victims and this man went through the agonizing experience without 

 betraying himself. 



A few days sufficed to get together our equipment and we prepared to 

 tackle the bad lands with absolutely no experience but with plenty of 

 compensating enthusiasm. Dr. Carter, a son-in-law but no kin of the 

 Judge, who knew something of palaeontology and had sent considerable 

 material to Leidy, advised us where to begin. We had hired a wagon 

 and a pair of mules, quite sufficient power, for we had no long marches 

 to make. We had these same mules for two seasons and learned to 

 appreciate their qualities. One of them, "Old Ute," was an incredibly 

 sly old beast, who could work through the densest thicket without sound- 

 ing her bell and when she undertook to hide it was no easy task to find 

 her. For camp cook and teamster, we engaged one of that curious race 

 known as "Pikes," from Pike County, Missouri, their place of origin. 

 His name was Taylor and not only was he a very useful and competent 

 man in his own line, but he kept us all amused with his quaint and 

 spicy talk. 



For our first camp, we moved out only ten or twelve miles to Smith's 

 Fork, the nearest running water to the places we wished to explore. 

 Thenceforward, for many weeks, we never slept under cover. I can't 

 remember that we even had a tent; if so, we made no use of it and 

 certainly we never slept in it, laying our beds on the grass and sleeping 

 in couples, so as to make the most of our blankets and rubber ponchos. 

 We were at an altitude of 6,000 feet or more, and the nights were always 

 cold, frequently with frost. The dew was so heavy that a waterproof 

 covering of the bed was essential to comfort and, as I always slept with 

 uncovered head, I usually awoke in the morning with my hair saturated 

 with water, except when it was frozen, as, toward the end of the season, 

 it very often was. For life out of doors, the summer climate of all the 

 plateau country, Wyoming and Montana, is ideally beautiful; there was 

 little or no rain and in six seasons, spent wholly or in part in Wyoming, 

 I cannot remember more than a single rainy night. Nearly all the 

 precipitation was in winter snows and spring rains; at Bridger, they 

 told us, the snow was so deep that the sentries had to walk on the flat- 

 roofed cavalry stables. The temperature of the day was almost always 

 pleasant in the shade, though the direct rays of the sun were very hot, but 

 in that dry air, where continual evaporation keeps the skin cool, we paid 

 little attention to the vagaries of the thermometer. 



General Karge was another and much pleasanter man; as he now 

 wielded undivided and undisputed authority, he did not care to exercise 



