Our party appeared on the northwest side of Turtle Mountain for we had been hunting buffaloes all summer, in the region of the Mouse River, between the mountain and the upper Missouri. As our cone-shaped tepees rose in clusters along the outskirts of the heavy forest that clothes the sloping side of the mountain, the scene below was gratifying to the savage eye. The rolling yellow plains were checkered with herds of buffaloes. Along the banks of the streams that ran down the mountains were also many elk, which usually appear at morning and evening, and disappear into the forest during the warmer part of the day. Deer, too, were plenty, and the brooks were alive with trout. Here and there the streams were dammed by the industrious beaver. In the interior of the forest there were lakes with many islands, where moose, elk, deer, and bears were abundant. The water-fowl were wont to gather here in great numbers, among them the crane, the swan, the loon, and many of the smaller kinds… The wilderness was a paradise, a land of plenty… and…we lived in blessed ignorance of any life that was better than our own.