INTO WYOMING 219 



Montpelier, with a heap of strange things they 

 don't have there. But," he added, after a 

 pause, "I expect I'll never see anything but just 

 this round here, an' it ain't so bad, I reckon, 

 with its sunsets and moonlights." 



From Montpelier, the seat of Bear Lake 

 County, Idaho, and a local metropolis with 

 2,500 population, I turned to the northeast, 

 through Montpelier Canon, past Thomas's 

 Forks — not a town but a fork in the river; 

 there are no settlements here — and thence across 

 the Preuss Range of mountains. At Montpe- 

 lier I had crossed the railroad and there left it 

 behind me. Montpelier is the nearest railway 

 point for the settlements in Star Valley, Wy- 

 oming, across the Preuss Range, the first one 

 fifty miles away and some of them a full hun- 

 dred miles. 



Supplies are hauled over the mountains to 

 the settlements by freighters driving two, four, 

 and sometimes six, horses. Comparatively 

 light loads are necessarily carried, for the 

 mountain grades are steep — at some points even 

 precipitous — and the road is not always good. 

 In the canon I met two of the freighters and 

 beyond the ridge several others. 



This, too, is the route of the mail stages. A 

 station is maintained by the stage company 



