circumstance of old knight-errant days to complete the illusion. But,
as one gazes with admiration on these towering buttresses of nature, it
is easy to realize that the most massive and imposing feudal castle, or
ramparts built with human hands, would look like children's toys beside
them. The weather is cool and bracing, and when, in the middle of the
afternoon, I reach Evanston, Wyo. Terr., too late to get dinner at the
hotel, I proceed to devour the contents of a bakery, filling the proprietor
with boundless astonishment by consuming about two-thirds of his stock.
When I get through eating, he bluntly refuses to charge anything,
considering himself well repaid by having witnessed the most extraordinary
gastronomic feat on record - the swallowing of two-thirds of a bakery.
Following the trail down Yellow Creek, I arrive at Hilliard after dark.
The Hilliardites are "somewhat seldom," but they are made of the right
material. The boarding-house landlady sets about preparing me supper,
late though it be; and the "boys" extend me a hearty invitation to turn
in with them for the night. Here at Hilliard is a long V-shaped flume,
thirty miles long, in which telegraph poles, ties, and cord wood are
floated down to the railroad from the pineries of the Uintah Mountains,
now plainly visible to the south. The "boys" above referred to are men
engaged in handling ties thus floated down; and sitting around the red-hot
stove, they make the evening jolly with songs and yarns of tie-drives,
and of wild rides down the long "V" flume. A happy, light-hearted set
of fellows are these "tie-men," and not an evening but their rude shanty
resounds with merriment galore. Fun is in the air to-night, and "Beaver"
(so dubbed on account of an unfortunate tendency to fall into every
hole of water he goes anywhere near) is the unlucky wight upon whom the
rude witticisms concentrate; for he has fallen into the water again to-
day, and is busily engaged in drying his clothes by the stove. They
accuse him of keeping up an uncomfortably hot fire, detrimental to
everybody's comfort but his own, and threaten him with dire penalties