I was glad, therefore, when we saw the first timber of the foothills;
still gladder, for many reasons, when I found that we were entering the
winding course of a flattened, broken stream, which presently ran back
into a shingly valley, hedged in by ranks of noble mountains, snow white
on their peaks. Here life should prove easier to us for the time, the
country offering abundant shelter and fuel, perhaps game, and certainly
change from the monotony of the Plains.
Here, I said to myself, our westward journey must end. It would be
bootless to pass beyond Laramie into the mountains, and our next course,
I thought, must be toward the south. I did not know that we were then
perhaps a hundred miles or more northwest of Laramie, deep in a mountain
range far north of the transcontinental trail. For the time, however, it
seemed wise to tarry here for rest and recruiting. I threw down the
pack. "Now," said I to her, "we rest."
"Yes," she replied, turning her face to the south, "Laramie is that way
now. If we stop here my father will come and find us. But then, how
could he find us, little as we are, in this big country? Our trail would
not be different from that of Indians, even if they found it fresh
enough to read.
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