between the
mules. The air was full of excitement for a while. The women screamed,
the children cried, and the men began to shout. But the practical
question was how to dispatch the bull without shooting the mules as
well. Trainmen forgot their own teams and rushed to the wagon in
trouble. The guns began to pop and the buffalo was finally killed. The
wonder is that nobody was harmed.

From Cokeville to Pacific Springs, just west of the summit of the Rocky
Mountains at South Pass, by the road and trail we traveled, is one
hundred and fifty-eight miles. Ninety miles of this stretch is away from
the sound of the locomotive, the click of the telegraph, or the voice of
the "hello girl." The mountains here are from six to seven thousand feet
above sea level, with scanty vegetable growth. The country is still
almost a solitude, save as here and there a sheep herder or his wagon
may be discerned. The sly coyote, the simple antelope, and the cunning
sage hen still hold sway as they did when I first traversed the country.
The old trail is there in all its grandeur.

[Illustration: Monument at Pocatello, Idaho.]

"Why mark that trail!" I exclaimed. Miles and miles of it are worn so
deep that centuries of storm will not efface it; generations may pass
and the origin of the trail may become a legend, but these marks will
remain.

We wondered to see the trail worn fifty feet wide and three feet deep,
and we hastened to photograph it. But after we were over the crest of
the mountain, we saw it a hundred feet wide and fifteen feet deep. The
tramp of thousands upon thousands of men and women, the hoofs of
millions of animals, and the wheels of untold numbers of vehicles had
loosened the soil, and the fierce winds had carried it away. In one
place we found ruts worn a foot deep into the solid rock.

The mountain region was as wild as it had been when I first saw it. One
day, while we were still west of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming, two
antelopes crossed the road about a hundred yards ahead of us, a buck and
a doe. The doe soon disappeared, but the buck came near the road and
stood gazing at us in wonderment, as if to ask, "Who the mischief are
you?"

[Illustration: Deep ruts had been worn in the solid rock of the trail
through the mountain country.]

Our dog Jim soon scented him, and away they went up the mountain side
until Jim got tired and came back to the wagon. Then the antelope
stopped on a little eminence on the mount