r the non-performance. The miners listened to the
long discussions on these points impatiently, and compared the courts
unfavorably with the miners' courts, which unloosed all such Gordian
knots with Alexander's directness.

In the month of September, 1864, reports came to Virginia of mines on
the Yellowstone. The reports were founded on some strange tales of old
trappers, and were clothed with a vagueness and mystery as uncertain as
dreams. Yet on such unsubstantial bases every miner built a pet theory,
and a large "stampede" took place in consequence. I started with a party
for the new mines, early in October. A day's ride brought us to the
Madison Fork, a broad, shallow stream, difficult of fording on account
of its large boulders, and flowing through a narrow strip of arable
land. Very different is the Gallatin, beyond. It is cut up into narrow
streams of a very rapid current, and waters a valley of surprising
fertility. The Snakes called it Swift River. This valley is forty miles
long and from ten to fifteen wide, and rising at its sides into low
plateaus plenteously covered with rich bunch-grass. It is already
pre-empted by farmers, and by easy irrigation are produced all the
hardier vegetables and cereals, in quantity, size, and closeness of
fibre not equalled on the Iowa prairies. The valley gradually widens as
you descend the stream, until, at the junction of the Three Forks, it
stretches into a broad prairie, sufficient alone to supply all the mines
with grain and vegetables. A few enterprising speculators once laid out
a town here, with all the pomp and circumstance of Martin Chuzzlewit's
Eden. Pictures of it were made, with steamers lying at the wharves and a
university in the suburbs. Liberal donations of lots were made to the
first woman married, to the first newspaper, to the first church, to the
first child born. But there were no mines near, and the city never had
an inhabitant. The half-dozen buildings put up by the proprietors are
left for the nightly carnivals of bats and owls.

On our road we passed a half-dozen huts, dignified with the name of
Bozeman City. Here lives a Cincinnatus in retirement, one of the great
pioneers of mountain civilization, named Bozeman. To him belongs the
credit of having laid out the Bozeman Cut-off, on the road from Fort
Laramie to Virginia, and he is looked up to among emigrants much as
Chief-Justice Marshall is among lawyers. I saw the great man, with one
foot moccaso