Sturgis we’d have to go on to that if we wanted water.”

We soon met a man, and inquired of him the distance to the desired stream.  “Two miles,” he replied, promptly.  We went on as much as a mile and met another man, to whom we put the same question.  “Three miles,” he answered, with great decision.

“That creek seems to be retreating,” said Jack, after the man had gone on.  “We’ve got to hurry and catch it, or it will run clean into Deadwood and crawl down a gold mine.”

It was growing dark.  We forged ahead for another mile, and by this time it was quite as dark as it was going to be, with a cloudy sky, and mountains and pines shutting out half of that.  I was walking ahead With the lantern, and came to a place where the trail divided.

“The road forks here,” I called.  “Which do you suppose is right?”

“Which seems to be the most travelled?” asked Jack.

“Can’t see any difference,” I replied.  “We’ll have to leave it to the instinct of the horses.”

“Yes, I’d like to put myself in the grasp of Old Blacky’s instinct.  The old scoundrel would go wrong if he knew which was right.”

“Well,” I returned, “come on and see which way he turns, and then go the other way.” (Jack always declared that the old fellow understood what I said.)

He drove up to the forks, and Blacky turned to the right.  Jack drew over to the left, and we went up that road.  We continued to go up it for fully three miles, though we soon became convinced that it was wrong.  It constantly grew narrower and apparently less travelled.  We were soon winding along a mountain-side among the pines, and around and above and below great rocks.