Independence Rock is the other most famous landmark. We drove over to the Rock, a distance of six miles from the Devil's Gate, and camped at ten o'clock for the day. This famous boulder covers about thirty acres. We groped our way among the inscriptions, to find some of them nearly obliterated and many legible only in part. We walked all the way around the stone, nearly a mile. The huge rock is of irregular shape, and it is more than a hundred feet high, the walls being so precipitous that ascent to the top is possible in only two places. Unfortunately, we could not find Fremont's inscription. Of this inscription Fremont writes in his journal of the year 1842: "August 23. Yesterday evening we reached our encampment at Rock Independence, where I took some astronomical observations. Here, not unmindful of the custom of early travelers and explorers in our country, I engraved on this rock of the Far West a symbol of the Christian faith. Among the thickly inscribed names, I made on the hard granite the impression of a large cross. It stands amidst the names of many who have long since found their way to the grave and for whom the huge rock is a giant gravestone." On Independence Day, 1906, we left Independence Rock. Our noon stop was on Fish Creek, eleven miles away. The next night we camped on the North Platte River. Fifty-four years before, I had left the old stream about fifteen miles below here on my way to the West. Next day, while nooning several miles out from Casper, we heard the whistle of a locomotive. It was the first we had heard for nearly three hundred miles. As soon as lunch was over, I left the wagon and walked to Casper ahead of the team to select a camping ground, secure feed, and get the mail. A special meeting of the Commercial Club of Casper was held that evening, and I laid the matter of building a monument before the members. They resolved to build one, opened the subscription at once, and appointed a committee to carry the work forward. Since then a monument twenty-five feet high has been erected at a cost of fifteen hundred dollars. Glen Rock is a small village, but the ladies there met and resolved they would have "as nice a monument as Casper's." One enthusiastic lady said, "We will inscribe it ourselves, if no stonecutter can be had." At Douglas also an earnest, well-organized effort to erect the monument was well in hand before we drove out of town. As we journeyed on down the Platte, we passed thrifty ranches and thriving little towns. It was haying time, and the mowers were busy cutting alfalfa. The hay was being stacked. Generous ranchers invited us to help ourselves to their garden stuff. All along the way was a spirit of good cheer and hearty welcome.