ed our
attention to the work that was being done on the roads of his county. He
told us that he was on his way to arrest and fine the careless
homesteader who had flooded the road. After this fine stretch of fertile
country we plunged once more into a long stretch of desert. It was here
that I saw and welcomed the beautiful yucca that I had seen growing in
California. I saw too in Wyoming quantities of cactus blooming in broad
patches of color, usually buff.

All day we mounted one ridge after another, buttes to the left and to
the right of us; driving through a vast country with practically no
ranch houses and only isolated stations on the railroad for watering
purposes.

As we approached Wamsutter a wonderful great tableland lay to the right
of us, very high and with an immense level top. It was like a fortress
with its buttresses and ramparts carved by nature. To the left was a
butte that was like a side view of the Sphinx, an immense pyramid rising
beside it. As we came into Wamsutter, we drove along a ridge where the
road had been laid to avoid a low marshy tract of land.

Red Desert Station, just before reaching Wamsutter, is well named, the
buttes having wonderful color.

The day was hot, and it was a relief when the afternoon sun began to
decline. We felt that we were dropping with it. But we were dropping
toward the East while it was falling toward the West. In the afternoon,
out on the great plain, we had crossed the Continental Divide. It had
not been marked by any visible elevation of land above the surrounding
country. All was open country, rolling and vast, and yet we had ascended
the Western slope and were now going down to the Mississippi Valley.

We must soon begin to say farewell to the Plateau States. The long
upward climb is practically over. We look forward with the streams to
the Atlantic, leaving behind the water courses to the Pacific.

Shortly after crossing the Divide we came to a low head stone and a
wooden cross at the left of the road, marking the grave of a man of
thirty-five who died in 1900. It is a lone grave on this rolling ridge,
yet it is destined to be passed by many travelers in future years.

Some day the Divide will be marked upon the Lincoln Highway by a
monument, and the traveler will have a satisfactory outward expression
of the thoughts that fill his heart.

Rawlins was our halting place for the night. It is a pleasant town with
wide streets and plenty of sunshine. Th