Three railways are constructed westward from Red River to the Rockies
and Pacific Ocean,--the Northern Pacific and Great Northern in the
United States and the Canadian Pacific beyond the international
boundary. The former cross the plateau to the Upper Missouri River,
and there the Northern Pacific route reaches Bismarck, the capital of
North Dakota, having a fine Capitol set on a hill, the corner-stone of
which was laid in 1883, with the noted Sioux chief Sitting Bull
assisting. This region not so long ago knew only soldiers and Indians;
but there has since been a great influx of white settlers, enforcing
the idea of which Whittier has significantly written:
"Behind the squaw's birch-bark canoe,
The steamer smokes and raves;
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves."
The frontier army post of Fort Lincoln on the bluff alongside the
river testifies to the time not yet remote when the Sioux and Crow
Indians of the Dakotas needed a good deal of military control. The
deer, buffalo and antelope then roamed these boundless prairies, but
they have all disappeared. Beyond the Missouri River is the region of
the Dakota "Bad Lands." The surface rises into sharp conical
elevations known as "buttes," and soon this curious district of
pyramidal hills known as Pyramid Park is entered, fire and water
having had a remarkable effect upon them. Their red sides are furrowed
by the rains, and smoke issues from some of the crevices. The lignite
and coal deposits underlying this country have produced subterranean
fires that burnt the clays above until they became brittle and red.
There are ashes and scoriæ in patches, and cinders looking much like
the outcast of an iron furnace. The buttes are at times isolated and
sometimes in rows, many being of large size. Their sides are often
terraced regularly, and frequently into fantastic shapes, occasionally
appearing as the sloping ramparts of a fort. There are frequent
pot-like holes among them, filled with reddish, brackish water, and
sometimes excavated in the ground with regularly square-cut edges.
When the railway route cuts into a butte, its interior is disclosed as
a pile of red-burnt clay fragments mixed with ashes and sand. Little
prairie dogs dodge in and out of their holes, but there is not much
else of life. The boundary is crossed into Montana, and the "Bad
Lands" gradually give place to a grazing section. Here stands up the
great Sentinel Butte, with its reddish-yellow sides, near the Montana
border, and the railway route then descends from the higher region to
the valley of the Yellowstone.
The Yellowstone River, one of the headwaters of the Missouri, rises in
the National Park, and its fertile valley is among the leading
pasturages of Montana. Cattle and sheep abound, and the cowboys are
universal, galloping about on energetic little bronchos, with lariats
hanging from the saddle. The Big Horn River flows in, and an extensive
region to the southward is the Crow Indian reservation, about three
thousand living there. It was here, near Fort Custer, at a point
forty-five miles south of the railroad, that the terrible massacre
took place in June, 1876, by which General Custer and his command of
over two hundred and fifty men were annihilated by the Sioux. There is
now a national cemetery at the place. We gradually enter the mountain
ranges which are the outposts of the Rockies, and passing between the
Yellowstone range and the Belt Mountains, reach Livingston, a town of
several thousand people, and a great centre for hunting and fishing,
at the entrance to the Yellowstone National Park. From here a branch
railway turns southward, ascending the valley of the Yellowstone,
going through its first canyon, known as the "Gate of the Mountain,"
an impressive rocky gorge, and ascending a steep grade, so that the
floor of the valley rises within the Park to an elevation of over six
thousand feet above the sea. A second canyon is passed, and on its
western side is a huge peak whose upheaved red rocks have named it the
Cinnabar Mountain. These red rocks are in strata streaked down its
sides with intervening granite and limestone. One of these, the
Devil's Slide, is conspicuous, its quartzite walls rising high above
the lower strata and making a veritable slide of great proportions
down the mountain. The railroad ends at Cinnabar, and stages cover the
remaining distance up the Yellowstone to its confluence with Gardiner
River at the Park entrance, and thence to the Mammoth Hot Springs
within the Park, the tourist headquarters.