We reach the summit of the Rocky Mountains at midnight on the 17th.  The climate changes suddenly, and the cold is intense.  We resume runners, have a breakdown, and are forced to walk four miles. I remember that one of the numerous reasons urged in favor of General Fremont's election to the Presidency in 1856 was his finding the path across the Rocky Mountains.  I wrung my frostbitten hands on that dreadful night, and declared that for me to deliberately go over that path in mid-winter was a sufficient reason for my election to any lunatic asylum, by an overwhelming vote. Another sensation.  Not comic this time.  One of our passengers, a fair-haired German boy, whose sweet ways had quite won us all, sank on the snow, and said--Let me sleep.  We knew only too well what that meant, and tried hard to rouse him.  It was in vain.  Let me sleep, he said.  And so in the cold starlight he died.  We took him up tenderly from the snow, and bore him to the sleigh that awaited us by the roadside, some two miles away.  The new moon was shining now, and the smile on the sweet white face told how painlessly the poor boy had died.  No one knew him.  He was from the Bannock mines, was ill-clad, had no baggage or money, and his fare was paid to Denver.  He had said that he was going back to Germany.  That was all we knew.  So at sunrise the next morning we buried him at the foot of the grand mountains that are snow-covered and icy all the year round, far away from the Faderland, where it may be, some poor mother is crying for her darling who will not come. We strike the North Platte on the 18th. At Elk Mountain we encounter a religious driver named Edward Whitney, who never swears at the mules.  This has made him distinguished all over the plains.  This pious driver tried to convert the Doctor, but I am mortified to say that his efforts were not crowned with success, Fort Halleck is a mile from Elk, and here are some troops of the Ohio 11th regiment, under the command of Major Thomas L. Mackey. On the 20th we reach Rocky Thomas's justly celebrated station at 5 in the morning, and have a breakfast of hashed black-tailed deer, antelope steaks, ham, boiled bear, honey, eggs, coffee, tea, and cream.  That was the squarest meal on the road except at Weber. To Virginia Dale.  Weather clear and bright.  Virginia Dale is a pretty spot, as it ought to be with such a pretty name; but I treated with no little scorn the advice of a hunter I met there, who told me to give up "literatoor," form a matrimonial alliance with some squaws, and "settle down thar."