ey were
drinking, and watering their tired horses at a small station on the
railway. There were plenty of little children in the caravan. One woman
dandled a tiny baby. A little farther on we came to a second and smaller
camp. These people were traveling from Kansas to Washington. "There is
good land there still that can be taken up by homesteaders, fine fruit
lands," said they. One man had seen the land and was acting as guide for
the others. Their wagons were drawn by horses and burros. The children
were sweet, cheerful little people, but the whole party looked somewhat
underfed. I would have liked to give them all the luxury of a hot bath
in a big tub to be followed by a substantial supper. They had their
water with them, having hauled it from the last point where water was to
be had. They deplored the fact that they had camped before knowing of
the Union Pacific Station a little farther on. Water is a precious thing
in the desert. We have passed two places where signs read that water
could be had at the rate of five cents per beast and twenty-five cents a
barrel. At the watering stations on the Union Pacific Railroad, the
wells are the property of the Road. Before we came into Medicine Bow, we
passed through a little mining town, high and bare on the summit of a
ridge. Just outside the town was a bare little cemetery, the brown
graves decorated with paper crosses and wreaths. An iron fence protected
the cemetery, and outside its boundaries was an untidy litter of old
wreaths and crosses which had been discarded and had been blown by the
wind in tight heaps against the fence.

[Illustration: 1. Road in Wyoming costing $50,000 per mile. 2.
Characteristic Sign on Lincoln Highway.]

Ten miles beyond Medicine Bow the character of the country suddenly
changed. We came from the grey and brown desert into fine rolling
uplands dotted with the new homes of homesteaders and green with the
precious water of irrigation. This was a country newly settled and
bearing every mark of prosperity. At one point on the road we had great
difficulty in getting through. A careless settler had allowed the water
of his irrigating ditch to run out upon the road. It was with the
greatest difficulty that we succeeded in getting through the mud. Only
the help of some fellow motorists from San Francisco, who stopped to
push the car while T. turned on its power, enabled us to get through. A
few miles on we met the road commissioner who proudly call