I The Black Hills: The Forbidden Land 1 II The Formation of the Black Hills 15 III The Hills Today 27 IV History I: Indians and Gold 47 V History II: Deadwood Days 78 VI The White River Badlands 115 Bibliography 126 Index 127 Illustrations Along the Needles Highway _facing page_ 34 Harney Peak—older by ages than the Rockies 35 The Four Great Faces: Mount Rushmore Memorial 50 Sylvan Lake mirrors great granite shields at an elevation of 6,250 feet 51 Calamity Jane, during her carnival days 82 Wild Bill Hickok, from an early portrait 82 Cheyenne—Black Hills Stage carrying bullion guarded by shotgun messengers 82 Deadwood Gulch in 1881 83 Modern Deadwood—seventy years later 83 One of the Black Hills’ many streams 98 The Badlands: Desolate, empty, and seared 99 Introduction I have had an opportunity to enjoy one of the most readable accounts of the Black Hills I have ever come across. It is written to acquaint traveling America with an area which was long off the beaten path of tourists, and which has only during the past quarter century been recognized as a place where people who wish to “Know America First” may profitably spend some time. Mr. Williams has outlined the historical reason why this small wonderland was so long outside the consciousness of America, and he has devoted a chapter to telling about the methods of nature in producing the intricacies of this formation, older by far than the Alps or the Himalayas. He has made the subject live, and he includes enough expert terminology to satisfy the reader that he knows whereof he speaks.