Here are two scenes among the Black Hills themselves, one is a very suggestive sketch showing rocks, timber-clad bluffs, and ragged peaks with the wagons of our train coming down a deep declivity into a dry torrent bed. Wild clouds are coming over the peaks threatening a stormy night. It appears that the wagons must topple over, end over end, so abrupt is the descent they are making. In the second sketch, made on the evening of the following day, the train is seen winding like a serpent over the hills. In the middle distance is a valley, partly obscured by mists, and beyond it Laramie Peak, purple against the sunset clouds and sky. [Illustration: _Camp at Scott's Bluffs._] The night drives were among the most trying experiences upon the Overland Journey. Usually they were made necessary to us from the drying up of some spring or stream where we had expected to make our evening camp, and the consequent lack of water for the people as well as cattle, so that we must move forward. Our worst drive of this kind was to reach the La Prelle River after leaving Fort Laramie, Saint John's, on the night which followed the making of the first of the two sketches just mentioned. Wildly the lightnings glared, their livid tongues licked the ground beside us. The road was deluged in the downpour of rain; and what with the sudden flashes of light, the crashing of thunder, the poor cattle were quite panic-stricken. It was hard work to make the poor brutes face the storm. Yet, after all, their sagacity was greater than ours. Several times we would have driven them over the edge of a precipice had not their keener senses warned them back. We would have shuddered, so our Captain afterwards told us, could we have seen where the tracks of our wagon wheels were made that night. Yes, to the emigrant company of those days, the drying up of a stream was often of serious import. Water enough might have been carried to quench the thirst of human beings, but what of the many cattle? The ox that suffers too much from thirst becomes a dangerous animal. Let him scent in the distance the coveted water, and who shall curb his strength? How nearly we met with disaster from this same cause. Almost useless were the brakes; how fiercely the thirst tortured animals strained at their yokes. It was a pitiful sight, and as we approached the broken, boulder-strewn edge of the stream, our position was somewhat dangerous. No less dangerous was the task of removing the yokes from the impatient creatures, and of unloosing the chains.