Fuel was scarce a large part of the way until west of Fort Laramie, the pitch pine in the Black Hills made such fires as delight the hearts of campers. In a stretch of two hundred miles but one tree was seen, a lone elm by the river Platte, which was finally cut down and the limbs used for firewood. When near this tree, the train camped over Sunday, and our party first saw buffaloes, a band of perhaps twenty. D. T. Denny and C. D. Boren of the party went hunting in the hills three miles from the camp but other hunters had been among them and scattered the band, killing only one or two; however they generously divided the meat with the new arrivals. Our two good hunters determined to get one if possible and tried stalking a shaggy-maned beast that was separated from the herd, a half mile from their horses left picketed on the grassy plain. Shots were fired at him without effect and he ran away unhurt, fortunately for himself as well as his pursuers. One of the hunters, D. T. Denny, said it might have been a very serious matter for them to have been charged by a wounded buffalo out on the treeless prairie where a man had nothing to dodge behind but his own shadow.
On the prairie before they reached Fort Laramie a blinding hailstorm pelted the travelers.
D. T. Denny, who was driving a four-horse team in the teeth of the storm, relates that the poor animals were quite restive, no doubt suffering much from their shelterless condition. They had been well provided for as to food; their drivers carried corn which lasted for two hundred miles. The rich grass of five hundred miles of prairie afforded luxurious living beyond this, and everywhere along the streams where camp was made there was an abundance of fresh herbage to be found.
Many lonely graves were seen, graves of pioneers, with hopes as high, mayhap, as any, but who pitched their silent tents in the wilderness to await the Judgment Day.
A deep solemnity fell upon the living as the train wound along, where on the side of a mountain was a lone grave heaped up with stones to protect it from the ravages of wolves. Tall pines stood around it and grass and flowers adorned it with nature’s broidery. Several joined in singing an old song beginning
“I came to the place Where the white pilgrim lay, And pensively stood by his tomb, When in a low whisper I heard something say, ‘How sweetly I sleep here alone.’”
Echoed only by the rustling of the boughs of scattered pines, moving gently in the wind.
As they approached the upheaved mountainous country, lively interest, a keen delight in the novelty of their surroundings, and surprise at unexpected features were aroused in the minds of the travelers.
A thoughtful one has said that the weird beauty of the Wind River Mountains impressed her deeply, their image has never left her memory and if she were an artist she could faithfully represent them on canvas.
A surprise to the former prairie dwellers was the vast extent of the mountains, their imaginations having projected the sort of mountain range that is quite rare, a single unbroken ridge traversed by climbing up one side and going down the other! But they found this process must be repeated an indefinite number of times and over such roughness as their imaginations had never even suggested.