This happy arrangement continued for many years, but one season a fierce tribe came from the mountains to the west and drove the plains tribes from their hunting grounds. Being unsuccessful in their attempts to dislodge the invaders, the plains people finally called a great council and fasted and prayed. Many days passed, however, and no answer came from the Great Spirit, and they began to despair. Then suddenly a great shudder convulsed the earth, the sky grew black as midnight, and lightning burned jagged through the gloom. Fires hissed from the earth and the once pleasant land rolled and tossed like the waves of the sea, while into its flaming, pitching surface sank the invading tribe, the streams, the trees, and all living things. Then just as suddenly as it had begun, the upheaval and the conflagration ceased, leaving the plain fixed in grotesque waves. In this way the Great Spirit destroyed the prize that had stirred up strife among his children, and the Badlands were created. NORTH ROOSEVELT REGIONAL STATE PARK TOUR East entrance (_see Tour 4_)--Sperati Point (_see Tour 10_), 14 m. The North Roosevelt Regional State Park, which has an area of approximately 40 square miles, presents many of the best Badlands features, including a petrified forest and the remarkable views of the Grand Canyon of the Little Missouri River from Sperati Point. From the eastern entrance the winding graveled and scoria park highway proceeds in a general westerly direction along the northern side of the LITTLE MISSOURI. Just inside the entrance are the blue-gray buildings of the permanent CCC CAMP (L), which houses the 200 men assigned to putting trails through the area and building rustic equipment at the picnic and camping areas in the park. At =1.5 m.= is the CHALONER CREEK HORSE TRAIL. Right on this trail which affords an opportunity for a ride of =5 m.= among the buttes and along the edge of the higher land above the brush-filled gullies or breaks. Some parts of the trail are cut through groves of aspen, ash, elm, and cedar on the north side of buttes, while other parts move over the face of the cliffs or on high and narrow ridges with precipitous canyon walls 300 ft. or more in depth dropping on either side. Petrified stumps are along the trail. The highway, continuing W. more directly than the river, which here makes a deep bend to the S., skirts patches of woodland along the bottoms to reach SQUAW CREEK PICNIC AREA, =5 m.=, the best-developed camping center in the two parks. This picnic area on the banks of the Little Missouri has excellent grass and shade. Its one-way road leads among aspen, aromatic sumac, oak, poplar, and cottonwood to a number of individual camp sites. In addition to a stone and log shelter and numerous fireplaces, the area has 4 wells and 45 tables. At the east edge of the area a rustic footbridge leads over a little ravine, to clean, grassy picnic grounds.