The Sheep Eaters

treams, and the elk, black-tail and big horn on the mountains, the mountain grouse, and the streams filled with trout, camas root for bread, cherries, raspberries, and strawberries, made a Garden of Eden for these people until a thousand years had passed, and the tribes increased to twenty-eight before the onward march of the Sioux across and beyond the Mississippi and Missouri brought them into the Sheep Eaters' country.

Around the base of these mountains were many alluring deposits of gold, and small gold camps had started at Fire Springs, Bear Creek and on the east and west forks of the historical Little Big Horn, all in or near the beautiful Porcupine Basin. But the alluring grains of the precious metal could not be found in paying quantities and the miners had quietly packed their plunder and "hiked the trail" to more plentiful paying "diggins."

The entire village was deserted except for the venerable Captain Jack, who still drew a pension from the English Government which, small as it was,