At the stage office we were informed that all the places for the night were engaged. Unwilling to lose a day we succeeded in securing a buckboard as an adjunct to the regular stage and started off shortly before midnight on our ride of 160 miles to the wind River. The night was glorious, the stars brilliant and the moon full of splendor. The regular stage preceded us, going ahead with four horses at a sharp gallop. As we drove across the sage-covered prairie the moon went down and the air became pierceing cold. At intervals we stopped to change horses, and at four we halted at a wretched cabin where we breakfasted. From time to time we passed long wagon trains, composed of three wagons fastened together and drawn by mules, carrying freight to the fort or wool to the railroad. Great bales of newly-shorn wool lay in piles by the wayside, and now and again we would hear the tinkle of sheep-bells and pass through large flocks of sheep, the young lambs running by the side of the ewes, while the herder with his dogs kept watch on the ourskirt of the flock.

The long twilight seemed to be almost followed by an intimation of the dawn, and we welcomed the sunrise which brought relief from the intense cold. The country became more and more diversified. Ascending a hill just at daybreak we came upon one of the great natural wonders of the region, a vast ravine filled with fantastically carved pinnacles of many-colored clay. This phenonomenon is locally known as the "Devil's Half Acre."

As the day advanced the sun's heat became intense, and the impalpable dust from the alkali plain most oppressive. Before noon we met a large coach coming from Lander. Horses were changed, we joined the occupants of the first coach, the entire company proceeding together. The place-names in this region are most suggestive. I could not fail to be interested in my fellow passengers who were bound for Lost Cabin. the drivers, too, were interesting, bright, alert young fellows, all wearing sixshooters strapped in a belt filled with cartidges. These weapons, one is told, are more for ornament than practical purposes. The stages were utterly dilapidated and creaked and groaned unceasingly as they rattled over the stones and deep ruts in the road. We passed the half-way point oppressed with the heat and utterly worn out with the sleepless night ride. The road now travered long ranges of mesa covered with grease-wood and sage-brush. No animal life was visible save little ground birds and an occasional sage-hen that ran, frightened, into the low brush. At sunset the cold again became intesnse and a piercing, icy wind from the distant snow-covered mountains chilled us through and through. we drew the miserable robes about us and tried to keep warm. Unterly worn out with fatigue we would doze off, to be awakened with a start as a jolt of the stage would thrown us forward, aching in each joint and muscle. Shortly after midnight we passed the Arapaho sub-agency and at four o'clock in the morning arrived in Lander.

"Excepting Idaho, it is the newest of the States in point of development. It waits upon the railroads to open it up. The Union Pacific Company has done this for the southern part, but until three years ago no other railway entered the State. Even now the other roads merely tap its eastern and northern edges. The Burlington and Missouri Railroad of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy system is pushing its rails into the northeastern part, having come up from Nebraska. It is finished to the Powder River in Sheridan County, and is graded to Sheridan which is a region of rich agricultural promise. This railroad must soon, one would think, push on to the Big Horn country, as we shall see. The Fremont, Elkhorn, and Misouri Valley Railroad, of the Chicago and Northwestern system is also building into the eastern part of the State, and so a beginning is made. But the old-fashioned stage lines are far more numerous than the railroads, and are the sole links between the railways and many interior communities."

Lander, Wyo., 1930's

Lander, Wyo., 1970's

Wind River Photos continued on next page.