In the wofully dusty horseman in charge of the expedition I recognized
John -----.   Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky
Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have
looked for.   We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. 
But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had
never been renewed.   The act of which I speak was this.   I had been
accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third
story of a building and overlooked the street.   One day this editor gave
me a watermelon which I made preparations to devour on the spot, but
chancing to look out of the window, I saw John standing directly under it
and an irresistible desire came upon me to drop the melon on his head,
which I immediately did.   I was the loser, for it spoiled the melon, and
John never forgave me and we dropped all intercourse and parted, but now
met again under these circumstances.

We recognized each other simultaneously, and hands were grasped as warmly as if no coldness had ever existed between us, and no allusion was made to any.  All animosities were buried and the simple fact of meeting a familiar face in that isolated spot so far from home, was sufficient to make us forget all things but pleasant ones, and we parted again with sincere “good-bye” and “God bless you” from both.

We had been climbing up the long shoulders of the Rocky Mountains for many tedious hours—­we started down them, now.  And we went spinning away at a round rate too.

We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and Uinta Mountains behind, and sped away, always through splendid scenery but occasionally through long ranks of white skeletons of mules and oxen—­monuments of the huge emigration of other days—­and here and there were up-ended boards or small piles of stones which the driver said marked the resting-place of more precious remains.

It was the loneliest land for a grave!  A land given over to the cayote and the raven—­which is but another name for desolation and utter solitude.  On damp, murky nights, these scattered skeletons gave forth a soft, hideous glow, like very faint spots of moonlight starring the vague desert.  It was because of the phosphorus in the bones.  But no scientific explanation could keep a body from shivering when he drifted by one of those ghostly lights and knew that a skull held it.

At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw anything like it—­indeed, I did not even see this, for it was too dark.  We fastened down the curtains and even caulked them with clothing, but the rain streamed in in twenty places, nothwithstanding.  There was no escape.  If one moved his feet out of a stream, he brought his body under one; and if he moved his body he caught one somewhere else.  If he struggled out of the drenched blankets and sat up, he was bound to get one down the back of his neck.  Meantime the stage was wandering about