American Big-Game Hunting 
course, and with the sweeping, unfriendly 
speed of the stream, its bleak shores seemed 
a chilly ;place) tor) home-seekers. (Yetul 
blessed the change. A sight of running 
water once more, even of this overbearing 
flood, and of hills however dreary, was ex- 
hilaration after the degraded, stingy monot- 
ony of the Big Bend. The alkali trails in 
Wyoming do not seem paradises till you 
bring your memory of them here. Nor am 
I alone in my estimate of this impossible hole. 
There is a sign-post sticking up in the middle 
of it, that originally told the traveler it was 
thirty-five miles to Central Ferry. But now 
the traveler has retorted; and three differ- 
ent hand-writings on this sign-post reveal to 
you that you have had predecessors in your 
thought, comrades who shared your sorrows: 
Forty-five miles to water. 
Seventy-five miles to wood. 
And then the last word: 
Two and one-half miles to hell. 
Perhaps they were home-seekers. 
We halted a moment at the town of Bridge- 
port, identified by one wooden store and an 
30 
