214 QUINCY" ADAMS BROOKS
we had some cowards in our train. It was very difficult to get these fellows to stand their regular guard at night, particu- larly if we happened to be in a district where the Indians were said to be troublesome ; and it was amusing to listen to the mis- erable pretences upon which they sought to be excused. I en- joyed excellent health all the way, never sought to be excused from standing guard, and was never caught napping at my post.
After we left Fort Kearney, we followed the South Fork of the Platte River some hundred miles from thence we crossed over Ash Hollow on the North Fork of the Platte, and traveled along its bank some 400 miles. If I had time I would like to tell you about the Platte River the large herds of buffalo we saw along it, the elk, the antelope, deer, prairie dogs, black and white wolves, etc. Also about Chimney Rock, Castle Rock, Scott's Bluffs, Fort Laramie, Laramie Peak, Black Hills, the large lakes of pure saleratus that we saw, long deserts of sand and sage bushes that we passed, and the various tribes of In- dians that we came through, but I have not time. We reached "Rock Independence" on the 23d of June. This is the point where the road enters the Rocky Mountains. We had quite a pleasant time of it through the mountains. These mountains are composed of granite and trap rock; they are not, like the Allegheny Mountains, composed of fragments of stone, but each mountain has the appearance of being one entire solid piece of rock. The surface of the mountain does not present the sharp projections of rocks, but everything is smooth and round. They are generally of a dark blue color, like soap- stone, and in some places they have, at a distance, the appear- ance of huge mounds of that stone. In the valleys or plains, no scattered rocks and stones mark the vicinity of mountains they spring right up out of the plain in solid rock and tower to a tremendous height, generally destitute of anything like vege- tation, and so smooth that were a man on the top to slip, he would not stop until he reached the base. We were in sight of snow all the way through the tops of the mountains being covered with it. We passed the Pacific Springs on the 26th
