“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it.  Horace Greeley went over this road once.  When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick.  Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace.  The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—­said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was awhile ago.  But Hank Monk said, ’Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—­and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!”

At Fort Bridger, some days after this, we took on board a cavalry sergeant, a very proper and soldierly person indeed.  From no other man during the whole journey, did we gather such a store of concise and well-arranged military information.  It was surprising to find in the desolate wilds of our country a man so thoroughly acquainted with everything useful to know in his line of life, and yet of such inferior rank and unpretentious bearing.  For as much as three hours we listened to him with unabated interest.  Finally he got upon the subject of trans-continental travel, and presently said: 

“I can tell you a very laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it.  Horace Greeley went over this road once.  When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick.  Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace.  The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—­said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was awhile ago.  But Hank Monk said, ’Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—­and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!”

When we were eight hours out from Salt Lake City a Mormon preacher got in with us at a way station—­a gentle, soft-spoken, kindly man, and one whom any stranger would warm to at first sight.  I can never forget the pathos that was in his voice as he told, in simple language, the story of his people’s wanderings and unpitied sufferings.  No pulpit eloquence was ever so moving and so beautiful as this outcast’s picture of the first Mormon pilgrimage across the plains, struggling sorrowfully onward to the land of its banishment and marking its desolate way with graves and watering it with tears.  His words so wrought upon us that it was a relief to us all when the conversation drifted into a more cheerful channel and the natural features of the curious country we were in came under treatment.  One matter after another was pleasantly discussed, and at length the stranger said: