Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway

by Effie Price Gladding

Late in the day we passed Fort Bridger with its few old stone houses, probably barracks in the old days. Shortly before coming into Fort Bridger we came upon two draught horses feeding peacefully by the roadside. As they saw us, they immediately came into the road and began to trot just ahead of our machine. First we drove gently, hoping that after their first fright they would turn aside into the great plain which stretched for miles, unbroken by fences, on each side of the road. But no, they trotted steadily on. Then we drove faster, hoping to wear them down and by the rush of our approach to force them off the road. Once they were at the side of the road we could quickly pass them and their fright would be over. To our disappointment they broke into a wild gallop and showed no sign of leaving the road. They were heavy horses, and we were sorry to have them thundering so distressfully ahead of us. Then we dropped into a slow walk and so did they. But as soon as we traveled faster, they broke into a gallop. For ten miles they kept this up. We were quite in despair of ever dropping them, when suddenly we came to a fork in the road. To our joy they ran along the left fork. Our route was along the right fork and we went on to Fort Bridger glad to be rid of the poor frightened beasts.

A breeze sprang up toward sunset and we came in the twilight to the little town of Lyman where the only hostel was The Marshal, half home and half hotel, kept by Mrs. Marshall. As we came into the town the high, snowy Wahsatch range was on our right. We had first seen its distant peaks about twenty-four miles out of Evanston.

Mrs. Marshall gave us an abundant supper and we slept dreamlessly in a little upper room with one window. Upon what a glory of sunrise did that little upper window look out that morning of the first of July! The vast landscape was bathed in lavender light, the Wahsatch range and the mountains of our Eastern pathway catching the first glory of the coming sun, while the plains were in deeper lavender.

The village street looked like a pathway of lavender. The little wooden, painted houses, the barns, some red, some grey and unpainted, all glowed with transforming light and color. Robins and meadow larks were singing. Far, far to the northeast was a purple horizon line. The air was like wine. I stayed at the window until I was half frozen in the cool morning air, entranced by it all.

1. Wyoming Cattle. 2. The Marshall Hotel, Lyman, Wyoming. 3. Before Shearing, Medicine Bow, Wyoming. 4. After Shearing, Medicine Bow, Wyoming.

It was at Lyman that we heard talk of the ever smouldering feud between cattlemen and sheepmen. Not far from Lyman is the "dead line" over which sheepmen are not allowed to take their sheep. On the other side of this stern boundary are the cattlemen, and they have issued a warning to the sheepmen which they have more than once carried out. A few years ago a sheepman either purposely or carelessly got over the dead line with his sheep. He was mysteriously shot and two hundred of his sheep were killed in one night. No one knows who the murderer was. Back in the shadows looms the threat of the cattlemen, grim and real.

We had been told in Wyoming of the buying of a big ranch by adjacent ranch people in order that no sheepman might come in to share the water and the ranges with the cattleman.

Cattle will not feed, they tell us, where sheep have fed, as the sheep tear up the earth and also graze very closely. It is impossible for sheep and cattle to graze comfortably on the same ranges.