The Daybreak Of To-Day (Sunday) Found Us Shivering At
Fort Laramie, A Frontier Post Dismally Situated At A Height Of
7,000 Feet.
Another 1,000 feet over gravelly levels brought us
to Sherman, the highest level reached by this railroad.
From
this point eastward the streams fall into the Atlantic. The
ascent of these apparently level plateaus is called "crossing the
Rocky Mountains," but I have seen nothing of the range, except
two peaks like teeth lying low on the distant horizon. It became
mercilessly cold; some people thought it snowed, but I only saw
rolling billows of fog. Lads passed through the cars the whole
morning, selling newspapers, novels, cacti, lollypops, pop corn,
pea nuts, and ivory ornaments, so that, having lost all reckoning
of the days, I never knew that it was Sunday till the cars pulled
up at the door of the hotel in this detestable place.
[6] The mountains which bound the "valley of the Babbling
Waters," Utah, afford striking examples of these "knobs" or
"buttes."
The surrounding plains were endless and verdureless. The scanty
grasses were long ago turned into sun-cured hay by the fierce
summer heats. There is neither tree nor bush, the sky is grey,
the earth buff, the air blae and windy, and clouds of coarse
granitic dust sweep across the prairie and smother the
settlement. Cheyenne is described as "a God-forsaken,
God-forgotten place." That it forgets God is written on its
face. It owes its existence to the railroad, and has diminished
in population, but is a depot for a large amount of the
necessaries of life which are distributed through the scantily
settled districts within distances of 300 miles by "freight
wagons," each drawn by four or six horses or mules, or double
that number of oxen.
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