replied: "I'm not going to be fooled again by this damn climate; for all 

 I know, that water is a mile wide." 



At Twin Lakes we camped for several days and had, in the creek 

 connecting the two lakes, the most wonderful trout-fishing that I have 

 ever seen anywhere. It was in this camp that the long-repressed hostility 

 between our two leaders burst out into a violent quarrel. If I ever knew, 

 I have forgotten what it was all about and who began it, but I very 

 clearly remember that we youngsters were scandalized, to hear two grave 

 professors slanging each other like a couple of fish wives. Scandalous as 

 it was, this row was all to the good, for I cannot doubt that it was Dr. 

 Brackett's determination to get rid of the General that made him 

 decide to send the palaeontologists to Wyoming, with Karge to lead us. 



To Osborn, Speir and myself, the meaningless wandering about 

 Colorado had been one long exasperation, a wanton waste of time, 

 money, and opportunity. In view of the fact that we three had originated 

 the plan and pushed it on to realization against every obstacle, it seemed 

 doubly unjust that we should be deprived of our chance and that the 

 very object for which the whole undertaking had been devised should 

 be ignored. Little as we suspected it. Dr. Brackett's determination to 

 send us to Wyoming was decisive for Osborn's future and my own. Had 

 we remained in Colorado, I do not believe that the experiment of the 

 expedition would ever have been tried again. The collection made at 

 Florissant would have been a very poor return for the great outlay of 

 money and labour. Success in Wyoming turned the trembling scale 

 and sealed the fate of Osborn and myself. 



We bade the main party an unregretful good-bye and hurried in to 

 Denver, riding the distance of 150 miles, as we were told, in three days. 

 At Denver a sleeping car was summoned and we went on to Cheyenne, 

 where our car was put on the Union Pacific Railway for the 350-mile 

 journey to Fort Bridger. Our horses were sent on by freight train. 



Fort Bridger was, with the exception of West Point, the first military 

 post that we had visited and it teemed with all kinds of interest. The 

 term "fort," as applied to the Western posts, was a misnomer, for these 

 posts were open cantonments, not fortified in any way. Fort Bridger 

 was not, in the least, what the Covered Wagon represents it to have 

 been. It had been built originally by Jim Bridger in 1843 as a trading 

 post, and was taken over, enlarged and garrisoned by General Albert 

 Sidney Johnson in 1859, and was constructed of logs, not of adobe. When 

 we first went there, in 1877, it was the headquarters of the 4th U.S. 

 Infantry, but the garrison consisted of only two or three companies, a 



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