Have we seen the desert, the mountains? No.
It is but a glimpse--a flat space blackened with prairie-fires, a
distant view of purple peaks. Few become intimate with this our
wonderful frontier, and most people scorn it as an empty, useless,
monotonous space, barren as the sea.

We left Cheyenne early in July, under the care of a paymaster of the
U.S.A., to visit with him some of the forts and Indian agencies of
Wyoming Territory and beyond. Our party consisted of twelve persons,
including six ladies and three children. There were two ambulances for
us, and three wagons containing all the comforts necessary in camping
out for some weeks. It was promised that we should see wonders, and
should go where no white women had ever been before. At 6.45 on a
beautiful morning, with a fresh breeze blowing over the desert, the
party set forth, looking forward with delight to a continuous picnic a
month long. Soon every vestige of human habitation disappeared, and we
were alone in the midst of one of the loneliest lands in the world.
Sahara itself, that bugbear of childhood, could not be much more
desert than this. Fort Laramie, distant nearly one hundred miles, two
long days' journey toward the north, was our first point of
destination. Over ridge after ridge of the vast rolling plains,
clothed with thin brown grass, we rode: no other vegetation was
visible but the prickly pear, white thistle and yucca, or Spanish
bayonet--stiff, gray, stern plants, suited to the stony, arid soil.
The road was good, the vehicle comfortable, the air sweet and cool:
along the many ruts in the sand grew long rows of sunflowers, which
fill every trail on the plains for hundreds of miles, and give a
little color to the colorless scene. The season of flowers was nearly
over in that rainless country, but a few still lingered, and among
them was the familiar larkspur, growing wild. At first, the long low
hills seemed lonely as graves, but we soon found there was not a rod
of ground but had its inhabitants. Everywhere something was moving,
some little beast, bird or insect: larks sang and perked about on the
stones; prairie-birds twittered; gophers (pretty creatures with
feathery tails and leopard spots) slid rapidly to their holes;
prairie-dogs sat like sentinels upon their mounds and barked like
angry puppies; great pink-and-gray grasshoppers, so fat that they
could hardly waddle, indulged their voracity; and brown crickets and
butterflies were seen on