The way was rough to the river valley, where the John Cross Dog family was let out with their bundles to be carried, with the child, to their lonely log shack back among the chalk-cliffs—somewhere. A little white church with its well-filled "cemetery" was passed as the road led into the foothills of the Bad Lands country. It was "desolation" for a long way, but there was water, and as animal and human life cannot exist long without water they tolerate the worthless barrens in order to be within reach of it. Oglala was reached—a trading store and hitching rack for cowboys' horses, and a filling pump for the motor cars. During the stop for gas our old friend John Sitting Bull came out. It was an unexpected meeting, and the driver kindly delayed long enough to permit a short visit and a close-up of the adopted son of the famous chief. Dressed in cheap overalls and slouch hat, he seemed in good health, and by sign language referred to a visit to the home of the white brother some twenty years ago. John can neither speak nor hear, but in facial expression is a good counterpart of the old Medicine man. As the road swings out of the valley and gradually ascends the long slopes of the treeless mountains forming the divide between the White and Cheyenne rivers, void of human habitations and, so far as could be observed, likewise of bird or animal life, there appeared near the river a band of wild horses which stampeded at sight of the automobile. It was the only sign of living creatures for a long distance. The sun was descending behind the higher peaks of the Black Hills in the far distance as the western line of the Pine Ridge Reservation on the "divide" was passed. Harney Peak could be identified at the north, and soon the grade was turning downward toward the Cheyenne River valley. On the western slope the land was better. Here and there were farms, and apples grew; fences appeared and domestic livestock was in evidence along the way. A railroad! The blast of a locomotive's whistle came to remind us we had reached the land of the white man. Two hundred miles through Indian country; two hundred miles of desolation. Indian Country because white men would not, could not, do not live in it,—except those who profit from the misfortunes and sufferings of the conquered and dying race of First Americans.

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