to tell
what they would have done "had they been there;" but this priggish gascon
was the first I had ever seen put to the test, and I believe him to be a
fair sample of that smart class who could, if you take their words for it,
have done better on any given occasion than those whom the occasion found
"there."

Emerging from the Platte Valley, we realized the fact that we were fairly
on our way to the far West, ready to take in with insatiable avidity all
the immensity and grandeur of our territorial scenery.

Arriving at Cheyenne, we were surprised to find a comfortable
hotel-omnibus in waiting, and most of the concomitants of a metropolis,
notwithstanding the oft-expressed surprise and fear of friends at the
daring venture of two unprotected women in going alone to this lawless and
God-forsaken country.

Alas for the demoralizing influence of so-called civilization! While in
the elegant counting-rooms of polished millionaires in more eastern
localities we had occasionally met with insults and snubs; in this place
of reputed "roughs" we received not one rebuff, and were greeted not
merely with respect, but with unbounded generosity. While we found rough
diamonds, they were diamonds nevertheless.

Over this city has since swept the tidal wave of reform, and a great
temperance awakening evoked by one of the great workers in that movement,
Mr. Page, who, with gentle yet royal mandate, has said to the many
"troubled waters," with their sad wrecks of human souls--"peace! be
still!"

We find it vain to depict by our feeble word-painting the many-hued,
many-voiced phases nature assumes in this almost boundless domain, and the
yet untold, undeveloped depths of our territorial resources. Mountains
looming up in imperial grandeur, their snow-crowned summits melting into
cloud and sky; weird canyons, in which the whispered words of worship from
a myriad devotees seem to echo and re-echo through their dark depths;
giant trees:

"The murmuring pines and hemlock,
Bearded with moss and in garments of green,
Indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of Eld,
With voices sad and prophetic."

Among the many military posts Fort Bridger, named for the famous trapper
and guide of oft-written and oft-told fame, is also renowned as one of the
posts of our gallant frontier officer, Albert Sydney Johnston, who won his
first laurels amid the first Mormon troubles, and gallantly fell at Shiloh
early in the Civi