march of nine miles took them over the high rolling prairie to tin- North fork."

"Skirting the North fork for a day or two, I) annoyed by the misquitos, and buffalo gnats, they reached, on the evening of June 17th, a -mall but beautiful grove, from

which issued the confused notes of singing birds, the first they had heard since crossing the boundary of Missouri." This is the ravine that became historical as Ash Hollow.

"It was a beautiful sunset, and the sight of the glowing rays, mantling the tree tops and rustling of branches, gladdened every heart. They pitched their camp in the grove, kindled their fires, partook merrily of their rude fare, and resigned themselves to the sweetest sleep they had enjoyed since their outset upon the prairies."

The country now became more rugged and broken. High bluffs advanced upon the river and forced the travelers to occasionally leave its banks and wind their course into the interior.

Captain Bonneville ascended the high cliffs back of Chimney rock, and looked over the valley. "As far as the eye could reach the country seemed absolutely blackened with innumerable herds" of buffalo. "No language could convey an adequate idea of the vast living mass thus presented to the eye. He remarked that the bulls and the cows generally congregated in separate herds."

Here they began to see blacktail deer, which abounded in the hills, and were larger than the "prairie species," or antelope.

In the gap back of Castle rock they discovered the trail of four or five pedestrians, which later proved to be Crow spies, who had dogged the train in secret for several days, astonished at wagons and oxen, and especially a cow and a calf which were sedately following the caravan.