On the ninth of April, angling northwest along the Great Platte River Road, Josh had his first look at Fort Laramie.  Huddled on a broad expanse of rugged, treeless plain, backed by distant snow-capped mountains dominated by Laramie Peak, the seemingly random scatter of buildings was anything but impressive.  As he drew nearer, the fort slowly separated itself from the prairie, gaining definition and significance.  Josh counted more than thirty buildings of various shapes and sizes.  Two had second stories; half a dozen were long and low and appeared to be barracks.  There were houses for the officers, stables and any number of outbuildings.  The stars and stripes hung limp atop the flagstaff at the eastern end of the parade ground, and soldiers and horses moved about below it.  Closer, along a broad stretch of bottomland dotted by willows and traced through by the Laramie River, were the conical shapes of tipis. Page 515