s of evil. One morning after we had
left camp, a favorite cow was missing from the drove. "Jack" Aston and
Major Crewdson, both young fellows, rode back in search of the stray.
From a little hill-top they saw, in a ravine below, some half dozen
Indians busily engaged in skinning the cow. "Jack" and the Major
returned and merely reported what they had seen. They were asked why
they had not demanded of those "rascally" Indians that they explain
why they were skinning a cow that did not belong to them. "Jack"
promptly answered that, as for himself, he had never been introduced
to this particular party of Indians, and was not on speaking terms
with them; furthermore, neither he nor the Major had sufficient
knowledge of the Indian language properly to discuss the matter with
them.

The route pursued led to the north of Great Salt Lake, thence
northwesterly. Our line of travel did not therefore bring us within
view of the Mormon settlements which had already been established at
the southerly end of the great inland sea.

We camped one night approximately where the city of Ogden now stands,
then a desolate expanse of sand-dunes. A group of our men sat around
the camp-fire that evening, discussing the probability of a railroad
ever being constructed over the route we were traveling. All of them
were natives or recent residents of the Middle West, and it is
probable that not one had ever seen a railroad. The unanimous opinion
was that such a project as the building of a railroad through
territory like that over which we had thus far traveled would be a
task so stupendous as to baffle all human ingenuity and skill. Yet,
some twelve years later, the ceremony of driving the famous "last
spike," completing the railroad connection between the Atlantic and
Pacific, was performed on a sand flat very near the spot where we
camped that night. The intervening period saw the establishment of the
"pony express," which greatly facilitated the mail service
(incidentally reducing letter postage to Pacific Coast points from
twenty-five to ten cents). That service continued from the early
sixties until through railroad connection was made.

After the consolidation of trains as described, our next neighbor to
the rear was Smith Holloway, whose "outfit" consisted of three wagons,
with a complement of yokewise oxen and some horses and mules; also a
large drove of stock cattle, intended for the market in California,
where it was known they would