“Over the sunset bar
Right into heaven.”
Montana is entered at the Little Missouri, one hundred miles west of Bismarck. The road to this point runs through an upland prairie, or valley. From Bismarck to Livingston, the gateway to the Park, a distance of six hundred miles, the rain-fall is light, insufficient for general farming. In the summer the grasses dry or cure, and it is claimed they are very nutritious, and much relished by herds. At Miles City, and Billings, canals twenty and thirty miles long are being dug which, when completed, will be used to irrigate the valley. This can never be a great agricultural country without irrigation. Large crops are not raised except on farms that have a natural overflow from some stream or in some exceptionally wet season. But with a water supply under control, there is no reason why this wide, rich valley, may not supply the land with its productions. Let none come here to engage in farming unless they are prepared to supply their crops with abundance of water; there are plenty of streams, or an artesian well can be sunk, which, with an engine or wind-mill, and force-pump, would enable any one to make a fortune. But none need fear to come and engage in herding. Fabulous stories are told of the fortunes made from flocks and herds. The ranches are in the valleys, being used in the winter for the herds, and for the horses in the summer. They are located on the streams, and join the mountain lands in the rear, where the herds and flocks range at large, and fatten without even being fed or cared for.
Sunday is not observed as a holy day. Trains run; building and all kinds of labor continue, and if there is any difference, there is more bustle on the Sabbath than on any other day. At Billings, saloons are open, hurdy-gurdies playing, negroes singing, and drunken dances going on in rooms on the main street of the village.
We visited here the Crow Reservation, and saw among the Indians one of the finest specimens of physical manhood in the world. A Crow warrior, with a physique that Hercules might have envied—straight as an arrow, colored nut-brown; with an eye like that of an eagle, and with the bearing of a Cæsar; one could easily fancy that a second King Philip stood before him. The Crows have a singular burial custom: they wind, with sheets, the bodies of the dead, practising a primitive kind of embalming, and then place them on elevated platforms, or fasten them to the limbs of a tree. At one of their burial places we saw the body of their old chieftain, Blackbow. The table upon which it lay was falling into decay, but the body remained undisturbed. For many a year it had kept a silent watch over the happy hunting-ground of his people.
Here, also, the experiment of industrial schools is being tried. Said the Crow agent, “We are teaching them how to work. I believe one plow is as good as two spelling-books, with these people. We must teach them how to labor, and the dignity of it.” It was through this valley that Custer marched to his death, and many places are named for him.
The whole surface of the country, for hundreds of miles, is covered with petrified trees, snakes, and shells. We saw hundreds of petrified stumps, some of them six feet across.
Citadel Rocks and Pyramid Park, are on the line of the Pacific road, and are wonderful freaks of nature. The latter seems to have been produced by the burning of the coal that underlies the whole country; in fact, in some places, the fires still burning can be seen from the car windows—one fire being near enough to be felt inside the cars.
All along the line antelope are feeding on the hillsides, and in many places those natural communists, the hawk and prairie-dog, can be seen sitting together beside their common home.
The Upper Yellowstone is as lovely a valley as the eye of man ever saw. For one hundred miles east of Livingston the scenery is of wondrous beauty. The slopes of the hills and the mountains turn in graceful curves, mountain against mountain, peak above peak, valley beyond valley, flooding the air and sky with lines of beauty. Some of the mountains are ribbed horizontally, others from base to peak, and all are covered with green verdure, mixed with the brown of last year’s grasses; the fir tree dots the whole with patches of brilliant green, and the beautiful Yellowstone dashes through the valley. Nestled in secluded places are the cabins; grazing on the hillsides are herds of cattle, and here and there the reckless “cow-boy” can be seen dashing across the plains.