[Illustration: Figure 10.--The Yellowstone River near Fort Keogh, Montana. (_USNM 384191; Smithsonian photo 37925-A._)] The landscape of the Wichita Mountains from Medicine Bluffs (fig. 5) on the present-day Fort Sill reservation is noteworthy as a terrain sketch to anyone who has served at that post. I have ridden over this country many times, and the undulating prairie, the meandering of Medicine Creek, the Bluffs themselves--over the highest of which (left centerground) the Apache Geronimo did _not_ ride his horse with the 7th Cavalry in full cry behind--Mount Hinds and lofty Mount Scott are remarkable in their accuracy when one considers that the painting must have been done from sketches made when Stieffel was on escort detail to the Indian Territory in 1869.[34] The two views of Fort Harker, Kansas (figs. 6, 7), now Ellsworth, must have been painted during 1870 and 1871 while Stieffel was on extra duty as a hospital attendant there. From an artistic standpoint they are the poorest of his work. His detail, however, more than compensates for any deficiencies as a draftsman and gives us an excellent concept of the physical layout and daily routine of a small post in the Southern Plains. The two views are from the east and south, and complement one another nicely. Headquarters, officers' quarters, and barracks, all of typical clapboard construction, are readily discernible, as are the stables, the latter being the long unfenestrated buildings. Even the barrack privies, an outdoor bake oven alongside a mess hall, and earth-covered powder magazines can be easily identified. The long rows of cordwood for cooking and heating were to be seen on any post of the period. In the view from the east (fig. 6) may be seen a detail of cavalrymen with led horses moving out for animal exercise past the camp of a transient unit with its standard tentage and transport. The high white paling fence is difficult to place, being either an animal corral, in which case it would be much too high, or a forage yard, since no hay piles are visible elsewhere. Stieffel seems to have been considerably fascinated by the railroad (fig. 7) with its accompanying telegraph line running southwest of the fort, for again he paints in some detail, although this time with an almost childish conception. The "U.P.R.W.E.D." which he so carefully letters in identifies the line as the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division.[35] The naming of the engine "Osage" was as typical of the period as the naming of individual commercial aircraft is today. [Illustration: Figure 11.--Kiowa Chief Satanta, or White Bear. (_Smithsonian photo BAE 1380-A._)]