re often bare in August. In these parks the cattle live without
shelter in winter, and the timber is large and plentiful at eleven
thousand feet elevation. Glaciers are wanting, but instead we have the
rich vegetation, the wide range of mountains, the pure, dry and balmy
atmosphere, and a variety, a depth and a softness of color which can
hardly be equaled on earth.

Having stopped an hour to enjoy the view from the brow of the mountain
which forms the rim of the Park, we were overtaken by one of the
sudden rains which occur here, and had to drive six miles along the
level bottom, till, crossing a brook, we found ourselves at sunset
near a large log cabin, where we were glad to be allowed to lie down
on the floor under shelter.

It was occupied by some young people named McLaughlin, two sisters and
a brother, who had come up from the Plains, where their family lived,
with a herd of cattle, from the milk of which the girls made one
hundred pounds of butter per week, for which they got fifty cents a
pound in the mines. In the fall they returned home, leaving the cattle
for the winter in certain sheltered regions called "the range." They
were stout, healthy young women, who did not fear to stay here all
alone for days at a time while their brother was galloping about the
Park on his broncho after his cattle. They did not keep tavern, but
were often obliged to take in benighted travelers like ourselves, to
whom they gave the shelter of their roof and the privilege of cooking
at their stove. The house was about forty by twenty feet, all in one
room, though one end was parted off by blankets, behind which they
admitted the lady of our party. Sometimes they were visited by Utes,
who are not unfriendly, though, like most Indians, they are audacious
beggars. "They try to scare us sometimes," said Jane: "they tell us,
'Bimeby Utes get all this country--then you my squaw,' but we don't
scare worth a cent." Their nearest neighbor is a sister four miles
away, who is the wife of Squire Lechner, innkeeper and justice of the
peace.

_Aug_. 23. Started this morning at eleven for Lechner's. Passed some
deserted mining-camps, where the surface had been seamed and scarred
by the diggers; then across a creek, where we saw ducks and a
red-tailed hawk. Squire Lechner has a large log tavern on the brow of
a hill: he was absent, but his wife took us in. Sepia went on the hill
to sketch, and we others drove off in search of a trout-brook of w