Farewell to the Mountains 115 



of his affections with a Colt seven shot automatic pistol under his 

 arm, and a Winchester sixteen shot rifle as a staff. He was bom- 

 barded from the darkness as he left the girl's front gate, dropped 

 behind a provident rock and answered in the general direction of 

 the fusillade. The engagement lasted for twenty matter-of-fact 

 minutes. He failed to specify casualties, if any, or if he eventually 

 married the lady. His main convictions were that it was a manly 

 thing to carry arms, and that everybody who held a job better 

 than his own in the railroad service (he was a freight clerk when he 

 was working) did so by power of pull and favoritism, the actual 

 work of the position being done by the men below. He gave this 

 astonishing parting dictum to the artist: "If you ever go to 

 Kentucky, you want to go armed. A man feels quite good with a 

 pistol on his hip or under his arm." 



The orchards of Salt Lake valley show apples hanging like 

 jewels among the foliage. The traveler is impressed with the 

 orderly, gardened, and kept appearance of it all. It is a thrifty 

 smiling land, eloquent of industry and prosperity. Everywhere is 

 the Lombardy poplar, in rows and groups. Every dwelling and 

 dooryard is sentineled by them, and with them are most noble 

 groves of cottonwoods, yet in the green of summer. The Colorado 

 magpie is frequently seen, and flocks of other wild birds rise 

 continually to the train's passing. The gray hillsides, hazy in 

 Indian summer, show the aspen and willow groves in bright gold 

 and orange. 



At Baker's were great flats covered with water. The moun- 

 tains distant in the west sweep to their heights above the flats in a 

 blue and still splendor. 



At Brigham, 4,310 feet, twenty-one miles from Ogden, the 

 orchards are heavily loaded with red apples. The peaks of the 

 Wasatch range here rise sheerly from the fruitful plain to snow 

 capped summits. Their sides show a pale coppery red, with the hol- 

 lows in a luminous blue shadow. There is no vegetation upon 

 them, save aspen and cottonwood, but they are beautiful in their 

 bareness. In the south, the sun being in the west, the mountains 

 show the same copper red, but seen through a blue haze of 

 atmosphere. 



Winter has been left behind at Yellowstone, and one has come 

 down into summer in the Salt Lake plain. The grass is goldenly 



