The Riker family, consisting of Mr. Riker, his two sons, and his daughter Janette, passed through the Dacotah country in 1849, and late in September had penetrated to the heart of the mountains in the territory now known as Montana. Before pursuing their journey from this point to their destination in Oregon, they encamped for three days in a well-grassed valley for the purpose of resting their cattle, and adding to their stock of provisions a few buffalo-humps and tongues. On the second day after their arrival at this spot, the father and his two sons set out on their buffalo hunt with the expectation of returning before nightfall. But the sun set and darkness came without bringing them back to the lonely girl, who in sleepless anxiety awaited their return all night seated beneath the white top of the Conestoga wagon. At early dawn she started on their trail, which she followed for several miles to a deep gorge where she lost all trace of the wanderers, and was after a long and unavailing search compelled in the utmost grief and distraction of mind, to return to the camp. For a week she spent her whole time in seeking to find some trace of her missing kinsmen, but without success. As the lonely maiden gazed at the mighty walls which frowned upon her and barred her egress east and west from her prison-house, hope died away in her heart, and she prayed for speedy death. This mood was but momentary; the love of life soon asserted its power, and she cast about her for some means whereby she could either extricate herself from her perilous situation, or at least prolong her existence. To attempt to find her way over the mountains seemed to her impossible. Her only course was to provide a shelter against the winter, and stay where she was until discovered by some passing hunters, or by Indians, whom she feared less than an existence spent in such a solitude and surrounded by so many dangers. Axes and spades among the farming implements in the wagon supplied her with the necessary tools, and by dint of assiduous labor, to which her frame had long been accustomed, she contrived to build, in a few weeks, a rude hut of poles and small logs. Stuffing the interstices with dried grass, and banking up the earth around it, she threw over it the wagon-top, which she fastened firmly to stakes driven in the ground, and thus provided a shelter tolerably rain-tight and weather-proof.