THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

From Cokeville to Pacific Springs, just west of the summit, of the Rocky Mountains at South Pass, by the road and trail we traveled, is 158 miles. Ninety miles of this stretch is away from the sound of the locomotive, the click of the telegraph or the hello girl. It is a great extension of that grand mountain range, the Rockies, from six to seven thousand feet above sea level, with scant vegetable growth, and almost a solitude as to habitation, save as here and there a sheep-herder or his typical wagon might be discovered. The bold coyote, the simple antelope, and the cunning sage hen still hold their sway as they did sixty-three years before, when I first traversed the country. The old Trail is there in all its grandeur.

"Why mark that Trail!" I exclaim. Miles and miles of it worn so deep that centuries of storm will not efface it; generations may pass and the origin of the Trail become a legend, but the marks will be there to perplex the wondering eyes of those who people the continent centuries hence, aye, a hundred centuries, I am ready to say. We wonder to see it worn fifty feet wide and three feet deep, and hasten to take snap shots at it with kodak and camera. But what about it later, after we are over the crest of the mountain? We see it a hundred feet wide and fifteen feet deep, where the tramp of thousands upon thousands of men and women, and the hoofs of millions of animals and the wheels of untold numbers of vehicles have loosened the soil and the fierce winds have carried it away, and finally we find ruts a foot deep worn into the solid rock.

"What a mighty movement, this, over the Old Oregon Trail!" we exclaim time and again, each time with greater wonderment at the marvels yet to be seen, and hear the stories of the few yet left of those who suffered on this great highway.

Nor do we escape from this solitude of the western slope till we have traveled 150 miles east from the summit, when the welcome black smoke of the locomotive is seen in the distance, at Caspar, a stretch of 250 miles of primitive life of "ye olden times" of fifty years ago.

Nature's freaks in the Rocky Mountains are beyond my power of description. We catch sight of one a few miles west of the Little Sandy, without name. We venture to call it Tortoise Rock, from the resemblance to that reptile, with head erect and extended. Farther on, as night approaches, we are in the presence of animals unused to the sight of man. I quote from my journal:

PACIFIC SPRINGS.

"Pacific Springs, Wyoming, Camp No. 79, June 20, 1906.—Odometer 958 (miles from The Dalles, Oregon). Arrived at 6:00 p. m., and camped near Halter's store and the P. O.; ice formed in camp during the night.

"Camp No. 79, June 21.—Remained in camp all day and got down to solid work on my new book, the title of which is not yet developed in my mind.

"Camp No. 79, June 22.—Remained in camp all day at Pacific Springs and searched for a suitable stone for a monument to be placed on the summit. After almost despairing, came to exactly what was wanted, and, although alone on the mountain side, exclaimed, 'That is what I want; that's it.' So a little later, after procuring help, we turned it over to find the both sides flat; with 26 inches face and 15 inches thick at one end and 14 inches wide and 12 inches thick at the other, one of Nature's own handiwork, as if made for this very purpose, to stand on the top of the mountains for the centuries to come to perpetuate the memory of the generations that have passed. I think it is granite formation, but is mixed with quartz at large end and very hard. Replaced three shoes on the Twist ox and one on Dave immediately after dinner, and hitched the oxen to Mr. Halter's wagon, and with the help of four men loaded the stone, after having dragged it on the ground and rocks a hundred yards or so down the mountain side; estimated weight, 1,000 pounds."

"Camp No. 79, June 23.—Remained here in camp while inscribing the monument. There being no stone cutter here, the clerk of the store formed the letters on stiff past-boards and then cut them out to make a paper stencil, after which the shape of the letters was transferred to the stone by crayon marks. The letters were then cut out with the cold chisel deep enough to make a permanent inscription. The stone is so very hard that it required steady work all day to cut the twenty letters and figures, 'The Old Oregon Trail, 1843-47.'

"Camp 80, June 24.—Odometer 970½. At 3:00 o'clock this afternoon erected the monument described on the summit of the south pass at a point on the Trail described by John Linn, civil engineer, at 42.21 north latitude, 108.53 west longitude, bearing N. 47, E. 240 feet from the ¼ corner between sections 4 and 5, T. 27 N., R. 101 W. of the 6th P. M. Elevation as determined by aneroid reading June 24, 1906, is 7,450.

"Mr. Linn informs me the survey for an irrigation ditch to take the waters of the Sweetwater River from the east slope of the range, through the south pass, to the west side, runs within a hundred feet of the monument.

"We drove out of Pacific Springs at 12:30, stopped at the summit to dedicate the monument, and at 3:40 left the summit and drove twelve miles to this point, called Oregon Slough, and put up the tent after dark."

The reader may think of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains as a precipitous defile through narrow canyons and deep gorges, but nothing is farther from the fact than such imagined conditions. One can drive through this pass for several miles without realizing he has passed the dividing line between the waters of the Pacific on the one side and of the Gulf of Mexico on the other, while traveling over a broad, open, undulating prairie the approach is by easy grades and the descent (going east) scarcely noticeable.

Certainly, if my memory is worth anything, in 1852 some of our party left the road but a short distance to find banks of drifted snow in low places in July, but none was in sight on the level of the road as we came along in June of 1906. This was one of the landmarks that looked familiar, as all who were toiling west looked upon this spot as the turning point in their journey, and that they had left the worst of the trip behind them, poor, innocent souls as we were, not realizing that our mountain climbing in the way of rough roads only began a long way out west of the summit of the Rockies.

SWEETWATER.

The sight of Sweetwater River, twenty miles out from the pass, revived many pleasant memories and some that were sad. I could remember the sparkling, clear water, the green skirt of undergrowth along the banks and the restful camps as we trudged along up the streams so many years ago. And now I see the same channel, the same hills, and apparently the same waters swiftly passing; but where are the campfires; where the herd of gaunt cattle; where the sound of the din of bells; the hallowing for lost children; the cursing of irate ox drivers; the pleading for mercy from some humane dame for the half-famished dumb brute; the harsh sounds from some violin in camp; the merry shouts of children; or the little groups off on the hillside to bury the dead? All gone. An oppressive silence prevailed as we drove down to the river and pitched our camp within a few feet of the bank where we could hear the rippling waters passing and see the fish leaping in the eddies. We had our choice of a camping place just by the skirt of refreshing green brush with an opening to give full view of the river. Not so in '52 with hundreds of camps ahead of you. One must take what he could get, and that in many cases would be far back from the water and removed from other conveniences.

The sight and smell of the carrion so common in camping places in our first trip was gone; no bleached bones even showed where the exhausted dumb brute had died; the graves of the dead emigrants had all been leveled by the hoofs of stock and the lapse of time. "What a mighty change!" I exclaimed. We had been following the old Trail for nearly 150 miles on the west slope of the mountains with scarce a vestige of civilization. Out of sight and hearing of railroads, telegraphs, or telephones and nearly a hundred miles without a postoffice. It is a misnomer to call it a "slope." It is nearly as high an altitude a hundred miles west of the summit as the summit itself. The country remains as it was fifty-four years before. The Trail is there to be seen miles and miles ahead, worn bare and deep, with but one narrow track where there used to be a dozen, and with the beaten path so solid that vegetation has not yet recovered from the scourge of passing hoofs and tires of wagons years ago.

As in 1852 when the summit was passed, I felt that my task was much more than half done, though the distance was scarcely compassed. I felt we were entitled to a rest even though it was a solitude, and so our preparations were made for two days' rest if not recreation. The two days passed and we saw but three persons. We traveled a week on this stretch, to encounter five persons only, and to see but one wagon, but our guide to point the way was at hand all the time—a pioneer way a hundred feet wide and in places ten feet deep, we could not mistake. Our way from this Camp 81 on Sweetwater led us from the river and over hills for fifty miles before we were back to the river again. Not so my Trail of '52, for then we followed the river closer and crossed it several times, while part of the people went over the hills and made the second trail. It was on this last stretch we set our 1,000-mile post as we reached the summit of a very long hill, eighteen miles west of where we again encountered the river, saw a telegraph line, and a road where more than one wagon a week passed as like that we had been following so long.

SPLIT ROCK.

I quote from my journal:

"Camp No. 85, June 30.—Odometer 1,044. About ten o'clock encountered a large number of big flies that ran the cattle nearly wild. We fought them off as best we could. I stood on the wagon tongue for miles so I could reach them with the whip-stock. The cattle were so excited, we did not stop at noon, finding water on the way, but drove on through by two-thirty and camped at a farmhouse, the Split Rock postoffice, the first we had found since leaving Pacific Springs, the other side of the summit of South Pass and eighty-five miles distant."

"Split Rock" postoffice derives its name from a rift in the mountain a thousand feet or more high, as though a part of the range had been bodily moved a rod or so, leaving this perpendicular chasm through the range, which was narrow.

THE DEVIL'S GATE.

The Devil's Gate and Independence Rock, a few miles distant, are probably the two best known landmarks on the Trail—the one for its grotesque and striking scenic effect. Here, as at Split Rock, the mountain seems as if it had been split apart, leaving an opening a few rods wide, through which the Sweetwater River pours a veritable torrent. The river first approaches to within a few hundred feet of the gap, and then suddenly curves away from it, and after winding though the valley for a half a mile or so, a quarter of a mile distant, it takes a straight shot and makes the plunge through the canyon. Those who have had the impression they drove their teams through this gap are mistaken, for it's a feat no mortal man has done or can do, any more than they could drive up the falls of the Niagara.

This year, on my 1906 trip, I did clamber through on the left bank, over boulders head high, under shelving rocks where the sparrows' nests were in full possession, and ate some ripe gooseberries from the bushes growing on the border of the river, and plucked some beautiful wild roses—this on the second day of July, A. D. 1906. I wonder why those wild roses grow there where nobody will see them? Why these sparrows' nests? Why did this river go through this gorge instead of breaking the barrier a little to the south where the easy road runs? These questions run through my mind, and why I know not. The gap through the mountains looked familiar as I spied it from the distance, but the roadbed to the right I had forgotten. I longed to see this place, for here, somewhere under the sands, lies all that was mortal of a brother, Clark Meeker, drowned in the Sweetwater in 1854 while attempting to cross the Plains; would I be able to see and identify the grave? No.

I quote from my journal:

"Camp No. 85, July 2.—Odometer 1,059. This camp is at Tom Sun's place, the Sun postoffice, Wyoming, and is in Sec. 35, T. 29 N. R. 97, 6 P. M., and it is one-half mile to the upper end of the Devil's Gate, through which the Sweetwater runs. The passage is not more than 100 feet wide and is 1,300 feet through with walls 483 feet at highest point. The altitude is 5860.27, according to the United States geological survey marks. It is one of nature's marvels, this rift in the mountain to let the waters of the Sweetwater through. Mr. Tom Sun, or Thompson, has lived here thirty odd years and says there are numerous graves of the dead pioneers, but all have been leveled by the tramp of stock, 225,000 head of cattle alone having passed over the Trail in 1882 and in some single years over a half million sheep. But the Trail is deserted now, and scarcely five wagons pass in a week, with part of the roadbed grown up in grass. That mighty movement—tide shall we call it—of suffering humanity first going west, accompanied and afterwards followed by hundreds of thousands of stock, with the mightier ebb of millions upon millions of returning cattle and sheep going east, has all ceased, and now the road is a solitude save a few straggling wagons, or here and there a local flock driven to pasture. No wonder that we looked in vain for the graves of the dead with this great throng passing and repassing."

A pleasant little anecdote is told by his neighbors of the odd name of "Tom Sun," borne by that sturdy yeoman (a Swede, I think), and of whose fame for fair dealing and liberality I could hear upon all sides. The story runs that when he first went to the bank, then and now sixty miles away, to deposit, the cashier asked his name and received the reply Thompson, emphasizing the last syllable pronounced with so much emphasis, that it was written Tom Sun, and from necessity a check had to be so signed, thus making that form of spelling generally known, and finally it was adopted as the name of the postoffice.