As I penetrate the Laramie Plains the persistent sage-brush, that has
constantly hovered around my path for the last thousand miles, grows
beautifully less, and the short, nutritious buffalo-grass is creeping
everywhere. In Carbon, where I arrive after dark, I mention among other
things in reply to the usual volley of questions, the fact of having to
foot it so great a proportion of the way through the mountain country;
and shortly afterward, from among a group of men, I hear a voice, thick
and husky with "valley tan," remark: " Faith, Oi cud roide a bicycle
meself across the counthry av yeez ud lit me walluk it afut!" and
straightway a luminous bunch of shamrocks dangled for a brief moment in
the air, and then vanished. After passing Medicine Bow Valley and Como
Lake I find some good ridable road, the surface being hard gravel and
the plains high and dry. Reaching the brow of one of those rocky ridges
that hereabouts divide the plains into so many shallow basins, I find
myself suddenly within a few paces of a small herd of antelope peacefully
grazing on the other side of the narrow ridge, all unconscious of the
presence of one of creation's alleged proud lords. My ever-handy revolver
rings out clear and sharp on the mountain air, and the startled antelope
go bounding across the plain in a succession of quick, jerky jumps
peculiar to that nimble animal; but ere they have travelled a hundred
yards one of them lags behind and finally staggers and lays down on the
grass. As I approach him he makes a gallant struggle to rise and make
off after his companions, but the effort is too much for him, and coming
up to him, I quickly put him out of pain by a shot behind the ear. This
makes a proud addition to my hitherto rather small list of game, which
now comprises jack-rabbits, a badger, a fierce gosling, an antelope, and
a thin, attenuated coyote, that I bowled over in Utah.

>From this ridge an extensive view of the broad, billowy plains and