through his daily course. When the sun is high, the landscape, especially 

 in the bad lands, is hard, grim and forbidding; but, as he inclines to- 

 ward setting, a wonderful, soft haze begins to appear, of the most deli- 

 cate violet tint, especially vivid in the shadows. The landscape is trans- 

 formed and it seems incredible that it can be the same scene in that 

 magical light, as it was in "the burning of the noontide heat." Most 

 wonderful of all are the sunsets, every day individual and different, 

 every day magnificent beyond description. I shall make no attempt to 

 describe them, further than to say that not only the west, but the whole 

 sky is ablaze and every cloud a flame of colour. 



For some reason that I have forgotten, we kept on up the east side 

 of Green River, probably in quest of something of which we had been 

 told. Whatever it was, we failed to find it, but we did discover a mineral 

 spring, which completely eclipsed the famous Hunyadi Janos in efficacy. 

 We also ran into an adventure that might well have had fatal results 

 for Osborn. He had gone out from camp on foot and had been seen by 

 some range cattle, which had immediately begun to close in on him 

 from all sides, with the intense curiosity which these half-wild cows 

 share with the Prong-buck. The danger under such circumstances, and 

 it is a very real one, is of being trampled to death. Happily, several of 

 us rode up in time to rescue our comrade, for the cattle know very well 

 what a mounted man is and they fled at sight of us. 



As the river was quite low, we undertook to cross at one of the fords 

 and did so with every possible precaution. The Green River is notori- 

 ously treacherous and the toll of human lives which it took, in those 

 days, was quite appalling. The men cut a cottonwood log, of about 

 eight inches in diameter, into four blocks, each of which was notched, 

 to hold it firmly in place. These blocks were put under the wagon box, 

 at the four corners, raising the wagon-bed so far above the level of the 

 water that the bedding and provisions were kept dry, when fording 

 the stream. We made the crossing without accident, Joe riding ahead 

 to feel out the bottom, and were all relieved to be safely over the treach- 

 erous water. 



From the crossing we continued to the northwest, following up 

 Ham's Fork and it was here that we staged our great attack from the 

 Indians, which was so successfully repulsed and hence has always been 

 known, among initiates, as the "Battle of Ham's Fork," a name con- 

 ferred by the victim himself. When the smoke of battle had cleared 

 away, it came on to rain and we had the only rainy night that I ever 

 met with in Wyoming; the great tarpauUn justified its existence. An- 



