222    FROM  THE  WEST  TO   THE  WEST
grave was made under a spreading juniper-tree, in whose branches the wild birds chant his requiem as the years roll on, and the eternal breezes sing.
' The next morning, August 29, found the face of Nature covered everywhere with a thick coating of hoar-frost. Ice had formed during the night in the water-pails, an eighth of an inch in thickness, and an inspiriting sensation of chilliness filled the air. But as the sun rode high in the brassy heavens, the day grew intensely hot. On and on and up and up the ailing cattle labored; and on and on and up and up the dispirited company toiled, footsore and weary, ragged and dirty. But hope was not dead; for was not the goal of their ambition now almost in sight?
The mountains of Powder River were next crossed, and the weary pilgrims emerged upon an open plain over which the pygmy sagebrush of the desert ran riot. Here a quarter of a century later an enterprising city was destined to arise, in the midst of abounding mines and burdened wheatfields, wherein the irrigated lands would drop fatness and the stockman grow rich among the cattle of a thousand hills.
" This valley," wrote Jean, under date of September 1, " is beautiful to look upon; but it is considered worthless, as it is too dry for cultivation, and there is no way to rid the land of the ever-obtruding sage. Daddie says it will never be made to sprout white beans."
The ranchers, stock-raisers, mine-owners, merchants, artisans, mechanics, speculators, newspaper men, politicians, and successful schemers in every walk of life can well afford to forgive Daniel Webster, John Ranger, and every other false prophet who in his day harped on the same string, in view of the continuous fields of wheat, oats, barley, rye, vetch, hops, and fruits of all kinds peculiar to the temperate zone which this wonderfully fertile valley now produces under the impulse of irrigation, not