From their known activity and restlessness of character, we should expect to find evidences of the presence of Frenchmen everywhere in a region they had possessed for centuries. We do find that the most adventurous had ascended not only as high as the Yellowstone,[3] but had even found their way into the Black Hills, so establishing an important landmark for after-comers. Indeed, both the Yellowstone and the Black Hills owe their names to these pioneers.
MOUNTAIN GOAT.
But the knowledge thus gained was, at best, little better than what would be disclosed by the mirage of the prairies themselves. It was vague, mostly inaccurate, and often quite upside down.
Therefore, while an occasional trapper or trader might be met with on the Missouri, no habitation of civilized man existed in all its magnificent valley, if we except the French settlements begun near its mouth. This state of things is all the more striking because it comes within the memory of living men.
Beyond their regular villages, which could be moved at a few hours' warning, the Indians of this valley had no fixed habitations, but roamed the wide, treeless prairies in savage freedom, like wandering Arabs of the desert, carrying their skin-tents on the backs of their shaggy little ponies about with them from camp to camp.
These rovers of the prairies had the same barbaric picturesqueness, the same wild and free manners, the same thieving propensities, as the Arab. Like him, the Indian of the plains set the greatest value on his horse, which, though subdued to his rider's will, was yet as untamed as he.
