conundrum worth investigating.




CHAPTER XII.

Just beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon emigrant train of
thirty-three wagons; and tramping wearily along and driving their herd of
loose cows, were dozens of coarse-clad and sad-looking men, women and
children, who had walked as they were walking now, day after day for
eight lingering weeks, and in that time had compassed the distance our
stage had come in eight days and three hours--seven hundred and
ninety-eight miles! They were dusty and uncombed, hatless, bonnetless
and ragged, and they did look so tired!

After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a (previously) limpid,
sparkling stream--an appreciated luxury, for it was very seldom that our
furious coach halted long enough for an indulgence of that kind. We
changed horses ten or twelve times in every twenty-four hours--changed
mules, rather--six mules--and did it nearly every time in four minutes.
It was lively work. As our coach rattled up to each station six
harnessed mules stepped gayly from the stable; and in the twinkling of an
eye, almost, the old team was out, and the new one in and we off and away
again.

During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek, Independence Rock,
Devil's Gate and the Devil's Gap. The latter were wild specimens of
rugged scenery, and full of interest--we were in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains, now. And we also passed by "Alkali" or "Soda Lake," and we