After a stoppage of about half an hour, we were again careering up-hill past Fort Saunders and the Red Buttes, the latter so-called from the bold red sandstone bluffs, in some places a thousand feet high, which bound the track on our right. Then still up-hill to Harney, beyond which we cross Dale Creek Bridge—a wonderful structure, 650 feet long and 126 feet high, spanning the creek from bluff to bluff. Looking down through the interstices of the wooden road, what a distance the thread of water in the hollow seemed to be below us!
At Sherman, some two hours from Laramie, we arrived at the Summit of the Rocky Mountain ridge, where we reached the altitude of about 8400 feet above the sea-level. Of course it was very cold, hill and dale being covered with snow as far as the eye could reach. Now we rush rapidly down-hill, the brakes screwed tightly down, the cars whizzing round the curves, and making the snow fly past in clouds. We have now crossed the backbone of the continent, and are speeding on towards the settled and populous country in the East.
At Cheyenne, we have another stoppage for refreshment. This is one of the cities with which our guidebook writer falls into ecstasies. It is "The Magic City of the Plains"—a place of which it "requires neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet to enumerate its resources or predict its future!" Yet Cheyenne is already a place of importance, and likely to become still more so,—being situated at the junction with the line to Denver, which runs along the rich and lovely valley of the Colorado. Its population of 8000 seems very large for a place that so short a time ago was merely the haunt of Red Indians. Already it has manufactures, warehouses, wharves, and stores of considerable magnitude; with all the usual appurtenances of a place of traffic and business.
Before leaving Cheyenne, I invested in some hung buffalo steak for consumption at intervals between meals. It is rather tough and salt,—something like Hamburg beef; but seasoned with hunger, and with the appetite sharpened by the cold and frost of these high regions, the hung buffalo proved useful and nutritious.
For several hundred miles, our track lay across the prairie—monotonous, and comparatively uninteresting now, in its covering of white—but in early summer clad in lively green and carpeted with flowers. I read that this fine cultivable well-watered country extends seven hundred miles north and south, along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, with an average width of two hundred miles. It is said to be amongst the finest grazing land in the world, with pasturage for millions of cattle and sheep.
Shortly after passing Antelope Station, the track skirts the "Prairie Dog City," which I knew at once by its singular appearance. It consists of hundreds of little mounds of soil, raised about a foot and a half from the ground. There were, however, no dogs about at the time. The biting cold had doubtless sent them within doors. Indeed, I saw no wild animals on my journey across the continent, excepting only some black antelopes with white faces, that I saw on the plains near this Prairie Dog City.
For a distance of more than five hundred miles—from leaving Cheyenne until our arrival in Omaha—the railway held along the left bank of the Lodge Pole Creek, then along the South Fork or Platte river, and finally along the main Platte river down to near its junction with the Missouri. When I went to sleep on the night of the 11th of February—my fourth night in the railway train—we were travelling through the level prairie; and when I woke up on the following morning, I found we were on the prairie still.
At seven in the morning, we halted at the station of Grand Island—so called from the largest island in the Platte river, near at hand. Here I had breakfast, and a good wash in ice-cold water. Although the snow is heavier than ever, the climate seems already milder. Yet it is very different indeed from the sweltering heat of Honolulu only some twelve days ago. At about 10 a.m., we bid adieu to the uninhabited prairie—though doubtless before many years are over, it will be covered with farms and homesteads—and approached the fringe of the settled country; patches of cultivated land and the log huts of the settlers beginning to show themselves here and there alongside the track.
Some eighty miles from Omaha, we cross the north fork of the Platte river over one of the usual long timber bridges on piles,—and continue to skirt the north bank of the Great Platte,—certainly a very remarkable river, being in some places three-quarters of a mile broad, with an average depth of only six inches! At length, on the afternoon of the fifth day, the engine gives a low whistle, and we find ourselves gliding into the station at Omaha.