But this was the least of the trouble.

Bands of hostile Indians were a constant source of watchfulness and trouble, against which even a most liberal stock of rifles and revolvers were not always a reassurance.

Whirlwinds of dust often overwhelmed the travellers so completely that they could hardly tell day from night, whilst blasts of icy chill, sweeping down from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, often made them imagine themselves in the midst of the horrors of an Arctic winter.
The predominant scenery gave no pleasure to the eye or exhilaration to the mind.

It was of the dreariest description.

Days and days passed with hardly a house to be seen, or a tree or a blade of grass.