“What will I do for you if you stop here among us? Why, I'll name that peak after you in the next survey,” said Governor Gilpin, pointing to a snowy mountain towering to its 15,000 feet in the direction of Mount Lincoln. I was not to be tempted, however; and as for Dixon, there is already a county named after him in Nebraska: so off we went along the foot of the hills on our road to the Great Salt Lake, following the “Cherokee Trail.”

Striking north from Denver by Vasquez Fork and Cache la Poudre—called “Cash le Powder,” just as Mount Royal has become Montreal, and Sault de St. Marie, Soo—we entered the Black Mountains, or Eastern foot-hills, at Beaver Creek. On the second day, at two in the afternoon, we reached Virginia Dale for breakfast, without adventure, unless it were the shooting of a monster rattlesnake that lay “coiled in our path upon the mountain side.” Had we been but a few minutes later, we should have made it a halt for “supper” instead of breakfast, as the drivers had but these two names for our daily meals, at whatever hour they took place. Our “breakfasts “varied from 3.30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; our suppers from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m.