Pass Quaking Asp Springs and Muddy to Fort Bridger. Here are a group of white buildings, built round a plaza, across the middle of which runs a creek. There are a few hundred troops here under the command of Major Gallergher, a gallant officer and a gentleman, well worth knowing. We stay here two days.
We are on the road again, Sunday the 14th, with a driver of the highly floral name of Primrose. At 7 the next morning we reach Green River Station, and enter Idaho Territory. This is the Bitter Creek division of the Overland route, of which we had heard so many unfavorable stories. The division is really well managed by Mr. Stewart, though the country through which it stretches is the most wretched I ever saw. The water is liquid alkali, and the roads are soft sand. The snow is gone now, and the dust is thick and blinding. So drearily, wearily we drag onward.
We reach the summit of the Rocky Mountains at midnight on the 17th. The climate changes suddenly, and the cold is intense. We resume runners, have a breakdown, and are forced to walk four miles.
I remember that one of the numerous reasons urged in favor of General Fremont's election to the Presidency in 1856 was his finding the path across the Rocky Mountains. I wrung my frostbitten hands on that dreadful night, and declared that for me to deliberately go over that path in mid-winter was a sufficient reason for my election to any lunatic asylum, by an overwhelming vote. Dr. Hingston made a similar remark, and wondered if he should ever clink glasses with his friend Lord Palmerston again.
Another sensation. Not comic this time. One of our passengers, a fair-haired German boy, whose sweet ways had quite won us all, sank on the snow, and said—Let me sleep. We knew only too well what that meant, and tried hard to rouse him. It was in vain. Let me sleep, he said. And so in the cold starlight he died. We took him up tenderly from the snow, and bore him to the sleigh that awaited us by the roadside, some two miles away. The new moon was shining now, and the smile on the sweet white face told how painlessly the poor boy had died. No one knew him. He was from the Bannock mines, was ill-clad, had no baggage or money, and his fare was paid to Denver. He had said that he was going back to Germany. That was all we knew. So at sunrise the next morning we buried him at the foot of the grand mountains that are snow-covered and icy all the year round, far away from the Faderland, where it may be, some poor mother is crying for her darling who will not come.
. . . .
We strike the North Platte on the 18th. The fare at the stations is daily improving, and we often have antelope steaks now. They tell us of eggs not far off, and we encourage (by a process not wholly unconnected with bottles) the drivers to keep their mules in motion.
Antelopes by the thousand can be seen racing the plains from the coach windows.
At Elk Mountain we encounter a religious driver named Edward Whitney, who never swears at the mules. This has made him distinguished all over the plains. This pious driver tried to convert the Doctor, but I am mortified to say that his efforts were not crowned with success, Fort Halleck is a mile from Elk, and here are some troops of the Ohio 11th regiment, under the command of Major Thomas L. Mackey.
On the 20th we reach Rocky Thomas's justly celebrated station at 5 in the morning, and have a breakfast of hashed black-tailed deer, antelope steaks, ham, boiled bear, honey, eggs, coffee, tea, and cream. That was the squarest meal on the road except at Weber. Mr. Thomas is a Baltimore "slosher," he informed me. I don't know what that is, but he is a good fellow, and gave us a breakfast fir for a lord, emperor, czar, count, &c. A better couldn't be found at Delmonicp's or Parker's. He pressed me to linger with him for a few days and shoot bears. It was with several pangs that I declined the generous Baltimorean's invitation.