Kelly was a tall, dark, slender man, with large melancholy eyes, soft, but never meeting you quite frankly—­eyes into which you could not look very far.  It is not easy for us to understand the life of this man and his “pard,” with their Indian wives and half-breed children, fifty miles from anywhere; yet they seemed very busy and comfortable.  He was asked how he liked it.  “It’s rather lonesome,” he replied.  He was a man of few words, and went about silently in carpet slippers, waiting on us at table.  No one else appeared, but we had glimpses of the Indian women in the kitchen preparing the meal.  After supper we all sat down on buffalo robes spread upon the dewless grass, while the sun went down in glory and the twilight gathered in the sky, realizing that we were camping out for the first time in our lives, and having a delicious sense of adventure, a first sip of the wine of the wilds.  “Early to bed and early to rise” is the rule in camp, and so when the stars came out we turned in.  As soon as the sun set another climate reigned over the Plains.  The nights are always cool, dry and delicious, and fifty miles of ambulance-traveling is a good preparation for sleep.  Yet when all was still I came out to look at the night, for everything was so strange and new that sleep at first would not come.  The scene was wild enough.  The twilight still glimmered faintly; the sky was thick with stars of a brightness never seen in more humid air; the Milky Way was like a fair white cloud; the fantastic bluffs looked stranger than ever against the pale green west; and the splendid comet was plunging straight down into; the Turtle’s mouth.  A light from the blacksmith’s forge glowed upon the buildings, tents and low trees:  in the stillness the hammer rang out loud, and there was a low murmur of voices from the officers’ tent.  In the middle of the night we were wakened by hearing the galloping of a horse, perhaps a passing traveler, and when it ceased a new sound came to our ears, the barking and whining of wolves.

The next morning we were off at six.  Our road lay in the green valley of the Chugwater, under the pale bluffs, channeled and seamed by the rains into strange shapes.  We never tired of watching our train as it wound up and down, the white-covered wagons with red wheels and blue bodies, the horsemen loping along, picturesquely dressed, with broad hats, large boots, blue trousers and shirts of every color.  Their riding was admirable, and as they appeared and disappeared among the trees or behind some rising ground the effect was always picturesque.  The valley was charming after so much desert, for it was long since we had seen a good tree.  The principal one in Cheyenne was not larger than a lilac-bush, and had to be kept wrapped in wet towels.  The light vivid tints of the box-elder contrasted well with the silvery willows and cottonwoods, and still better with the long rows of sage-brush in the foreground and the yellowish cliffs behind.  A high, singular butte called Chimney Rock was conspicuous for many miles; also a long one called the Table.  There were several ranches in the valley, and many splendid cattle.