It was at the close of a bright May afternoon; the last rays of the sinking sun shone down gayly upon the broad prairie, through which, like a great yellow serpent, rolled the turbid waters of the Yellowstone river—a river that took its rise at the base of the Rocky Mountains and then flowed eastward, until it poured its current into the great Missouri. Just at the junction of the Yellowstone and the Powder rivers, the sun’s rays shone down upon the whitewashed walls of Fort Bent, a frontier post, located at the confluence of the two rivers, to guard the wagon-trail to Montana.

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