CROSSING THE ROCKIES 3 



of green irrigated land not far off, but the hills and moun- 

 tains around, bare, brown, and forbidding. We saw hun- 

 dreds of such homes in Utah, Idaho, and Oregon, and they 

 affected me like a nightmare. 



A night's run west of Omaha a change comes over 

 the spirit of nature's dream. We have entered upon that 

 sea of vast rolling plains; agriculture is left behind; these 

 gentle slopes and dimpled valleys are innocent of the plow; 

 herds of grazing cattle and horses are seen here and there ; 

 now and then a coyote trots away indifferently from the 

 train, looking like a gray homeless kill-sheep shepherd dog; 

 at long intervals a low hut or cabin, looking very forlorn; 

 sometimes a wagon track leads away and disappears over 

 the treeless hills. How I wanted to stop the train and run 

 out over those vast grassy billows and touch and taste this 

 unfamiliar nature! Here in the early morning I heard my 

 first western meadow-lark. The liquid gurgling song fil- 

 tered in through the roar of the rushing train. It was 

 very sweet and novel and made me want more than ever 

 to call a halt and gain the wild stillness of the hills and 

 plains, but it contained no suggestion of the meadow-lark 

 I knew. I saw also the horned lark and the black and 

 white lark-bunting from the car window. 



Presently another change comes over the scene: We 

 see the Rockies faint and shadowy in the far distance, 

 their snow-clad summits ghostly and dim; the traveler 

 crosses them on the Union Pacific almost before he is 

 aware of it. He expects a nearer view, but does not get 

 it. Their distant snow-capped peaks rise up, or bow 

 down, or ride slowly along the horizon afar off. They 

 seem to elude him; he cannot get near them; they flee 

 away or cautiously work around him. At one point we 

 seemed for hours approaching the Elk Mountains, which 

 stood up sharp and white against the horizon; but a spell 

 was upon us, or upon them, for we circled and circled till 



