Camping and Hunting in the Shoshone 



loneliness, a majesty, about the views in 

 the Rocky Mountains that cannot be sur- 

 passed. Here you have not snow to the 

 same extent as in Switzerland ; though I 

 have seen a snow-field fully fifteen miles 

 long and ten broad, and no one can guess 

 how many hundred or thousand feet deep, 

 in the almost unexplored granite range 

 that lies between Clarke's Fork Mines and 

 the Northern Pacific Railroad. But the 

 rocky scenery is wonderful, • — wonderful 

 in form, wonderful in color, and wonder- 

 ful in size. The very solid earth seems 

 sometimes to gape asunder ; as you enter 

 some canon you can scarcely persuade your- 

 self you are ascending, since the mighty 

 walls of rock on either hand so lean over 

 to each other that it seems as though the 

 path led downward, and not, as it does, 

 upward. One of the finest bits of rocky 

 scenery I remember to have seen anywhere 

 is within three days' easy ride of the North- 

 ern Pacific Railroad, and on the road to 

 Cooke City Mines. A long valley of some 

 twenty-four miles leads easily up to the 

 divide, from the East Fork of the Yellow- 

 stone, narrowing as it rises. Some seven 

 or eight miles from Cooke, on the left as 

 you ascend, a vast wall of basalt rises 

 almost sheer from the bed of the stream. 



56 



