CHAPTER VI. 



The trail to Oregon, followed by traders and emigrants, crosses 

 the Rocky Mountains at a point known as the South Pass, where 

 a break in the chain occurs of such moderate and gradual elevation, 

 as to permit the passage of wagons with tolerable facility. The 

 Sweet Water Valley runs nearly to the point where the dividing 

 ridge of the Pacific and Atlantic waters throws off its streams to 

 their respective oceans. At one end of this valley, and situated on 

 the right bank of the Sweet Water, a huge isolated mass of 

 granitic rock rises to the height of three hundred feet, abruptly 

 from the plain. On the smooth and scarped surface presented by 

 one of its sides, are rudely carved the names and initials of traders, 

 trappers, travelers, and emigrants, who have here recorded the 

 memorial of their sojourn in the remote wilderness of the Far West. 

 The face of the rock is covered with names familiar to the mount- 

 aineers as those of the most renowned of their hardy brotherhood ; 

 while others again occur, better known to the science and literature 

 of the Old World than to the unlearned trappers of the Rocky 

 Mountains. The huge mass is a well-known landmark to the 

 Indians and mountaineers : and travelers and emigrants hail it as 

 the half-way beacon between the frontiers of the United States 

 and the still distant goal of their long and perilous journey. 



It was a hot sultry day in July. Not a breath of air relieved 

 the intense and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, unusual here, 

 where pleasant summer breezes, and sometimes stronger gales, 

 blow over the elevated plains with the regularity of trade- winds. 

 The sun, at its meridian height, struck the dry sandy plain and 



