Page:A Brief History of South Dakota.djvu/161

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ON TO THE DIGGINGS
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jealous of these trespassers upon their land, lay in wait behind every rock, and few white men who straggled away from the main camps without protection were spared. This condition, however, ended as soon as the treaty of 1876 was signed in the fall of that year. By 1877 the laws of South Dakota were executed throughout the mining country; federal courts were established, and the region of the Black Hills at once became the quiet, rich, safe, well-organized part of the country that it has continued to be.