Big Game in the Rockies 
erally demand, we fairly enter Pryor’s Gap, 
and there, in a beautiful amphitheater, we 
again make camp. This evening we must 
have trout for supper, so all hands go to 
work, and we are soon rewarded with a fine 
mess of trout from the head waters of Pryor’s 
Creek. 
The next day, as we reach the summit of 
the gap, one of the most beautiful views in 
the country opens out. The great main range 
of the Rocky Mountains stretches before us, 
its rugged, snow-capped peaks glistening in 
the morning sun, and we long to be there, 
but many a long mile still intervenes, and 
forty-four miles of desert has to be crossed 
to-day. This is always an arduous undertak- 
ing. It is monotonous in the extreme, and men 
and animals are sure to suffer for want of good 
water, for after leaving Sage Creek on the 
other side of the gap, there is no water to be 
had until Stinking Water River* is reached. 
* Bancroft, in his account of the early explorations of Wyoming, 
refers to this river as follows: “It is a slander to use this non- 
descriptive name for an inoffensive stream. The early trappers took it 
from the Indians, who, in their peculiar fashion, called it ‘the river 
that ran by the stinking water,’ referring to bad-smelling hot springs 
on its banks.” 
93 
