On June 22 we were still camped at Pacific Springs. I had searched for a suitable stone for a monument to be placed on the summit of the range, and, after almost despairing of finding one, had come upon exactly what was wanted. The stone lay alone on the mountain side; it is granite, I think, but mixed with quartz, and is a monument hewed by the hand of Nature.
Immediately after dinner we hitched the oxen to Mr. Halter's wagon. With the help of four men we loaded the stone, after having dragged it on the ground and over the rocks a hundred yards or so down the mountain side. We estimated its weight at a thousand pounds.
There being no stonecutter at Pacific Springs to inscribe the monument, the clerk at the store formed the letters on stiff pasteboard. He then cut them out to make a paper stencil, through which the shape of the letters was transferred to the stone by crayon marks. The letters were then cut out with a cold chisel, deep enough to make a permanent inscription. The stone was so hard that it required steady work all day to cut the twenty letters and figures: THE OREGON TRAIL, 1843-57.
We drove out of Pacific Springs at a little after noon and stopped at the summit to dedicate the monument. Then we left the summit and drove twelve miles to the point called Oregon Slough, where we put up the tent after dark.
The reader may think of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains as a precipitous defile through narrow canyons and deep gorges. Nothing is farther from the fact. One can drive through this Pass for several miles without realizing that the dividing line between the waters of the Pacific and those of the Atlantic has been passed. The road is over a broad, open, undulating prairie, the approach is by easy grades, and the descent, going east, is scarcely noticeable.
All who were toiling west in the old days looked upon this spot as the turning point of their journey. There they felt that they had left the worst of the trip behind them. Poor souls that we were! We did not know that our worst mountain climbing lay beyond the summit of the Rockies, over the rugged Western ranges.
[Illustration: Nooning beside the prairie schooner.]
THE sight of Sweetwater River, twenty miles out from South Pass, revived many pleasant memories and some that were sad. I could remember the sparkling, clear water, the green skirt of undergrowth along the banks, and the restful camps, as we trudged along up the stream so many years ago. And now I saw the same channel, the same hills, and apparently the same waters swiftly passing. But where were the camp fires? Where was the herd of gaunt cattle? Where the sound of the din of bells? The hallooing for lost children? Or the little groups off on the hillside to bury the dead? All were gone.