State University, a modest cluster of good buildings. Then we drove
about the town to see the cowboys on their handsome horses, and the
young women who accompanied them, riding easily astride. There was to be
a morning exhibition of lassoing, racing, and other feats of skill and
strength. We met many people riding and driving into town, all in
holiday dress. But we pressed on Eastward.

We passed Red Buttes, having a grand view of the wonderfully colored
Buttes off to the left. Masses of blue larkspur grew in the fields and
alongside the Highway. We had left our beloved desert behind us and were
in rolling grass and grain country. Near the Colorado line we turned
toward the south to go to Denver, thereby missing the Ames Monument on
the direct route to Cheyenne. The mountains of Colorado now rose in the
near distance; rocky peaks, pine clad and snowy. At this point we met
some parties of travelers; a motor party from Lincoln, Nebraska, and
another from Lexington, Kentucky. Both motor cars were going into
Laramie for the celebration of the Fourth. The gentleman from Lexington,
who was driving his wife and himself, had a beautiful Locomobile
roadster, newly purchased in Chicago. His car had every modern equipment
and convenience, and he was mightily proud of it. We all halted to enjoy
the grand view of the country toward which they were moving and which we
were leaving behind us. Miles of rolling, grassy country, clean and
wind-swept, lay to the west. It was an inspiring prospect, and filled us
all with a sense of exaltation. Said the Kentucky lady to me, "I felt as
if everything bad in me was swept clear out of me when I first looked at
this wonderful view." A third party of travelers came along from
Cheyenne as we stood gazing. They had a unique outfit, a prairie
schooner drawn by four burros abreast. The father and mother, several
children, and a friend lived cheerfully in this moving house, making,
they told us, about fifteen miles a day. When they were short of funds,
they encamped in some town and the men worked to replenish the treasury.
They had their household food supplies neatly packed on shelves running
along the sides of their canvas canopy.

"This is our home," said the husband and father. The children were
gentle little creatures, but looked thin and underfed. All were bound
for some unknown haven on the Pacific coast or in the Northwest. They
felt sure that they would find rich farming country there still