understanding structure- the way to rainy mountain

"A single knowll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range(56)."
"Yellowstone, it seemed to me, was the top of the world, a region of deep lakes and dark timber, canyons and waterfalls. But, beautiful as it is, one might have the sense of confinementthere. the skyline in all directions is close at hand, the high wall of the woods and deep cleavages of shade. There is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear. the Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness(58)."
"She was about seven when the last Kiowa Sun Dance was held in 1887 on the Washita River above Rainy Mountain Creek(59)."
"For more than a hundred years they had controlled the open range from the Smoky Hill River to the Red, from the headwaters of the Canadian to the fork of the Arkansas and Cimarron. In alliance with the Comanches, they had ruled the whole of the southern Plains. War was their sacred business, and they were among the finest horsemen the world has ever known. But warfare for the Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition rather than of survival, and they never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry. When at last, divided and illprovisioned, they were driven onto the Staked Plains in the cold rains of autumn, they fell into panic.(57)."
"She was a Christian in her later years, but she had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright(59)."
"Her only living daughter was with her when she died, and I was told that in death her face was that of a child(57)."