Riding a stout pony each, and leading another packed with our bedding, etc., we broke our way from the upper to the middle geyser basin.

Here we found a troop of the 1st Cavalry camped, under the command of old friends of mine, Captain Frank Edwards and Lieutenant (now Captain) John Pitcher.

They gave us hay for our horses and insisted upon our stopping to lunch, with the ready hospitality always shown by army officers.

After lunch we began exchanging stories.

My travelling companion, the surveyor, had that spring performed a feat of note, going through one of the canyons of the Big Horn for the first time.