An excerpt from the book, "Yellowstone Kelly, The Memoirs of Luther S. Kelly"
April 25, 1878
Headquarters, District of the Yellowstone.
Fort Keogh, Montana Territory
This detachment of four men is sent out from these headquarters to examine the country between this place and the Black Hills. All officers of this command are directed, and all others requested, to render to them any needed assistance.
N.A. Miles, Col. Fifth Infantry.
Bvt. Brig. General, U.S.A
My intention was to travel across country where a wagon trail would be found only occasionally, hence light wagon, which appeared to be a modified buckboard, admirably adapted to buck the rivers, coulees, and ravines en route. The detail consisted of Sergeant Gilbert and Private Fox and Leavitt of the Second Calvary.
We went up the Tongue River to Pumpkin Creek, where an enforced halt was made to secure a loose tire, which gave us a lot of trouble until the wood had swelled sufficiently to hold it. We crossed Pumpkin and Mizpah creeks and camped on Powder. After leaving the valley of the Powder, I laid a course in the direction of the Black Hills, or as nearly so as the nature of the country permitted for one object of the expedition was to find a feasible route from the Yellowstone to the mining camp of Deadwood. Antelopes and Buffalo appeared in sight as we advanced across a rolling country which I do not remember well, though much of it appeared to embrace a choice stock range, with farming lands along the watered valleys. At one point of the journey, while ascending a gulch toward the divide where we surmised a first view of the Balck Hills might offer, we stopped to examine some curious petrification of marine life which occurred in strata along one side of the gulch.