Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/178

 the Medicine Bow in the south; north of them the Sweetwater and Rattlesnake ranges, and in the west the Teton, Shoshone and Gros Ventres mountains. The extreme northeast is penetrated by the Black Hills from South Dakota. The loftiest peak is Fremont’s in the Wind River Mountains, two and a half miles high, with others of almost as great elevation.

The Wind River Mountains display that remarkable fact which is probably familiar to our readers. Rain falling in a comparative brief area divides so that some of the drops flow westward and find their way into the Columbia and thence to the Pacific. Another part of the rainfall or melted snow winds its way ultimately to the Colorado and into the Gulf of California, while a third gropes to the Missouri and finally into the Gulf of Mexico. The southeastern part of the State, through which our friends were journeying, is drained by the North Fork of the Platte and its affluents, including the Laramie and Sweetwater rivers, the Lodge Pole, Rock, Poison Spring, Medicine Bow, Horse and Rawhide creeks. It may be added that that grand national playground known as the