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Good place to walk, gents! Bad place ahead! Out we got for a dismal walk of a mile or more, through a soft and yielding bottom, where the horses could hardly pull the empty coach through, and then in again with muddy boots and disgusted feelings generally. Just before daybreak, we struck a long and steep
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where the sleet had thickened into snow, without stiffening the ground enough to bear the coach up, and here again we had another cheerful walk of a couple of miles or so, to relieve the blown horses. At King Hill, the last serious
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before reaching Boisè, we had another promenade of a mile or two, through five or six inches of snow, just after midnight; but I managed to stick by the stage. The weather continued raw and cold, rainy and sleety, by turns, and we found it necessary to keep well wrapped up, except in the middle of the day. At night our mattrasses proved too narrow for three, after all, and Halsey's shoulders or knees were constantly punching into either L. or me. He and L. usually slept right along all night, but I got scarcely a genteel wink from Bear River to Boisè. By sunrise ordinarily we were up, and then came a general smoke and talk over the night's experience. By nine or ten A. M. we halted for breakfast, which usually consisted of chicory coffee, stringy beef or bacon, and saleratus-biscuit. Sometimes we got fried potatoes in addition--which helped the meal out somewhat--but not often. Late at night we stopped for dinner (only two meals a day), which was generally only a poor edition of breakfast over again, with the courses perchance reversed. Bilious and aguish with that accursed mountain-fever still hanging about me, I need scarcely say, I had little relish for such a bill of fare, and indeed scarcely ate a
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from Bear River to Boisè. Fortunately, among other extras, Mr. Halsey had had the forethought to lay in a half a bushel of apples, just fresh from the tree at Salt Lake, and these we all munched _ad libitum_ as we journeyed along. They were always juicy and cool, piquant and delicious, when nothing else was palatable; and for my part, I really don't see, how I would have got through without them. We were three days and three nights on the road continuously, never stopping except forty minutes or so at a time for meals. The last twenty-four hours out, the weather was raw and cold even for November; and as we rolled into Boisè, with every joint aching, the lights of a town never seemed more winning and welcome. At the Overland House, they were already full. But they gave us a good hot supper, followed by a
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Natural Selection, I suppose, steps in and duly provides them, by the