Stars were bright, and while we trotted on up the trail that old star goose flew slow across the night sky, east to nearly overhead and then winging her way toward the west. The air smelled sweet. A warm, dry wind straight up the flat-lands from Texas made you think of summer, though it was only May. Course, it could go back to being March again tomorrow, but I hoped it wouldn't. To the west, come sunup, we saw the Black Hills, the first real rise on the plains in a thousand miles. From far off they looked like low-hanging storm clouds, but as you got up closer you saw the peaks and ridges. Wasn't hard to see why the first white men in these parts called them black, either. Darkest green you ever saw, though from far off they was smoky-looking too. True, they wasn't nearly so grand as the ranges between here and the Rockies, all of them higher and wilder, but these looked mighty pretty to me. Don't know why I fancy mountains so, I wasn't born near any.
