but gave one the impression
that they had been made for other people. Their pale faces told that
they were "tenderfeet," and one could see there was a sad lacking of
brains all around.

The road comes across a valley the first ten or twelve miles, and
then runs into a magnificent canon that is sixteen miles long, called
Prickly-Pear Canon. As I wrote some time ago, everything is brought up
to this country by enormous ox trains, some coming from the railroad at
Corinne, and some that come from Fort Benton during the Summer, having
been brought up by boat on the Missouri River. In the canons these
trains are things to be dreaded. The roads are very narrow and the
grades often long and steep, with immense boulders above and below.

We met one of those trains soon after we entered the canon, and at the
top of a grade where the road was scarcely wider than the stage itself
and seemed to be cut into a wall of solid rock. Just how we were to pass
those huge wagons I did not see. But the driver stopped his horses and
two of the men got out, the third stopping on the step and holding on to
the stage so it was impossible for me to get out, unless I went out
the other door and stood on the edge of an awful precipice. The driver
looked back, and not seeing me, bawled out, "Where is the lady?" "Get
the lady out!" The man on the step jumped down then, but the driver
did not put his reins down, or move from his seat until he had seen me
safely on the ground and had directed me where to stand.

In the meantime some of the train men had come up, and, as soon as the
stage driver was ready, they proceeded to lift the stage--trunks and
all--over and on some rocks and tree tops, and then the four horses were
led around in between other rocks, where it seemed impossible for them
to stand one second. There were three teams to come up, each consisting
of about eight yoke of oxen and three or four wagons. It made me almost
ill to see the poor patient oxen straining and pulling up the grade
those huge wagons so heavily loaded. The crunching and groaning of the
wagons, rattling of the enormous cable chains, and the creaking of the
heavy yokes of the oxen were awful sounds, but above all came the yells
of the drivers, and the sharp, pistol-like reports of the long whips
that they mercilessly cracked over the backs of the poor beasts. It was
most distressing.

After the wagons had all passed, men came back and set the stage on
the road in the s