Book excerpt: "Photographer William Illingworth captured images of great quality and clarity, while at least fifteen men were recording vivid accounts in their diaries, reports and newspaper dispatches. These elements are woven together here ... to form a narrative of day-to-day life on the trail. The earlier book told the story of exploring the Black Hills; here the focus is on the plains portion of the journey, much of which can still be followed across a vast and varied landscape. [This book] also adds a new dimension, recognizing that the explorers of 1874 left yet another kind of record in things they lost or discarded along the way -- tools, weapons, cartridges and horseshoes, utensils and buttons, cans and knives. The representative artifacts in these pages further enrich our experience of the Black Hills Expedition"--Dust jacket.