melted away, leaving this remnant to rise in solitary grandeur above the plain. In books it is described as resembling a gigantic ruin, with a huge rotunda in front, windows in the sides, and remains of roofs and stages in its flanks: verily potent is the eye of imagination! To me it appeared in the shape of an irregular pyramid, whose courses were inclined at an ascendable angle of 35°, with a detached outwork composed of a perpendicular mass based upon a slope of 45°; in fact, it resembled the rugged earthworks of Sakkara, only it was far more rugged. According to the driver, the summit is a plane upon which a wagon can turn. My military companion remarked that it would make a fine natural fortress against Indians, and perhaps, in the old days of romance and Colonel Bonneville, it has served as a refuge for the harried fur-hunter. I saw it when set off by weather to advantage. A blazing sun rained fire upon its cream-colored surface—at 11 A.M. the glass showed 95° in the wagon—and it stood boldly out against a purple-black nimbus which overspread the southern skies, growling distant thunders, and flashing red threads of "chained lightning."
I had finished a hasty sketch, when suddenly appeared to us a most interesting sight—a neat ambulance,[1] followed by a four-gon and mounted soldiers, from which issued an officer in uniform, who advanced to greet Lieutenant Dana. The traveler was Captain, or rather Major Marcy, who was proceeding westward on leave of absence. After introduction, he remembered that his vehicle contained a compatriot of mine. The compatriot, whose length of facial hair at once told his race—for
"The larger the whisker, the greater the Tory"—
was a Mr. A, British vice-consul at ***'s, Minnesota. Having lately tried his maiden hand upon buffalo, he naturally concluded that I could have no other but the same object. Pleasant estimate, forsooth, of a man's brain, that it can find nothing in America worthy of its notice but bison-shooting! However, the supposition had a couleur locale. Every week the New York papers convey to the New World the interesting information that some distinguished Britisher has crossed the Atlantic and half crossed the States to enjoy the society of the "monarch of our prairies." Americans consequently have learned to look upon this Albionic eccentricity as "the thing." That unruly member the tongue was upon the point of putting in a something about
- ↑ The price of the strong light traveling wagon called an ambulance in the West is about $250; in the East it is much cheaper. With four mules it will vary from $750 to $900; when resold, however, it rarely fetches half that sum. A journey between St. Joseph and Great Salt Lake City can easily be accomplished in an ambulance within forty days. Officers and sportsmen prefer it, because they have their time to themselves, and they can carry stores and necessaries. On the other hand, "strikers"—soldier-helps—or Canadian engagés are necessary; and the pleasure of traveling is by no means enhanced by the nightly fear that the stock will "bolt," not to be recovered for a week, if then.
