If we stepped off from it the foot sank in about two inches in
dirt finer than the finest flour. The bones were scattered all along,
sometimes the bones of several animals together. Was it the long drive,
poison water, or what? It was evident they had not been killed but had
dropped along the way.
It was a dreary trail at best, and these evidences of death did not help
to brighten it in the least. We wondered often where it led to and what
new things would be our experience. After walking fast all day we came
to quite an elevation, where we could stand and look in all directions.
The low black range where we left the Jayhawkers was in sight, and this
spur of the great snowy mountains extended a long way to the south, and
seemed to get lower and lower, finally ending in low rocky buttes, a
hundred miles away. Some may think this distance very far to see, but
those who have ever seen the clear atmosphere of that region will bear
me out in these magnificent distances. Generally a mountain or other
object seen at a distance would be three or four times as far off as one
would judge at first sight, so deceptive are appearances there. The
broad south end of the great mountain which we first saw the next
morning after we left the wagons, was now plain in sight, and peak after
peak extending away to the north, all of them white with snow. Standing
thus out in the plain we could see the breadth of the mountain east and
west, and it seemed as though it must have been nearly a hundred miles.
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