Our course ran through a deep ravine all the way, and we crossed four creeks, one of them a very difficult one. The banks were about five feet above the water, and densely covered by thorny bushes. The creek was too wide to jump, so we were compelled, _nolens volens_, to scratch our way down through the briers and then wade to the opposite side, where the scratching ensued again in climbing out. This nauseous smelling shrub, the sage, grows in great quantities. It makes our marching very disagreeable, being so stiff, gnarled and thorny, growing sometimes to the height of five feet and the largest trunks measuring from eighteen to twenty-two inches in circumference. Split and twisted, with a strong appearance of dead, dry wood, the bark resembles that of the cedar, being dry and shelly. The day was exceedingly sultry and oppressive; the atmosphere was perfectly calm, not a leaf trembling, and the air seemed heated like that of a furnace, causing an unpleasant feeling of lassitude and a difficulty in respiration. The heat of the day was the more strange from the fact that ice was found this morning three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness. _July 4_ (Sunday). We made one of the most fatiguing marches of the entire trip, and employed our minds in contrasting our celebration of the American Independence of to-day with that of last year. In no very pleasant mood, we made a march of fourteen and a half miles, and encamped on the North Fork of the Platte River. When we arrived at the river we found all the bluffs of sandstone, of curious shapes and colors, looking like stupendous churches or other buildings in various styles of architecture, surmounted by lofty minarets, turrets, spires and domes. At night, the scene might easily be taken for a city standing near us. The road all through the march was about six inches deep with dust, and not a green thing was visible to cheer the aching eyes, half blinded by the glaring light which was reflected by the heated sand--not a blade of grass, nothing but sage, from one end of the march to the other. One of our men shot a sage hen near the close of the march, and when we came into camp we set about to ascertain whether these fowls can be made into good food; a stew was made, but the word _good_ would be, I fear, a superfluity.