100 
TREELESS LAND-OCEAN. 
a stream in sight ! save at the west. There the 
long, petrified billows of America’s great inland 
ocean seemed to break against something, and a 
dark, surflike outline of low, dusky hills lay 
against the sky. Toward them they journeyed. 
For the first few hours their road lay parallel 
with the track of the Union Pacific Railroad. 
Its grade here is so even that the ascent is hardly 
perceptible to the eye, yet so great as to fre- 
quently necessitate a double force of engines from 
Cheyenne to Sherman. Every little way a spark 
from some passing locomotive had set fire to 
the grass along the roadside, and the irregular 
patch burned over showed in black and striking 
contrast to the even brown of the unnumbered 
acres of natural pasture they were traversing. 
Just afternoon, the sky which had before shut 
down, a perfect dome of faultless blue, showed a 
little drift of pure white clouds where its western 
rim was serrated by the outline of the hills. 
Clouds of this kind are peculiar. Their frayed 
edges seem blown toward one as though a strong 
current of air was forcing itself between them 
and the mountain tops ; otherwise, more ordinary, 
innocent-looking mist banks never showed them- 
selves to mortal eyes. They may lie for days 
not a handbreadth above the western horizon, 
but, notwithstanding their harmless aspect, every 
old frontiersman — which means any one who 
