Except that it was very pleasant to inhabit, we knew little of the
place we had ventured into, or its location. How we were to get out
did not appear, nor for the time being did this greatly concern us;
and soon after supper the camp was wrapped in slumber, undisturbed by
any coyote duet, or, on this occasion, even the twitter of a night
bird.

We did not hurry the next morning, the inclination being to linger
awhile in the shady grove by the brookside. With a late start, the
day's travel took us some twelve miles, through and out of the
valley, to a point where we made the best of a poor camping place, on
a rough, rocky hillside. The following day there was no road to
follow, nor even a buffalo trail or bear path; but by evening we
somehow found our way back into the course usually followed by
emigrants, not knowing whether the recent detour had lessened or
increased the miles of travel, but delighted with the comfort and
diversion afforded by the side-ride. Thinking that others, seeing our
tracks, might be led into similar difficulties, and be less fortunate
perhaps in overcoming them, two of our young men rode back to the
place of divergence, and erected a notice to all comers, advising them
to "Keep to the right."

Another freak of Nature in which we were much interested was the
"Devil's Gate," or "Independence Rock," where we first came to the
Sweetwater River, in Wyoming. This is a granite ridge, some two
hundred feet in length, irregular in formation and height, resembling
a huge molehill, extending down from the Rocky Mountain heights and
being across the river's course; the "Gate" being a vertical section,
the width of the stream, cut out of a spur of Rattlesnake Mountain. If
his Satanic majesty, whose name it bears, had charge of the
construction, apparently he intended it only as a passage-way for the
river, the cut being the exact width of the river as it flows through.
The greater part of the two walls stand two hundred and fifty feet
high, above the river level, perpendicular to the earth's plane,
facing each other, the river between them at the base. Many names had
been cut in the surface of the rock, by passing emigrants.

We stopped for half a day to view this extraordinary scene. Some of
the boys went to the apex, to see if the downward view made the rock
walls appear as high as did the upward view: and naturally they found
the distance viewed downward seemed much greater. Our intention was to
s