334 
FOREST AND STREAM 
converse without disturbing them; every little 
while we heard the barking of dogs, or so it 
seemed, but we concluded they must be wolves 
or coyotes. With the first pale morning light 
I got out of the coach and found, to my sur- 
prise, that we were close to a very large en¬ 
campment of Indians. Probably a hundred 
lodges and their inmates were evidently just 
awakening; one of the first of the warriors to 
see the coach, came over to where we were and 
in very broken English made us understand that 
this was the village of the celebrated Chief 
Washakie of the Shoshone tribe, well-known 
for his uniform policy of friendship for the 
whites, from which he never varied during the 
forty or more years of his chieftancy. As soon 
as we found whose camp it was, I had no hesita¬ 
tion in going among the lodges. 
We often hear of how an Indian will get the 
maximum of warmth out of a little fire, and I 
saw an illustration of it then. The morning air 
was very chill, and one of the men brought a 
live coal out from one of the lodges, placed it 
on the ground, heaped tiny bits of dry sage brush 
about it, and blew them into a flame, added more 
until the pile was about as large as his two fists, 
and then, wrapping his buffalo robe about him 
in funnel shape, with his head projecting from 
the smaller end, he stepped astride of the fire 
and soon little wreaths of smoke were slowly 
curling out from the apertures around his neck. 
He saved every bit of warmth that was in that 
fire. Not many of the occupants of the lodges 
were stirring when the driver called out that 
he was ready, and we hurried to resume our 
places in the coach. The crossing was made 
without any difficulty; and in half an hour we 
came in sight of our breakfast station which 
was located three or four miles beyond the river, 
on account of ibetter grass. 
At eleven o’clock that forenoon there was an¬ 
other stream and another detention. This time 
it was the Black Fork of Green River, a much 
smaller stream, but now so much swollen by 
rains and melting snows in the mountains that 
it was quite impossible to ford. The station 
was on the east bank, and all hands were busy 
making a new flat boat to transport us across. 
There had been such a ferry before, and the 
cable was still there as witness; but the boat 
had gone down stream in some previous flood 
and had not been replaced. While the station 
men were at work we passengers wandered over 
tie nearby hills, and picked up moss agates. 
You could get a bushel in half an hour. In 
fact nearly all the stones were of this character 
but none very pretty; all a smoky amber color! 
and most of them in fragments as if shivered 
by heat. It was three or four o’clock before we 
were able to resume our journey. First, the 
coach and passengers were sent over, and then 
the horses. From Black Fork the road led gen¬ 
erally upward during the remainder of the 
afternoon, and all night the horses plodded 
slowly on, we passengers getting out to stretch 
our legs. Shortly after daylight Fort Bridger 
was reached. It was snowing, and at early hour 
no one was astir. I should have liked to see 
something of this famous old place but there 
was warmth and a breakfast indoors, and out¬ 
side only bleak cold and falling snow. Bridger 
butte was, of course, invisible; in fact nothing 
was to be seen but the immediate surroundings 
of the stage station. 
When fresh horses were ready, and the driver 
called out “All aboard,” three or four Indians, 
wrapped in buffalo robes, to the tops of their 
ears, and as many mountain men in blanket 
overcoats, stood about until we had started, and 
then made for the post store. There was still 
a continuous ascent as our road took us toward 
the mountains at the head of Black Fork, the 
same stream we had crossed the preceding day, 
though here flowing almost the opposite direc¬ 
tion, and much smaller. 
The mountains which surrounded us all day, 
were well timbered with pines and quaking as¬ 
pen. That night we again encountered snow, 
but there was frost enough in the air to harden 
the surface and make the going as good as could 
be expected, considering the steady upgrade. 
At about eleven o’clock the moon was nearly 
full and, with one of my companions, I got out 
of the coach and walked ahead, having no diffi- 
Does This Pup Make Your Gunning Spirit Rise? 
culty in outstripping the horses on the hill. 
Sometime later we came to a well-defined sum¬ 
mit, and looking at my watch, I found I could 
easily read the hour and minute by the bright 
light of the moon reflected on the snow. It was 
just midnight. Half a mile down the road were 
visible the lights of the next stage station, and 
hurrying on we surprised the people there by 
telling them we were passengers by the coach 
which would be along soon. 
Thus it was that I crossed the divide sep¬ 
arating the waters which flow into the Gulf of 
California from those which lose themselves in 
the briny flood of Great Salt Lake. Our fellow 
travelers arrived some time after, and while 
fresh horses were being harnessed, we all got 
inside and arranged ourselves for sleep; mine 
was particularly sound, and I awoke feeling my 
head very cold; putting up my hand, my fur cap 
was missing. As careful a search as could be 
made of the inside of the coach failed to show 
anything, and it was evident that the lurching 
of the coach had loosened it, and it had worked 
through between the curtain and the iron up¬ 
right, and was gone. A handkerchief had to do 
duty for the present, and at the next station I 
told the agent I must have some sort of a hat, and 
he finally produced a broad brimmed soft felt, 
which had done duty in many a mountain storm 
until its owner, ashamed by its appearance, had 
discarded it. This he said was the best he could 
do, and it would last me until we got to “the 
city” which was now only forty or fifty miles 
distant. We breakfasted at a station on the 
Weber River near where Coalville now is. At 
this point the valley is a quarter to a half mile 
wide, and the narrow river bordered by tall cot¬ 
tonwoods and clumps of willow, tracing its 
sinuous course from one side to the other. There 
was good grass mingled with the sage brush in 
this bottom land, making an ideal grazing 
ground for the company’s extra horses. 
On either side of the valley was a “bench” as 
it was called, consisting of a shelf of land fifteen 
or twenty feet higher, and comparatively level 
stretching back a few hundred yards to the base 
of the mountains which rose impressively both 
on the east and west. Our road this morning 
lay up the stream for an hour or two, on the 
west bench where we bowled merrily along with 
the good hard gravelly track under- us. Alas! 
this was not for long, as we soon began our 
ascent of the Wasatch Mountains, along whose 
base we had been traveling, we encountered the 
same trouble we had endured most of the past 
week. The water, from melting snow drifts 
higher up, found its way down by the line of 
least resistance, and that was usually the wheel 
tracks of the stage road, making our progress 
very slow. Toward noon, however, we mounted 
the last ridge, and looked down into the great 
basin, five hundred miles wide from east to west, 
all of whose many streams disappear in the 
desert sands or are lost by evaporation. Far 
away great Salt Lake, blue as the sky above it, 
could be seen distinctly in every detail, circling 
a mountainous island, while beyond faintly de¬ 
fined upon the horizon, were the hills again. 
The city lay between us and the Lake, and could 
be distinguished as a multitude of whitish 
specks among the greyish green of the leafless 
trees which had been plentifully planted by the 
builders of the city, when first they chose the 
site. The driver stopped the horses at the sum¬ 
mit for a breathing space which gave us all an 
opportunity to take in the grandeur of the scene. 
The descent from here was easy; about five 
miles further on was. a station where the mail 
and express matter was transferred to a fine 
Concord coach; and at three o’clock in the 'after¬ 
noon of April 5th, we drew up in style in front 
of the “Salt Lake House” a good looking three- 
story brick structure upon a wide and busy 
street. As usual quite a number of people had 
gathered to see the coach come in, and scrutinize 
the new arrivals. Our Mormon passenger was 
met by some of his friends, and went away im¬ 
mediately after shaking each of us by the hand 
and cordially wishing us a pleasant continuation 
of our respective journeys. After registering, 
securing our rooms, and having our baggage 
disposed of, the remaining four of us celebrated 
our safe arrival by adjourning to the bar, and 
drinking each a large glass of Mormon beer; in 
the manufacture of which, wheat was used in¬ 
stead of barley, for the malt. It made a most 
