122 i^EW TRACKS IN NOETH AMERICA, 



I 



grass. I looked in yain amongst the trees and up the valley 

 which opened into the pass, noT7 on one side and then o 

 the other, hut there was no shepherd, no hut, no .farm to h 

 seen ; the wild turkeys had all heen either shot or driye 

 away hy the officers from Fort Union ; and the same might be 

 said of the deer ; hut with this exception — the absence of 

 game — nature remained exactly as God had made it. 



Fort Union is a hustling place ; it is the largest militai 

 establishment to be found on the plains, and is the supply centre 

 from which the forty or fifty lesser forts scattered all over i 

 the country within a radius of 500 miles or more, are supplied 

 with men, horses, munitions of war, and often with everything 

 needed for their support. It is not in the least fortified, as. 

 of course, such a precaution would he useless ; but it is n 

 vast collection of workshops, storehouses, barracks, officers'] 

 quarters, and offices of all kinds belonging to the dijfferen 

 departments. The dwellings, although built, as are all th 

 other buildings, of sun-dried bricks, are most comfortabl 

 Tlicy are roofed witli tliiu iron sheeting, covered with eartli 

 The rooms of the officers are lofty and well-fiu-nished. The 

 hospital, containing about 120 beds, is a very fine building, to 

 which two resident surgeons are attached. A large settler's 



rj 



store must not be forgotten, at which the daily sales average 

 3,000 dollars. Over 1,000 workmen are here kept constantly 

 employed, building and repaii'ing wagons, gathering in an 

 distributing supplies, making harness, putting up buildings,' 

 and attending to the long trains of goods and supplies constantly 

 arriving and departing. When we think for a moment of the 

 hundreds of miles that everything has to be brought by a slow 

 and expensive mode of conveyance — 600 miles by wagon 

 from the end of the railway, and nearly 1,500 by rail from 

 St. Louis ; when we consider the price of labour ; when, m. 



