The cone of Soda Butte stands out on the open and level plain of the valley, an isolated beehive-shaped mass eighty feet high, and presenting a rough appearance of irregular courses of crumbled gray stone. It is a perfectly extinct geyser-cone, chiefly notable for its seeming isolation from other deposits of like nature, of which, however, the nearer hills show some evidence. Close to the butte is a spring, pointed out to us by the major's orderly, who had been left behind to secure our tasting its delectable waters, which have immense credit as of tonic and digestive value. I do not distinctly recall all the nasty tastes which have afflicted my palate, but I am quite sure this was one of the vilest. It was a combination of acid, sulphur and saline, like a diabolic julep of lucifer-matches, bad eggs, vinegar and magnesia. I presume its horrible taste has secured it a reputation for being good when it is down. Close by it kindly Nature has placed a stream of clear, sweet water. A mile or so more brought us (August 3d) to camp, which was pitched at the end of the valley of Soda Butte. We had had eleven hours in the saddle, and had not ridden over twenty-eight or thirty miles. The train came straggling in late, and left us time to sharpen our appetites and admire the reach of grassy plain, the bold brown summits around us, and at our feet a grass-fringed lake of two or three acres. This pond is fed by a quick mountain-stream of a temperature of 45 deg. Fahrenheit, and the only outlet is nearly blocked up by a tangled network of weeds and fallen timber which prevents the fish from escaping. The bottom is thick with long grasses, and food must be abundant in this curious little preserve. The shores slope, so that it is necessary to use a raft to get at the deep holes in the middle. At breakfast next morning some one growled about the closeness of the night air, when we were told, to our surprise, that the minimum thermometer marked 36 deg. as the lowest night temperature. Certain it is, the out-of-door-life changes one's feelings about what is cold and what is not. While we were discussing this a soldier brought in a five-pound trout taken in the lake, which so excited the fishermen that presently there was a raft builded, and the major and Mr. T., with bare feet, were loading their frail craft with huge trout, and, alas! securing for themselves a painful attack of sunburn. I found all these large trout to have fatty degeneration of the heart and liver, but no worms. They took the fly well.