We, like ships that pass on the sea, sometimes spoke a returned. No gloomy recital of disappointment could turn us back. The Golden West was our goal, and those who returned were but, to us, the too timid ones. In truth, has not the dream of the Pioneer been fully realized? Those men and women who endured so much? Did they not gain, enmass, the victory? And those who fell by the way--they were as those who perish in battle, but who leave the fruits of their devotion and success to others. Those young men who put their shoulders to the wheels, when our wagon might have otherwise become fast in the quicksands of the Platte, and those older men and women, too, that I looked upon as they trudged toward the West with the dogged determination of age, all made possible the future commonwealth. They ate of the fruit that was raised from the soil, their sons and daughters inherited the land. [Illustration: _Ford of the Green River._] Men who now count their wealth by hundreds of thousands, some by the millions of dollars, can remember their vain strivings when poor and on night-guard to look into the future; to see some faint glimpses of what Providence held in store for them in the Westward, Ho! Three subjects that follow are by the Sweetwater River. In one the Rattlesnake Hills are shown dim in the summer haze; in the second is the Rock Independence, and in the third is the noted "Devil's Gate," with its reflection in a pool of the stream. What a real blessing, though perhaps in disguise, is often enforced attention; enforced activity! Upon "The Journey" such it was. O, it was a balm to many an aching heart! A blessing the swiftly-changing scenes, the labor, the unavoidable routine of camp-life! Those whose trials were so great; those whose grief was so intense; those who were so quickly compelled to leave the new-made graves of their dead; yes, even these must take their part. There was no escape. It was a fiat--"thou shalt." The very aged, the sick would lift themselves up in their beds to look upon some famous place. The Rock Independence, The Devil's Gate--was not the writer propped up with pillows to look out, through the opening of the covers at the wagon front, upon them? Those places we had thought of, spoken of, for three months past--there they were. Many looked at them through tear-dimmed, or sick-weary eyes. The apathy that sometimes comes upon the traveller when he has reached some famous or hoped-for place, is well understood. But sometimes these climaxes are too strong even for that to conquer. The burial-tree of the Sioux; the first band of Indian braves; the buckskin dressed, the beaded, the dusky beauty of the wild, they made a claim. Yes, as I said, even the heart-stricken must look around, must take an interest, even if languid or disliking, in the passing world. There was perhaps a cruel kindness in this fact. All were compelled to hear the music, the singing, the laughing, the dancing, that followed, be the Company