Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/180

164 On the twenty-ninth we make a good drive to the vicinity of Port Bridger. We find here a considerable number of mountain men, and some professional gamblers, who went from place to place, from one rendezvous to another to prey upon the trappers and hunters. These latter generally have native women, and their camps are ornamented with green boughs and flowers. In some we find men playing cards; near others shooting matches are in progress; all seem enjoying themselves. A small party is here from Oregon, and one of the number, named Smith, passes from camp fire to camp fire to tell us that he dislikes Oregon so much that he can hardly tell the truth about it. He is known to many in our train, however, and his voluble talk is not much heeded. In one point we found him sustained by others, namely, that we were then only about halfway of our journey.

There was one thing extraordinary about the eleven hundred or twelve hundred miles we had driven: In that great distance our wheels had not touched stone but twice or thrice; once in driving across North Platte, and a short distance on the Sweetwater side of the South Pass. The bottom of Green River, where we forded, was fine gravel, and smooth, as compared with the moving sand bottom of the main and South Platte. The famous Blue Mound was not rock, but simply rounded gravel and soil. Independence Rock was the first real rock formation we came to; as that which looks to the eye as Castle Rock, Scott's Bluff, and Chimney Rock is too young as a formation to deserve the name of stone.

By this time we were undergoing and performing what Oregon's poet has since sung:

"On the Rocky Mountains' height their watch fires shone by night,

Or upon the savage plains brightly gleam;

They the dreary deserts cross, where the frowning canyons mass,

Or they swim and ford the swiftly running stream.