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+Project Gutenberg Etext of A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
+by Isabella L. Bird
+
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+A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
+
+by Isabella L. Bird
+
+December, 1996 [Etext #755]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext of A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
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+
+
+A LADY'S LIFE
+IN THE
+ROCKY MOUNTAINS
+
+
+Isabella L. Bird
+
+
+Introduction by
+Ann Ronald
+University of Nevada, Reno
+
+
+
+To My Sister,
+to whom
+these letters were originally written,
+they are now
+affectionately dedicated.
+
+Contents
+
+Introduction, by Ann Ronald
+
+LETTER I
+
+Lake Tahoe--Morning in San Francisco--Dust--A Pacific
+mail-train--Digger Indians--Cape Horn--A mountain hotel--A
+pioneer--A Truckee livery stable--A mountain stream--Finding a
+bear--Tahoe.
+
+LETTER II
+
+A lady's "get-up"--Grizzly bears--The "Gem of the Sierras"--A
+tragic tale--A carnival of color.
+
+LETTER III
+
+A Temple of Morpheus--Utah--A "God-forgotten" town--A distressed
+couple--Dog villages--A temperance colony--A Colorado inn
+--The bug pest--Fort Collins.
+
+LETTER IV
+
+A plague of flies--A melancholy charioteer--The Foot Hills--A
+mountain boarding-house--A dull life--"Being agreeable"--Climate
+of Colorado--Soroche and snakes.
+
+LETTER V
+
+A dateless day--"Those hands of yours"--A Puritan--Persevering
+shiftlessness--The house-mother--Family worship--A grim Sunday--A
+"thick-skulled Englishman"--A morning call--Another
+atmosphere--The Great Lone Land--"Ill found"--A log camp--Bad
+footing for horses--Accidents--Disappointment.
+
+LETTER VI
+
+A bronco mare--An accident--Wonderland--A sad story--The children
+of the Territories--Hard greed--Halcyon hours--Smartness--
+Old-fashioned prejudices--The Chicago colony--Good luck--Three
+notes of admiration--A good horse--The St. Vrain--The Rocky
+Mountains at last--"Mountain Jim"--A death hug--Estes Park.
+ 
+LETTER VII
+
+Personality of Long's Peak--"Mountain Jim"--Lake of the Lilies--A
+silent forest--The camping ground--"Ring"--A lady's bower--Dawn
+and sunrise--A glorious view--Links of diamonds--The ascent of
+the Peak--The "Dog's Lift"--Suffering from thirst--The
+descent--The bivouac.
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+Estes Park--Big game--"Parks" in Colorado--Magnificent
+scenery--Flowers and pines--An awful road--Our log
+cabin--Griffith Evans--A miniature world--Our topics--A
+night alarm--A skunk--Morning glories--Daily routine--The
+panic--"Wait for the wagon"--A musical evening.
+
+LETTER IX
+
+"Please Ma'ams"--A desperado--A cattle hunt--The muster--A mad
+cow--A snowstorm--Snowed up--Birdie--The Plains--A prairie
+schooner--Denver--A find--Plum Creek--"Being
+agreeable"--Snowbound--The grey mare. 
+
+LETTER X
+
+A white world--Bad traveling--A millionaire's home--Pleasant
+Park--Perry's Park--Stock-raising--A cattle king--The Arkansas
+Divide--Birdie's sagacity--Luxury--Monument Park--Deference to
+prejudice--A death scene--The Manitou--A loose shoe--The Ute
+Pass--Bergens Park--A settler's home--Hayden's Divide--Sharp
+criticism--Speaking the truth.
+
+LETTER XI
+
+Tarryall Creek--The Red Range--Excelsior--Importunate
+pedlars--Snow and heat--A bison calf--Deep drifts--South
+Park--The Great Divide--Comanche Bill--Difficulties--
+Hall's Gulch--A Lord Dundreary--Ridiculous fears.
+
+LETTER XII
+
+Deer Valley--Lynch law--Vigilance committees--The silver
+spruce--Taste and abstinence--The whisky fiend--Smartness--Turkey
+Creek Canyon--The Indian problem--Public rascality--Friendly
+meetings--The way to the Golden City--A rising settlement--Clear
+Creek Canyon--Staging--Swearing--A mountain town.
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+The blight of mining--Green Lake--Golden
+City--Benighted--Vertigo--Boulder Canyon--Financial straits--A
+hard ride--The last cent--A bachelor's home--"Mountain Jim"--A
+surprise--A night arrival--Making the best of it--Scanty fare.
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+A dismal ride--A desperado's tale--"Lost! Lost! Lost!"--Winter
+glories--Solitude--Hard times--Intense cold--A pack of
+wolves--The beaver dams--Ghastly scenes--Venison steaks--Our
+evenings.
+
+LETTER XV
+
+A whisky slave--The pleasures of monotony--The mountain
+lion--"Another mouth to feed"--A tiresome boy--An
+outcast--Thanksgiving Day--The newcomer--A literary humbug--
+Milking a dry cow--Trout-fishing--A snow-storm--A desperado's
+den.
+
+LETTER XVI
+
+A harmonious home--Intense cold--A purple sun--A grim jest--A
+perilous ride--Frozen eyelids--Longmount--The pathless prairie--
+Hardships of emigrant life--A trapper's advice--The Little
+Thompson--Evans and "Jim."
+
+LETTER XVII
+
+Woman's mission--The last morning--Crossing the St.
+Vrain--Miller--The St. Vrain again--Crossing the prairie--"Jim's"
+dream--"Keeping strangers"--The inn kitchen--A reputed
+child-eater--Notoriety--A quiet dance--"Jim's" resolve--The
+frost-fall--An unfortunate introduction.
+
+
+
+Letter I
+
+Lake Tahoe--Morning in San Francisco--Dust--A Pacific
+mail-train--Digger Indians--Cape Horn--A mountain hotel--A
+pioneer--A Truckee livery stable--A mountain stream--Finding a
+bear--Tahoe.
+
+LAKE TAHOE, September 2.
+
+I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's
+life and sigh.  Not lovable, like the Sandwich Islands, but
+beautiful in its own way!  A strictly North American
+beauty--snow-splotched mountains, huge pines, red-woods, sugar
+pines, silver spruce; a crystalline atmosphere, waves of the
+richest color; and a pine-hung lake which mirrors all beauty on
+its surface.  Lake Tahoe is before me, a sheet of water
+twenty-two miles long by ten broad, and in some places 1,700 feet
+deep.  It lies at a height of 6,000 feet, and the snow-crowned
+summits which wall it in are from 8,000 to 11,000 feet in
+altitude.  The air is keen and elastic.  There is no sound but
+the distant and slightly musical ring of the lumberer's axe.
+
+It is a weariness to go back, even in thought, to the clang of
+San Francisco, which I left in its cold morning fog early
+yesterday, driving to the Oakland ferry through streets with
+side-walks heaped with thousands of cantaloupe and water-melons,
+tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, pears, grapes, peaches,
+apricots--all of startling size as compared with any I ever saw
+before.  Other streets were piled with sacks of flour, left out
+all night, owing to the security from rain at this season.  I
+pass hastily over the early part of the journey, the crossing
+the bay in a fog as chill as November, the number of "lunch
+baskets," which gave the car the look of conveying a great picnic
+party, the last view of the Pacific, on which I had looked for
+nearly a year, the fierce sunshine and brilliant sky inland, the
+look of long RAINLESSNESS, which one may not call drought, the
+valleys with sides crimson with the poison oak, the dusty
+vineyards, with great purple clusters thick among the leaves, and
+between the vines great dusty melons lying on the dusty earth. 
+From off the boundless harvest fields the grain was carried in
+June, and it is now stacked in sacks along the track, awaiting
+freightage.  California is a "land flowing with milk and honey." 
+The barns are bursting with fullness.  In the dusty orchards the
+apple and pear branches are supported, that they may not break
+down under the weight of fruit; melons, tomatoes, and squashes of
+gigantic size lie almost unheeded on the ground; fat cattle,
+gorged almost to repletion, shade themselves under the oaks;
+superb "red" horses shine, not with grooming, but with condition;
+and thriving farms everywhere show on what a solid basis the
+prosperity of the "Golden State" is founded.  Very uninviting,
+however rich, was the blazing Sacramento Valley, and very
+repulsive the city of Sacramento, which, at a distance of 125
+miles from the Pacific, has an elevation of only thirty feet. 
+The mercury stood at 103 degrees in the shade, and the fine white
+dust was stifling.
+     
+In the late afternoon we began the ascent of the Sierras, whose
+sawlike points had been in sight for many miles.  The dusty
+fertility was all left behind, the country became rocky and
+gravelly, and deeply scored by streams bearing the muddy wash of
+the mountain gold mines down to the muddier Sacramento.  There
+were long broken ridges and deep ravines, the ridges becoming
+longer, the ravines deeper, the pines thicker and larger, as we
+ascended into a cool atmosphere of exquisite purity, and before 6
+P.M. the last traces of cultivation and the last hardwood trees
+were left behind.[1]
+
+[1] In consequence of the unobserved omission of a date to my
+letters having been pointed out to me, I take this opportunity of
+stating that I traveled in Colorado in the autumn and early
+winter of 1873, on my way to England from the Sandwich Islands. 
+The letters are a faithful picture of the country and state of
+society as it then was; but friends who have returned from the
+West within the last six months tell me that things are rapidly
+changing, that the frame house is replacing the log cabin, and
+that the footprints of elk and bighorn may be sought for in vain
+on the dewy slopes of Estes Park.  
+                             I. L. B.  
+(Author's note to the third edition, January 16, 1880.)
+
+     
+At Colfax, a station at a height of 2,400 feet, I got out and
+walked the length of the train.  First came two great gaudy
+engines, the Grizzly Bear and the White Fox, with their
+respective tenders loaded with logs of wood, the engines with
+great, solitary, reflecting lamps in front above the cow guards,
+a quantity of polished brass-work, comfortable glass houses, and
+well-stuffed seats for the engine-drivers.  The engines and
+tenders were succeeded by a baggage car, the latter loaded with
+bullion and valuable parcels, and in charge of two "express
+agents."  Each of these cars is forty-five feet long.  Then came
+two cars loaded with peaches and grapes; then two "silver palace"
+cars, each sixty feet long; then a smoking car, at that time
+occupied mainly by Chinamen; and then five ordinary passenger
+cars, with platforms like all the others, making altogether a
+train about 700 feet in length.
+     
+The platforms of the four front cars were clustered over with
+Digger Indians, with their squaws, children, and gear.  They are
+perfect savages, without any aptitude for even aboriginal
+civilization, and are altogether the most degraded of the
+ill-fated tribes which are dying out before the white races. 
+They were all very diminutive, five feet one inch being, I should
+think, about the average height, with flat noses, wide mouths,
+and black hair, cut straight above the eyes and hanging lank and
+long at the back and sides.  The squaws wore their hair thickly
+plastered with pitch, and a broad band of the same across their
+noses and cheeks.  They carried their infants on their backs,
+strapped to boards.  The clothing of both sexes was a ragged,
+dirty combination of coarse woolen cloth and hide, the moccasins
+being unornamented.  They were all hideous and filthy, and
+swarming with vermin.  The men carried short bows and arrows, one
+of them, who appeared to be the chief, having a lynx's skin for a
+quiver.  A few had fishing tackle, but the bystanders said that
+they lived almost entirely upon grasshoppers.  They were a
+most impressive incongruity in the midst of the tokens of an
+omnipotent civilization.
+
+The light of the sinking sun from that time glorified the
+Sierras, and as the dew fell, aromatic odors made the still air
+sweet.  On a single track, sometimes carried on a narrow ledge
+excavated from the mountain side by men lowered from the top in
+baskets, overhanging ravines from 2,000 to 3,000 feet deep, the
+monster train SNAKED its way upwards, stopping sometimes in front
+of a few frame houses, at others where nothing was to be seen but
+a log cabin with a few Chinamen hanging about it, but where
+trails on the sides of the ravines pointed to a gold country
+above and below.  So sharp and frequent are the curves on some
+parts of the ascent, that on looking out of the window one could
+seldom see more than a part of the train at once.  At Cape Horn,
+where the track curves round the ledge of a precipice 2,500 feet
+in depth, it is correct to be frightened, and a fashion of
+holding the breath and shutting the eyes prevails, but my fears
+were reserved for the crossing of a trestle bridge over a very
+deep chasm, which is itself approached by a sharp curve.  This
+bridge appeared to be overlapped by the cars so as to produce the
+effect of looking down directly into a wild gulch, with a torrent
+raging along it at an immense depth below.
+     
+Shivering in the keen, frosty air near the summit pass of the
+Sierras, we entered the "snow-sheds," wooden galleries, which for
+about fifty miles shut out all the splendid views of the region,
+as given in dioramas, not even allowing a glimpse of "the Gem of
+the Sierras," the lovely Donner Lake.  One of these sheds is
+twenty-seven miles long.  In a few hours the mercury had fallen
+from 103 degrees to 29 degrees, and we had ascended 6,987 feet in
+105 miles!  After passing through the sheds, we had several grand
+views of a pine forest on fire before reaching Truckee at 11 P.M.
+having traveled 258 miles.  Truckee, the center of the "lumbering
+region" of the Sierras, is usually spoken of as "a rough mountain
+town," and Mr. W. had told me that all the roughs of the district
+congregated there, that there were nightly pistol affrays in
+bar-rooms, etc., but as he admitted that a lady was sure of
+respect, and Mr. G. strongly advised me to stay and see the
+lakes, I got out, much dazed, and very stupid with sleep, envying
+the people in the sleeping car, who were already unconscious on
+their luxurious couches.  The cars drew up in a street--if street
+that could be called which was only a wide, cleared space,
+intersected by rails, with here and there a stump, and great
+piles of sawn logs bulking big in the moonlight, and a number of
+irregular clap-board, steep-roofed houses, many of them with
+open fronts, glaring with light and crowded with men.  We had
+pulled up at the door of a rough Western hotel, with a partially
+open front, being a bar-room crowded with men drinking and
+smoking, and the space between it and the cars was a moving mass
+of loafers and passengers.  On the tracks, engines, tolling heavy
+bells, were mightily moving, the glare from their cyclopean eyes
+dulling the light of a forest which was burning fitfully on a
+mountain side; and on open spaces great fires of pine logs were
+burning cheerily, with groups of men round them.  A band was
+playing noisily, and the unholy sound of tom-toms was not far
+off.  Mountains--the Sierras of many a fireside dream--seemed to
+wall in the town, and great pines stood out, sharp and clear cut,
+against a sky in which a moon and stars were shining frostily.
+
+It was a sharp frost at that great height, and when an
+"irrepressible rigger," who seemed to represent the hotel
+establishment, deposited me and my carpetbag in a room which
+answered for "the parlor," I was glad to find some remains of
+pine knots still alight in the stove.  A man came in and said
+that when the cars were gone he would try to get me a room, but
+they were so full that it would be a very poor one.  The crowd
+was solely masculine.  It was then 11:30 P.M., and I had not had
+a meal since 6 A.M.; but when I asked hopefully for a hot supper,
+with tea, I was told that no supper could be got at that hour;
+but in half an hour the same man returned with a small cup of
+cold, weak tea, and a small slice of bread, which looked as if it
+had been much handled.
+
+I asked the Negro factotum about the hire of horses, and
+presently a man came in from the bar who, he said, could supply
+my needs.  This man, the very type of a Western pioneer, bowed,
+threw himself into a rocking-chair, drew a spittoon beside him,
+cut a fresh quid of tobacco, began to chew energetically, and put
+his feet, cased in miry high boots, into which his trousers were
+tucked, on the top of the stove.  He said he had horses which
+would both "lope" and trot, that some ladies preferred the
+Mexican saddle, that I could ride alone in perfect safety; and
+after a route had been devised, I hired a horse for two days. 
+This man wore a pioneer's badge as one of the earliest settlers
+of California, but he had moved on as one place after another
+had become too civilized for him, "but nothing," he added, "was
+likely to change much in Truckee."  I was afterwards told that
+the usual regular hours of sleep are not observed there.  The
+accommodation is too limited for the population of 2,000,[2]
+which is masculine mainly, and is liable to frequent temporary
+additions, and beds are occupied continuously, though by
+different occupants, throughout the greater part of the
+twenty-four hours.  Consequently I found the bed and room
+allotted to me quite tumbled looking.  Men's coats and sticks
+were hanging up, miry boots were littered about, and a rifle was
+in one corner.  There was no window to the outer air, but I slept
+soundly, being only once awoke by an increase of the same din in
+which I had fallen asleep, varied by three pistol shots fired in
+rapid succession.
+     
+[2] Nelson's Guide to the Central Pacific Railroad.
+
+
+This morning Truckee wore a totally different aspect.  The crowds
+of the night before had disappeared.  There were heaps of ashes
+where the fires had been.  A sleepy German waiter seemed the only
+person about the premises, the open drinking saloons were nearly
+empty, and only a few sleepy-looking loafers hung about in what
+is called the street.  It might have been Sunday; but they say
+that it brings a great accession of throng and jollity.  Public
+worship has died out at present; work is discontinued on Sunday,
+but the day is given up to pleasure.  Putting a minimum of
+indispensables into a bag, and slipping on my Hawaiian riding
+dress[3] over a silk skirt, and a dust cloak over all, I
+stealthily crossed the plaza to the livery stable, the largest
+building in Truckee, where twelve fine horses were stabled in
+stalls on each side of a broad drive.  My friend of the evening
+before showed me his "rig," three velvet-covered side-saddles
+almost without horns.  Some ladies, he said, used the horn of the
+Mexican saddle, but none "in the part" rode cavalier fashion.  I
+felt abashed.  I could not ride any distance in the conventional
+mode, and was just going to give up this splendid "ravage," when
+the man said, "Ride your own fashion; here, at Truckee, if
+anywhere in the world, people can do as they like."  Blissful
+Truckee!  In no time a large grey horse was "rigged out" in a
+handsome silver-bossed Mexican saddle, with ornamental leather
+tassels hanging from the stirrup guards, and a housing of black
+bear's-skin.  I strapped my silk skirt on the saddle, deposited
+my cloak in the corn-bin, and was safely on the horse's back
+before his owner had time to devise any way of mounting me. 
+Neither he nor any of the loafers who had assembled showed the
+slightest sign of astonishment, but all were as respectful as
+possible.
+
+[3] For the benefit of other lady travelers, I wish to explain
+that my "Hawaiian riding dress" is the "American Lady's Mountain
+Dress," a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles,
+and full Turkish trousers gathered into frills falling over the
+boots,--a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for
+mountaineering and other rough traveling, as in the Alps or any
+other part of the world.  
+                            I. L. B.  
+(Author's note to the second edition, November 27, 1879.)
+
+
+Once on horseback my embarrassment disappeared, and I rode
+through Truckee, whose irregular, steep-roofed houses and
+shanties, set down in a clearing and surrounded closely by
+mountain and forest, looked like a temporary encampment; passed
+under the Pacific Railroad; and then for twelve miles followed
+the windings of the Truckee River, a clear, rushing, mountain
+stream, in which immense pine logs had gone aground not to be
+floated off till the next freshet, a loud-tongued, rollicking
+stream of ice-cold water, on whose banks no ferns or trailers
+hang, and which leaves no greenness along its turbulent progress.
+
+All was bright with that brilliancy of sky and atmosphere, that
+blaze of sunshine and universal glitter, which I never saw till I
+came to California, combined with an elasticity in the air which
+removed all lassitude, and gives one spirit enough for anything. 
+On either side of the Truckee great sierras rose like walls,
+castellated, embattled, rifted, skirted and crowned with pines of
+enormous size, the walls now and then breaking apart to show some
+snow-slashed peak rising into a heaven of intense, unclouded,
+sunny blue.  At this altitude of 6,000 feet one must learn to be
+content with varieties of Coniferae, for, except for aspens,
+which spring up in some places where the pines have been cleared
+away, and for cotton-woods, which at a lower level fringe the
+streams, there is nothing but the bear cherry, the raspberry, the
+gooseberry, the wild grape, and the wild currant.  None of these
+grew near the Truckee, but I feasted my eyes on pines[4] which,
+though not so large as the Wellingtonia of the Yosemite, are
+really gigantic, attaining a height of 250 feet, their huge
+stems, the warm red of cedar wood, rising straight and branchless
+for a third of their height, their diameter from seven to fifteen
+feet, their shape that of a larch, but with the needles long and
+dark, and cones a foot long.  Pines cleft the sky; they were
+massed wherever level ground occurred; they stood over the
+Truckee at right angles, or lay across it in prostrate grandeur. 
+Their stumps and carcasses were everywhere; and smooth "shoots"
+on the sierras marked where they were shot down as "felled
+timber," to be floated off by the river.  To them this wild
+region owes its scattered population, and the sharp ring of the
+lumberer's axe mingles with the cries of wild beasts and the roar
+of mountain torrents.
+     
+[4] Pinus Lambertina.
+
+
+The track is a soft, natural, wagon road, very pleasant to ride
+on.  The horse was much too big for me, and had plans of his own;
+but now and then, where the ground admitted to it, I tried his
+heavy "lope" with much amusement.  I met nobody, and passed
+nothing on the road but a freight wagon, drawn by twenty-two
+oxen, guided by three fine-looking men, who had some difficulty
+in making room for me to pass their awkward convoy.  After I had
+ridden about ten miles the road went up a steep hill in the
+forest, turned abruptly, and through the blue gloom of the great
+pines which rose from the ravine in which the river was then hid,
+came glimpses of two mountains, about 11,000 feet in height,
+whose bald grey summits were crowned with pure snow.  It was one
+of those glorious surprises in scenery which make one feel as if
+one must bow down and worship.  The forest was thick, and had an
+undergrowth of dwarf spruce and brambles, but as the horse had
+become fidgety and "scary" on the track, I turned off in the idea
+of taking a short cut, and was sitting carelessly, shortening my
+stirrup, when a great, dark, hairy beast rose, crashing and
+snorting, out of the tangle just in front of me.  I had only a
+glimpse of him, and thought that my imagination had magnified a
+wild boar, but it was a bear.  The horse snorted and plunged
+violently, as if he would go down to the river, and then turned,
+still plunging, up a steep bank, when, finding that I must come
+off, I threw myself off on the right side, where the ground rose
+considerably, so that I had not far to fall.  I got up covered
+with dust, but neither shaken nor bruised.  It was truly
+grotesque and humiliating.  The bear ran in one direction, and
+the horse in another.  I hurried after the latter, and twice he
+stopped till I was close to him, then turned round and cantered
+away.  After walking about a mile in deep dust, I picked up first
+the saddle-blanket and next my bag, and soon came upon the horse,
+standing facing me, and shaking all over.  I thought I should
+catch him then, but when I went up to him he turned round, threw
+up his heels several times, rushed off the track, galloped in
+circles, bucking, kicking, and plunging for some time, and then
+throwing up his heels as an act of final defiance, went off at
+full speed in the direction of Truckee, with the saddle over his
+shoulders and the great wooden stirrups thumping his sides, while
+I trudged ignominiously along in the dust, laboriously carrying
+the bag and saddle-blanket.
+     
+I walked for nearly an hour, heated and hungry, when to my joy I
+saw the ox-team halted across the top of a gorge, and one of the
+teamsters leading the horse towards me.  The young man said that,
+seeing the horse coming, they had drawn the team across the road
+to stop him, and remembering that he had passed them with a lady
+on him, they feared that there had
+been an accident, and had just saddled one of their own horses to
+go in search of me.  He brought me some water to wash the dust
+from my face, and re-saddled the horse, but the animal snorted
+and plunged for some time before he would let me mount, and then
+sidled along in such a nervous and scared way, that the teamster
+walked for some distance by me to see that I was "all right."  He
+said that the woods in the neighborhood of Tahoe had been full of
+brown and grizzly bears for some days, but that no one was in
+any danger from them.  I took a long gallop beyond the scene of
+my tumble to quiet the horse, who was most restless and
+troublesome.
+     
+Then the scenery became truly magnificent and bright with life. 
+Crested blue-jays darted through the dark pines, squirrels in
+hundreds scampered through the forest, red dragon-flies flashed
+like "living light," exquisite chipmunks ran across the track,
+but only a dusty blue lupin here and there reminded me of earth's
+fairer children.  Then the river became broad and still, and
+mirrored in its transparent depths regal pines, straight as an
+arrow, with rich yellow and green lichen clinging to their stems,
+and firs and balsam pines filling up the spaces between them, the
+gorge opened, and this mountain-girdled lake lay before me, with
+its margin broken up into bays and promontories, most
+picturesquely clothed by huge sugar pines.  It lay dimpling and
+scintillating beneath the noonday sun, as entirely unspoilt as
+fifteen years ago, when its pure loveliness was known only to
+trappers and Indians.  One man lives on it the whole year round;
+otherwise early October strips its shores of their few
+inhabitants, and thereafter, for seven months, it is rarely
+accessible except on snowshoes.  It never freezes.  In the dense
+forests which bound it, and drape two-thirds of its gaunt
+sierras, are hordes of grizzlies, brown bears, wolves, elk, deer,
+chipmunks, martens, minks, skunks, foxes, squirrels, and snakes. 
+On its margin I found an irregular wooden inn, with a
+lumber-wagon at the door, on which was the carcass of a large
+grizzly bear, shot behind the house this morning.  I had intended
+to ride ten miles farther, but, finding that the trail in some
+places was a "blind" one, and being bewitched by the beauty and
+serenity of Tahoe, I have remained here sketching, reveling in
+the view from the veranda, and strolling in the forest.  At this
+height there is frost every night of the year, and my fingers are
+benumbed.
+     
+The beauty is entrancing.  The sinking sun is out of sight behind
+the western Sierras, and all the pine-hung promontories on this
+side of the water are rich indigo, just reddened with lake,
+deepening here and there into Tyrian purple.  The peaks above,
+which still catch the sun, are bright rose-red, and all the
+mountains on the other side are pink; and pink, too, are the
+far-off summits on which the snow-drifts rest.  Indigo, red, and
+orange tints stain the still water, which lies solemn and dark
+against the shore, under the shadow of stately pines.  An hour
+later, and a moon nearly full--not a pale, flat disc, but a
+radiant sphere--has wheeled up into the flushed sky.  The sunset
+has passed through every stage of beauty, through every glory of
+color, through riot and triumph, through pathos and tenderness,
+into a long, dreamy, painless rest, succeeded by the profound
+solemnity of the moonlight, and a stillness broken only by the
+night cries of beasts in the aromatic forests.
+                                   I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter II
+
+A lady's "get-up"--Grizzly bears--The "Gems of the Sierras"--A
+tragic tale--A carnival of color.
+
+CHEYENNE, WYOMING, September 7.
+
+As night came on the cold intensified, and the stove in the
+parlor attracted every one.  A San Francisco lady, much "got up"
+in paint, emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, and diamonds,
+rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving
+descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang,
+without the slightest scruple as to what she said.  In a few
+years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity,
+owing to its easiness of access.  I sustained the reputation
+which our country-women bear in America by looking a "perfect
+guy"; and feeling that I was a salient point for the speaker's
+next sally, I was relieved when the landlady, a ladylike
+Englishwoman, asked me to join herself and her family in the
+bar-room, where we had much talk about the neighborhood and its
+wild beasts, especially bears.  The forest is full of them, but
+they seem never to attack people unless when wounded, or much
+aggravated by dogs, or a shebear thinks you are going to molest
+her young.
+     
+I dreamt of bears so vividly that I woke with a furry death hug
+at my throat, but feeling quite refreshed.  When I mounted my
+horse after breakfast the sun was high and the air so keen and
+intoxicating that, giving the animal his head, I galloped up and
+down hill, feeling completely tireless.  Truly, that air is the
+elixir of life.  I had a glorious ride back to Truckee.  The road
+was not as solitary as the day before.  In a deep part of the
+forest the horse snorted and reared, and I saw a cinnamon-colored
+bear with two cubs cross the track ahead of me.  I tried to keep
+the horse quiet that the mother might acquit me of any designs
+upon her lolloping children, but I was glad when the ungainly,
+long-haired party crossed the river.  Then I met a team, the
+driver of which stopped and said he was glad that I had not gone
+to Cornelian Bay, it was such a bad trail, and hoped I had
+enjoyed Tahoe.  The driver of another team stopped and asked if I
+had seen any bears.  Then a man heavily armed, a hunter probably,
+asked me if I were the English tourist who had "happened on" a
+"Grizzly" yesterday.  Then I saw a lumberer taking his dinner on
+a rock in the river, who "touched his hat" and brought me a
+draught of ice-cold water, which I could hardly drink owing to
+the fractiousness of the horse, and gathered me some mountain
+pinks, which I admired.  I mention these little incidents to
+indicate the habit of respectful courtesy to women which prevails
+in that region.  These men might have been excused for speaking
+in a somewhat free-and-easy tone to a lady riding alone, and in
+an unwonted fashion.  Womanly dignity and manly respect for women
+are the salt of society in this wild West.
+
+My horse was so excitable that I avoided the center of Truckee,
+and skulked through a collection of Chinamen's shanties to the
+stable, where a prodigious roan horse, standing seventeen hands
+high, was produced for my ride to the Donner Lake.  I asked the
+owner, who was as interested in my enjoying myself as a West
+Highlander might have been, if there were not ruffians about who
+might make an evening ride dangerous.  A story was current of a
+man having ridden through Truckee two evenings before with a
+chopped-up human body in a sack behind the saddle, and hosts of
+stories of ruffianism are located there, rightly or wrongly. 
+This man said, "There's a bad breed of ruffians, but the ugliest
+among them all won't touch you.  There's nothing Western folk
+admire so much as pluck in a woman."  I had to get on a barrel
+before I could reach the stirrup, and when I was mounted my feet
+only came half-way down the horse's sides.  I felt like a fly on
+him.  The road at first lay through a valley without a river, but
+some swampishness nourished some rank swamp grass, the first
+GREEN grass I have seen in America; and the pines, with their red
+stems, looked beautiful rising out of it.  I hurried along, and
+came upon the Donner Lake quite suddenly, to be completely
+smitten by its beauty.  It is only about three miles long by one
+and a half broad, and lies hidden away among mountains, with no
+dwellings on its shores but some deserted lumberers' cabins.[5]
+Its loneliness pleased me well.  I did not see man, beast, or
+bird from the time I left Truckee till I returned.  The
+mountains, which rise abruptly from the margin,  are covered with
+dense pine forests, through which, here and there, strange forms
+of bare grey rock, castellated, or needle-like, protrude
+themselves.  On the opposite side, at a height of about 6,000
+feet, a grey, ascending line, from which rumbling, incoherent
+sounds occasionally proceeded, is seen through the pines.  This
+is one of the snow-sheds of the Pacific Railroad, which shuts out
+from travelers all that I was seeing.  The lake is called after
+Mr. Donner, who, with his family, arrived at the Truckee River in
+the fall of the year, in company with a party of emigrants bound
+for California.  Being encumbered with many cattle, he let the
+company pass on, and, with his own party of sixteen souls, which
+included his wife and four children, encamped by the lake.  In
+the morning they found themselves surrounded by an expanse of
+snow, and after some consultation it was agreed that the whole
+party except Mr. Donner who was unwell, his wife, and a German
+friend, should take the horses and attempt to cross the mountain,
+which, after much peril, they succeeded in doing; but, as the
+storm continued for several weeks, it was impossible for any
+rescue party to succor the three who had been left behind.  In
+the early spring, when the snow was hard enough for traveling, a
+party started in quest, expecting to find the snow-bound alive
+and well, as they had cattle enough for their support, and, after
+weeks of toil and exposure, they scaled the Sierras and reached
+the Donner Lake.  On arriving at the camp they opened the rude
+door, and there, sitting before the fire, they found the German,
+holding a roasted human arm and hand, which he was greedily
+eating.  The rescue party overpowered him, and with difficulty
+tore the arm from him.  A short search discovered the body of the
+lady, minus the arm, frozen in the snow, round, plump, and fair,
+showing that she was in perfect health when she met her fate. 
+The rescuers returned to California, taking the German with them,
+whose story was that Mr. Donner died in the fall, and that the
+cattle escaped, leaving them but little food, and that when this
+was exhausted Mrs. Donner died.  The story never gained any
+credence, and the truth oozed out that the German had murdered
+the husband, then brutally murdered the wife, and had seized upon
+Donner's money.  There were, however, no witnesses, and the
+murderer escaped with the enforced surrender of the money to the
+Donner orphans.
+     
+[5] Visitors can now be accommodated at a tolerable mountain
+hotel.
+
+
+This tragic story filled my mind as I rode towards the head of
+the lake, which became every moment grander and more unutterably
+lovely.  The sun was setting fast, and against his golden light
+green promontories, wooded with stately pines, stood out one
+beyond another in a medium of dark rich blue, while grey bleached
+summits, peaked, turreted, and snow slashed, were piled above
+them, gleaming with amber light.  Darker grew the blue gloom, the
+dew fell heavily, aromatic odors floated on the air, and still
+the lofty peaks glowed with living light, till in one second it
+died off from them, leaving them with the ashy paleness of a dead
+face.  It was dark and cold under the mountain shadows, the
+frosty chill of the high altitude wrapped me round, the solitude
+was overwhelming, and I reluctantly turned my horse's head
+towards Truckee, often looking back to the ashy summits in their
+unearthly fascination.  Eastwards the look of the scenery was
+changing every moment, while the lake for long remained "one
+burnished sheet of living gold," and Truckee lay utterly out of
+sight in a hollow filled with lake and cobalt.  Before long a
+carnival of color began which I can only describe as delirious,
+intoxicating, a hardly bearable joy, a tender anguish, an
+indescribable yearning, an unearthly music, rich in love and
+worship.  It lasted considerably more than an hour, and though
+the road was growing very dark, and the train which was to take
+me thence was fast climbing the Sierras, I could not ride faster
+than a walk.
+     
+The eastward mountains, which had been grey, blushed pale pink,
+the pink deepened into rose, and the rose into crimson, and then
+all solidity etherealized away and became clear and pure as an
+amethyst, while all the waving ranges and the broken pine-clothed
+ridges below etherealized too, but into a dark rich blue, and a
+strange effect of atmosphere blended the whole into one perfect
+picture.  It changed, deepened, reddened, melted, growing more
+and more wonderful, while under the pines it was night, till,
+having displayed itself for an hour, the jewelled peaks suddenly
+became like those of the Sierras, wan as the face of death.  Far
+later the cold golden light lingered in the west, with pines in
+relief against its purity, and where the rose light had glowed in
+the east, a huge moon upheaved itself, and the red flicker of
+forest fires luridly streaked the mountain sides near and far
+off.  I realized that night had come with its EERINESS, and
+putting my great horse into a gallop I clung on to him till I
+pulled him up in Truckee, which was at the height of its evening
+revelries--fires blazing out of doors, bar-rooms and saloons
+crammed, lights glaring, gaming tables thronged, fiddle and banjo
+in frightful discord, and the air ringing with ribaldry and
+profanity.
+                                        I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter III
+
+A Temple of Morpheus--Utah--A "God-forgotten" town--A distressed
+couple--Dog villages--A temperance colony--A Colorado inn--The
+bug pest--Fort Collins.
+
+CHEYENNE, WYOMING, September 8.
+
+Precisely at 11 P.M. the huge Pacific train, with its heavy bell
+tolling, thundered up to the door of the Truckee House, and on
+presenting my ticket at the double door of a "Silver Palace" car,
+the slippered steward, whispering low, conducted me to my
+berth--a luxurious bed three and a half feet wide, with a hair
+mattress on springs, fine linen sheets, and costly California
+blankets.  The twenty-four inmates of the car were all invisible,
+asleep behind rich curtains.  It was a true Temple of Morpheus. 
+Profound sleep was the object to which everything was dedicated. 
+Four silver lamps hanging from the roof, and burning low, gave
+a dreamy light.  On each side of the center passage, rich rep
+curtains, green and crimson, striped with gold, hung from silver
+bars running near the roof, and trailed on the soft Axminster
+carpet.  The temperature was carefully kept at 70 degrees.  It
+was 29 degrees outside.  Silence and freedom from jolting were
+secured by double doors and windows, costly and ingenious
+arrangements of springs and cushions, and a speed limited to
+eighteen miles an hour.
+     
+As I lay down, the gallop under the dark pines, the frosty moon,
+the forest fires, the flaring lights and roaring din of Truckee
+faded as dreams fade, and eight hours later a pure, pink dawn
+divulged a level blasted region, with grey sage brush growing out
+of a soil encrusted with alkali, and bounded on either side by
+low glaring ridges.  All through that day we traveled under a
+cloudless sky over solitary glaring plains, and stopped twice at
+solitary, glaring frame houses, where coarse, greasy meals,
+infested by lazy flies, were provided at a dollar per head.  By
+evening we were running across the continent on a bee line, and I
+sat for an hour on the rear platform of the rear car to enjoy the
+wonderful beauty of the sunset and the atmosphere.  Far as one
+could see in the crystalline air there was nothing but desert. 
+The jagged Humboldt ranges flaming in the sunset, with snow in
+their clefts, though forty-five miles off, looked within an easy
+canter.  The bright metal track, purpling like all else in the
+cool distance, was all that linked one with Eastern or Western
+civilization.
+     
+The next morning, when the steward unceremoniously turned us out
+of our berths soon after sunrise, we were running down upon the
+Great Salt Lake, bounded by the white Wahsatch ranges.  Along its
+shores, by means of irrigation, Mormon industry has compelled the
+ground to yield fine crops of hay and barley; and we passed
+several cabins, from which, even at that early hour, Mormons,
+each with two or three wives, were going forth to their day's
+work.  The women were ugly, and their shapeless blue dresses
+hideous.  At the Mormon town of Ogden we changed cars, and again
+traversed dusty plains, white and glaring, varied by muddy
+streams and rough, arid valleys, now and then narrowing into
+canyons.  By common consent the windows were kept closed to
+exclude the fine white alkaline dust, which is very irritating to
+the nostrils.  The journey became more and more wearisome as we
+ascended rapidly over immense plains and wastes of gravel
+destitute of mountain boundaries, and with only here and there a
+"knob" or "butte"[6] to break the monotony.  The wheel-marks of
+the trail to Utah often ran parallel with the track, and bones of
+oxen were bleaching in the sun, the remains of those "whose
+carcasses fell in the wilderness" on the long and drouthy
+journey.  The daybreak of to-day (Sunday) found us shivering at
+Fort Laramie, a frontier post dismally situated at a height of
+7,000 feet.  Another 1,000 feet over gravelly levels brought us
+to Sherman, the highest level reached by this railroad.  From
+this point eastward the streams fall into the Atlantic.  The
+ascent of these apparently level plateaus is called "crossing the
+Rocky Mountains," but I have seen nothing of the range, except
+two peaks like teeth lying low on the distant horizon.  It became
+mercilessly cold; some people thought it snowed, but I only saw
+rolling billows of fog.  Lads passed through the cars the whole
+morning, selling newspapers, novels, cacti, lollypops, pop corn,
+pea nuts, and ivory ornaments, so that, having lost all reckoning
+of the days, I never knew that it was Sunday till the cars pulled
+up at the door of the hotel in this detestable place.
+     
+[6] The mountains which bound the "valley of the Babbling
+Waters," Utah, afford striking examples of these "knobs" or
+"buttes."
+
+
+The surrounding plains were endless and verdureless.  The scanty
+grasses were long ago turned into sun-cured hay by the fierce
+summer heats.  There is neither tree nor bush, the sky is grey,
+the earth buff, the air blae and windy, and clouds of coarse
+granitic dust sweep across the prairie and smother the
+settlement.  Cheyenne is described as "a God-forsaken,
+God-forgotten place."  That it forgets God is written on its
+face.  It owes its existence to the railroad, and has diminished
+in population, but is a depot for a large amount of the
+necessaries of life which are distributed through the scantily
+settled districts within distances of 300 miles by "freight
+wagons," each drawn by four or six horses or mules, or double
+that number of oxen.  At times over 100 wagons, with double that
+number of teamsters, are in Cheyenne at once.  A short time ago
+it was a perfect pandemonium, mainly inhabited by rowdies and
+desperadoes, the scum of advancing civilization; and murders,
+stabbings, shooting, and pistol affrays were at times events of
+almost hourly occurrence in its drinking dens.  But in the West,
+when things reach their worst, a sharp and sure remedy is
+provided.  Those settlers who find the state of matters
+intolerable, organize themselves into a Vigilance Committee. 
+"Judge Lynch," with a few feet of rope, appears on the scene, the
+majority crystallizes round the supporters of order, warnings are
+issued to obnoxious people, simply bearing a scrawl of a tree
+with a man dangling from it, with such words as "Clear out of
+this by 6 A.M., or----."  A number of the worst desperadoes are
+tried by a yet more summary process than a drumhead court
+martial, "strung up," and buried ignominiously.  I have been told
+that 120 ruffians were disposed of in this way here in a single
+fortnight.  Cheyenne is now as safe as Hilo, and the interval
+between the most desperate lawlessness and the time when United
+States law, with its corruption and feebleness, comes upon the
+scene is one of comparative security and good order.  Piety is
+not the forte of Cheyenne.  The roads resound with atrocious
+profanity, and the rowdyism of the saloons and bar-rooms is
+repressed, not extirpated.
+     
+The population, once 6,000, is now about 4,000. It is an
+ill-arranged set of frame houses and shanties [7] and rubbish
+heaps, and offal of deer and antelope, produce the foulest smells
+I have smelt for a long time.  Some of the houses are painted a
+blinding white; others are unpainted; there is not a bush, or
+garden, or green thing; it just straggles out promiscuously on
+the boundless brown plains, on the extreme verge of which three
+toothy peaks are seen.  It is utterly slovenly-looking, and
+unornamental, abounds in slouching bar-room-looking characters,
+and looks a place of low, mean lives.  Below the hotel window
+freight cars are being perpetually shunted, but beyond the
+railroad tracks are nothing but the brown plains, with their
+lonely sights--now a solitary horseman at a traveling amble, then
+a party of Indians in paint and feathers, but civilized up to the
+point of carrying firearms, mounted on sorry ponies, the
+bundled-up squaws riding astride on the baggage ponies; then a
+drove of ridgy-spined, long-horned cattle, which have been
+several months eating their way from Texas, with their escort of
+four or five much-spurred horsemen, in peaked hats, blue-hooded
+coats, and high boots, heavily armed with revolvers and repeating
+rifles, and riding small wiry horses.  A solitary wagon, with a
+white tilt, drawn by eight oxen, is probably bearing an emigrant
+and his fortunes to Colorado.  On one of the dreary spaces of the
+settlement six white-tilted wagons, each with twelve oxen, are
+standing on their way to a distant part.  Everything suggests a
+beyond.
+
+[7] The discovery of gold in the Black Hills has lately given it
+a great impetus, and as it is the chief point of departure for
+the diggings it is increasing in population and importance.
+(July, 1879)
+
+
+September 9.
+
+I have found at the post office here a circular letter of
+recommendation from ex-Governor Hunt, procured by Miss Kingsley's
+kindness, and another equally valuable one of "authentication"
+and recommendation from Mr. Bowles, of the Springfield
+Republican, whose name is a household word in all the West. 
+Armed with these, I shall plunge boldly into Colorado.  I am
+suffering from giddiness and nausea produced by the bad smells. 
+A "help" here says that there have been fifty-six deaths from
+cholera during the last twenty days.  Is common humanity lacking,
+I wonder, in this region of hard greed?  Can it not be bought by
+dollars here, like every other commodity, votes included?  Last
+night I made the acquaintance of a shadowy gentleman from
+Wisconsin, far gone in consumption, with a spirited wife and
+young baby.  He had been ordered to the Plains as a last
+resource, but was much worse.  Early this morning he crawled to
+my door, scarcely able to speak from debility and bleeding from
+the lungs, begging me to go to his wife, who, the doctor said was
+ill of cholera.  The child had been ill all night, and not for
+love or money could he get any one to do anything for them, not
+even to go for the medicine.  The lady was blue, and in great
+pain from cramp, and the poor unweaned infant was roaring for the
+nourishment which had failed.  I vainly tried to get hot water
+and mustard for a poultice, and though I offered a Negro a dollar
+to go for the medicine, he looked at it superciliously, hummed a
+tune, and said he must wait for the Pacific train, which was not
+due for an hour.  Equally in vain I hunted through Cheyenne for a
+feeding bottle.  Not a maternal heart softened to the helpless
+mother and starving child, and my last resource was to dip a
+piece of sponge in some milk and water, and try to pacify the
+creature.  I applied Rigollot's leaves, went for the medicine,
+saw the popular host--a bachelor--who mentioned a girl who, after
+much difficulty, consented to take charge of the baby for two
+dollars a day and attend to the mother, and having remained till
+she began to amend, I took the cars for Greeley, a settlement on
+the Plains, which I had been recommended to make my starting
+point for the mountains.
+
+
+FORT COLLINS, September 10.
+
+It gave me a strange sensation to embark upon the Plains. 
+Plains, plains everywhere, plains generally level, but elsewhere
+rolling in long undulations, like the waves of a sea which had
+fallen asleep.  They are covered thinly with buff grass, the
+withered stalks of flowers, Spanish bayonet, and a small
+beehive-shaped cactus.  One could gallop all over them.
+     
+They are peopled with large villages of what are called prairie
+dogs, because they utter a short, sharp bark, but the dogs are,
+in reality, marmots.  We passed numbers of villages, which are
+composed of raised circular orifices, about eighteen inches in
+diameter, with sloping passages leading downwards for five or six
+feet.  Hundreds of these burrows are placed together.  On nearly
+every rim a small furry reddish-buff beast sat on his hind legs,
+looking, so far as head went, much like a young seal.  These
+creatures were acting as sentinels, and sunning themselves.  As
+we passed, each gave a warning yelp, shook its tail, and, with a
+ludicrous flourish of its hind legs, dived into its hole.  The
+appearance of hundreds of these creatures, each eighteen inches
+long, sitting like dogs begging, with their paws down and all
+turned sunwards, is most grotesque.  The Wish-ton-Wish has few
+enemies, and is a most prolific animal.  From its enormous
+increase and the energy and extent of its burrowing operations,
+one can fancy that in the course of years the prairies will be
+seriously injured, as it honeycombs the ground, and renders it
+unsafe for horses.  The burrows seem usually to be shared by
+owls, and many of the people insist that a rattlesnake is also an
+inmate, but I hope for the sake of the harmless, cheery little
+prairie dog, that this unwelcome fellowship is a myth.
+     
+After running on a down grade for some time, five distinct ranges
+of mountains, one above another, a lurid blue against a lurid
+sky, upheaved themselves above the prairie sea.  An American
+railway car, hot, stuffy and full of chewing, spitting Yankees,
+was not an ideal way of approaching this range which had early
+impressed itself upon my imagination.  Still, it was truly grand,
+although it was sixty miles off, and we were looking at it from a
+platform 5,000 feet in height.  As I write I am only twenty-five
+miles from them, and they are gradually gaining possession of me.
+
+I can look at and FEEL nothing else.  At five in the afternoon
+frame houses and green fields began to appear, the cars drew up,
+and two of my fellow passengers and I got out and carried our own
+luggage through the deep dust to a small, rough, Western tavern,
+where with difficulty we were put up for the night.  This
+settlement is called the Greeley Temperance Colony, and was
+founded lately by an industrious class of emigrants from the
+East, all total abstainers, and holding advanced political
+opinions.  They bought and fenced 50,000 acres of land,
+constructed an irrigating canal, which distributes its waters on
+reasonable terms, have already a population of 3,000, and are the
+most prosperous and rising colony in Colorado, being altogether
+free from either laziness or crime.  Their rich fields are
+artificially productive solely; and after seeing regions where
+Nature gives spontaneously, one is amazed that people should
+settle here to be dependent on irrigating canals, with the risk
+of having their crops destroyed by grasshoppers.  A clause in the
+charter of the colony prohibits the introduction, sale, or
+consumption of intoxicating liquor, and I hear that the men of
+Greeley carry their crusade against drink even beyond their
+limits, and have lately sacked three houses open for the sale of
+drink near their frontier, pouring the whisky upon the ground, so
+that people don't now like to run the risk of bringing liquor
+near Greeley, and the temperance influence is spreading over a
+very large area.  As the men have no bar-rooms to sit in, I
+observed that Greeley was asleep at an hour when other places
+were beginning their revelries.  Nature is niggardly, and living
+is coarse and rough, the merest necessaries of hardy life being
+all that can be thought of in this stage of existence.
+     
+My first experiences of Colorado travel have been rather severe. 
+At Greeley I got a small upstairs room at first, but gave it up
+to a married couple with a child, and then had one downstairs no
+bigger than a cabin, with only a canvas partition.  It was very
+hot, and every place was thick with black flies.  The English
+landlady had just lost her "help," and was in a great fuss, so
+that I helped her to get supper ready.  Its chief features were
+greasiness and black flies.  Twenty men in working clothes fed
+and went out again, "nobody speaking to nobody."  The landlady
+introduced me to a Vermont settler who lives in the "Foot Hills,"
+who was very kind and took a great deal of trouble to get me a
+horse.  Horses abound, but they are either large American horses,
+which are only used for draught, or small, active horses, called
+broncos, said to be from a Spanish word, signifying that they can
+never be broke.  They nearly all "buck," and are described as
+being more "ugly" and treacherous than mules.  There is only one
+horse in Greeley "safe for a woman to ride."  I tried an Indian
+pony by moonlight--such a moonlight--but found he had tender
+feet.  The kitchen was the only sitting room, so I shortly went
+to bed, to be awoke very soon by crawling creatures apparently in
+myriads.  I struck a light, and found such swarms of bugs that I
+gathered myself up on the wooden chairs, and dozed uneasily till
+sunrise.  Bugs are a great pest in Colorado.  They come out of
+the earth, infest the wooden walls, and cannot be got rid of by
+any amount of cleanliness.  Many careful housewives take their
+beds to pieces every week and put carbolic acid on them.
+     
+It was a glorious, cool morning, and the great range of the Rocky
+Mountains looked magnificent.  I tried the pony again, but found
+he would not do for a long journey; and as my Vermont
+acquaintance offered me a seat in his wagon to Fort Collins,
+twenty-five miles nearer the Mountains, I threw a few things
+together and came here with him.  We left Greeley at 10, and
+arrived here at 4:30, staying an hour for food on the way.  I
+liked the first half of the drive; but the fierce, ungoverned,
+blazing heat of the sun on the whitish earth for the last half,
+was terrible even with my white umbrella, which I have not used
+since I left New Zealand; it was sickening.  Then the eyes have
+never anything green to rest upon, except in the river bottoms,
+where there is green hay grass.  We followed mostly the course of
+the River Cache-a-la-Poudre, which rises in the Mountains, and
+after supplying Greeley with irrigation, falls into the Platte,
+which is an affluent of the Missouri.  When once beyond the
+scattered houses and great ring fence of the vigorous Greeley
+colonists, we were on the boundless prairie.  Now and then
+horsemen passed us, and we met three wagons with white tilts. 
+Except where the prairie dogs have honeycombed the ground, you
+can drive almost anywhere, and the passage of a few wagons over
+the same track makes a road.  We forded the river, whose course
+is marked the whole way by a fringe of small cotton-woods and
+aspens, and traveled hour after hour with nothing to see except
+some dog towns, with their quaint little sentinels; but the view
+in front was glorious.  The Alps, from the Lombard Plains, are
+the finest mountain panorama I ever saw, but not equal to this;
+for not only do five high-peaked giants, each nearly the height
+of Mont Blanc, lift their dazzling summits above the lower
+ranges, but the expanse of mountains is so vast, and the whole
+lie in a transparent medium of the richest blue, not
+haze--something peculiar to the region.  The lack of foreground
+is a great artistic fault, and the absence of greenery is
+melancholy, and makes me recall sadly the entrancing detail of
+the Hawaiian Islands.  Once only, the second time we forded the
+river, the cotton-woods formed a foreground, and then the
+loveliness was heavenly.  We stopped at a log house and got a
+rough dinner of beef and potatoes, and I was amused at the five
+men who shared it with us for apologizing to me for being without
+their coats, as if coats would not be an enormity on the Plains.
+     
+It is the election day for the Territory, and men were galloping
+over the prairie to register their votes.  The three in the wagon
+talked politics the whole time.  They spoke openly and
+shamelessly of the prices given for votes; and apparently there
+was not a politician on either side who was not accused of
+degrading corruption.  We saw a convoy of 5,000 head of Texas
+cattle traveling from southern Texas to Iowa.  They had been
+nine months on the way!  They were under the charge of twenty
+mounted vacheros, heavily armed, and a light wagon accompanied
+them, full of extra rifles and ammunition, not unnecessary, for
+the Indians are raiding in all directions, maddened by the
+reckless and useless slaughter of the buffalo, which is their
+chief subsistence.  On the Plains are herds of wild horses,
+buffalo, deer, and antelope; and in the Mountains, bears, wolves,
+deer, elk, mountain lions, bison, and mountain sheep.  You see a
+rifle in every wagon, as people always hope to fall in with game.
+     
+By the time we reached Fort Collins I was sick and dizzy with the
+heat of the sun, and not disposed to be pleased with a most
+unpleasing place.  It was a military post, but at present
+consists of a few frame houses put down recently on the bare and
+burning plain.  The settlers have "great expectations," but of
+what?  The Mountains look hardly nearer than from Greeley; one
+only realizes their vicinity by the loss of their higher peaks. 
+This house is freer from bugs than the one at Greeley, but full
+of flies.  These new settlements are altogether revolting,
+entirely utilitarian, given up to talk of dollars as well as to
+making them, with coarse speech, coarse food, coarse everything,
+nothing wherewith to satisfy the higher cravings if they exist,
+nothing on which the eye can rest with pleasure.  The lower floor
+of this inn swarms with locusts in addition to thousands of black
+flies.  The latter cover the ground and rise buzzing from it as
+you walk.
+                                   I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter IV
+
+A plague of flies--A melancholy charioteer--The Foot Hills--A
+mountain boarding-house--A dull life--"Being agreeable"--Climate
+of Colorado--Soroche and snakes.
+
+CANYON, September 12.
+
+I was actually so dull and tired that I deliberately slept away
+the afternoon in order to forget the heat and flies.  Thirty men
+in working clothes, silent and sad looking, came in to supper. 
+The beef was tough and greasy, the butter had turned to oil, and
+beef and butter were black with living, drowned, and half-drowned
+flies.  The greasy table-cloth was black also with flies, and I
+did not wonder that the guests looked melancholy and quickly
+escaped.  I failed to get a horse, but was strongly recommended
+to come here and board with a settler, who, they said, had a
+saw-mill and took boarders.  The person who recommended it so
+strongly gave me a note of introduction, and told me that it was
+in a grand part of the mountains, where many people had been
+camping out all the summer for the benefit of their health.  The
+idea of a boarding-house, as I know them in America, was rather
+formidable in the present state of my wardrobe, and I decided on
+bringing my carpet-bag, as well as my pack, lest I should be
+rejected for my bad clothes.
+     
+Early the next morning I left in a buggy drawn by light broncos
+and driven by a profoundly melancholy young man.  He had never
+been to the canyon; there was no road.  We met nobody, saw
+nothing except antelope in the distance, and he became more
+melancholy and lost his way, driving hither and thither for
+about twenty miles till we came upon an old trail which
+eventually brought us to a fertile "bottom," where hay and barley
+were being harvested, and five or six frame houses looked
+cheerful.  I had been recommended to two of these, which
+professed to take in strangers, but one was full of reapers, and
+in the other a child was dead.  So I took the buggy on, glad to
+leave the glaring, prosaic settlement behind.  There was a most
+curious loneliness about the journey up to that time.  Except for
+the huge barrier to the right, the boundless prairies were
+everywhere, and it was like being at sea without a compass.  The
+wheels made neither sound nor indentation as we drove over the
+short, dry grass, and there was no cheerful clatter of horses'
+hoofs.  The sky was cloudy and the air hot and still.  In one
+place we passed the carcass of a mule, and a number of vultures
+soared up from it, to descend again immediately.  Skeletons and
+bones of animals were often to be seen.  A range of low, grassy
+hills, called the Foot Hills, rose from the plain, featureless
+and monotonous, except where streams, fed by the snows of the
+higher regions, had cut their way through them.  Confessedly
+bewildered, and more melancholy than ever, the driver turned up
+one of the wildest of these entrances, and in another hour the
+Foot Hills lay between us and the prairie sea, and a higher and
+broken range, with pitch pines of average size, was revealed
+behind them.  These Foot Hills, which swell up uninterestingly
+from the plains on their eastern side, on their western have the
+appearance of having broken off from the next range, and the
+break is abrupt, and takes the form of walls and terraces of rock
+of the most brilliant color, weathered and stained by ores, and,
+even under the grey sky, dazzling to the eyes.  The driver
+thought he had understood the directions given, but he was
+stupid, and once we lost some miles by arriving at a river too
+rough and deep to be forded, and again we were brought up by an
+impassable canyon.  He grew frightened about his horses, and said
+no money would ever tempt him into the mountains again; but
+average intelligence would have made it all easy.
+     
+The solitude was becoming somber, when, after driving for nine
+hours, and traveling at the least forty-five miles, without any
+sign of fatigue on the part of the broncos, we came to a stream,
+by the side of which we drove along a definite track, till we
+came to a sort of tripartite valley, with a majestic crooked
+canyon 2,000 feet deep opening upon it.  A rushing stream roared
+through it, and the Rocky Mountains, with pines scattered over
+them, came down upon it.  A little farther, and the canyon became
+utterly inaccessible.  This was exciting; here was an inner
+world.  A rough and shaky bridge, made of the outsides of pines
+laid upon some unsecured logs, crossed the river.  The broncos
+stopped and smelt it, not liking it, but some encouraging speech
+induced them to go over.  On the other side was a log cabin,
+partially ruinous, and the very rudest I ever saw, its roof of
+plastered mud being broken into large holes.  It stood close to
+the water among some cotton-wood trees.  A little higher there
+was a very primitive saw-mill, also out of repair, with some logs
+lying about.  An emigrant wagon and a forlorn tent, with a
+camp-fire and a pot, were in the foreground, but there was no
+trace of the boarding-house, of which I stood a little in dread. 
+The driver went for further directions to the log cabin, and
+returned with a grim smile deepening the melancholy of his face
+to say it was Mr. Chalmers', but there was no accommodation
+for such as him, much less for me!  This was truly "a sell."  I
+got down and found a single room of the rudest kind, with the
+wall at one end partially broken down, holes in the roof, holes
+for windows, and no furniture but two chairs and two unplaned
+wooden shelves, with some sacks of straw upon them for beds. 
+There was an adjacent cabin room, with a stove, benches, and
+table, where they cooked and ate, but this was all.  A hard,
+sad-looking woman looked at me measuringly.  She said that they
+sold milk and butter to parties who camped in the canyon, that
+they had never had any boarders but two asthmatic old ladies, but
+they would take me for five dollars per week if I "would make
+myself agreeable."  The horses had to be fed, and I sat down on a
+box, had some dried beef and milk, and considered the matter.  If
+I went back to Fort Collins, I thought I was farther from a
+mountain life, and had no choice but Denver, a place from which I
+shrank, or to take the cars for New York.  Here the life was
+rough, rougher than any I had ever seen, and the people repelled
+me by their faces and manners; but if I could rough it for a few
+days, I might, I thought, get over canyons and all other
+difficulties into Estes Park, which has become the goal of my
+journey and hopes.  So I decided to remain.
+
+September 16.
+     
+Five days here, and I am no nearer Estes Park.  How the days pass
+I know not; I am weary of the limitations of this existence. 
+This is "a life in which nothing happens."  When the buggy
+disappeared, I felt as if I had cut the bridge behind me.  I sat
+down and knitted for some time--my usual resource under
+discouraging circumstances.  I really did not know how I should
+get on.  There was no table, no bed, no basin, no towel, no
+glass, no window, no fastening on the door.  The roof was in
+holes, the logs were unchinked, and one end of the cabin was
+partially removed!  Life was reduced to its simplest elements.  I
+went out; the family all had something to do, and took no notice
+of me.  I went back, and then an awkward girl of sixteen, with
+uncombed hair, and a painful repulsiveness of face and air, sat
+on a log for half an hour and stared at me.  I tried to draw her
+into talk, but she twirled her fingers and replied snappishly in
+monosyllables.  Could I by any effort "make myself agreeable"?  I
+wondered. The day went on.  I put on my Hawaiian dress, rolling
+up the sleeves to the elbows in an "agreeable" fashion.  Towards
+evening the family returned to feed, and pushed some dried beef
+and milk in at the door.  They all slept under the trees, and
+before dark carried the sacks of straw out for their bedding.  I
+followed their example that night, or rather watched Charles's
+Wain while they slept, but since then have slept on blankets on
+the floor under the roof.  They have neither lamp nor candle, so
+if I want to do anything after dark I have to do it by the
+unsteady light of pine knots.  As the nights are cold, and free
+from bugs, and I do a good deal of manual labor, I sleep well. 
+At dusk I make my bed on the floor, and draw a bucket of ice-cold
+water from the river; the family go to sleep under the trees, and
+I pile logs on the fire sufficient to burn half the night, for I
+assure you the solitude is eerie enough.  There are unaccountable
+noises, (wolves), rummagings under the floor, queer cries, and
+stealthy sounds of I know not what.  One night a beast (fox or
+skunk) rushed in at the open end of the cabin, and fled through
+the window, almost brushing my face, and on another, the head and
+three or four inches of the body of a snake were protruded
+through a chink of the floor close to me, to my extreme disgust. 
+My mirror is the polished inside of my watchcase.  At sunrise
+Mrs. Chalmers comes in--if coming into a nearly open shed can be
+called IN--and makes a fire, because she thinks me too stupid to
+do it, and mine is the family room; and by seven I am dressed,
+have folded the blankets, and swept the floor, and then she puts
+some milk and bread or stirabout on a box by the door.  After
+breakfast I draw more water, and wash one or two garments daily,
+taking care that there are no witnesses of my inexperience. 
+Yesterday a calf sucked one into hopeless rags.  The rest of the
+day I spend in mending, knitting, writing to you, and the various
+odds and ends which arise when one has to do all for oneself.  At
+twelve and six some food is put on the box by the door, and at
+dusk we make up our beds.  A distressed emigrant woman has just
+given birth to a child in a temporary shanty by the river, and I
+go to help her each day.
+     
+I have made the acquaintance of all the careworn, struggling
+settlers within a walk.  All have come for health, and most have
+found or are finding it, even if they have not better shelter
+than a wagon tilt or a blanket on sticks laid across four poles. 
+The climate of Colorado is considered the finest in North
+America, and consumptives, asthmatics, dyspeptics, and sufferers
+from nervous diseases, are here in hundreds and thousands, either
+trying the "camp cure" for three or four months, or settling here
+permanently.  People can safely sleep out of doors for six months
+of the year.  The plains are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, and
+some of the settled "parks," or mountain valleys, are from  8,000
+to 10,000.  The air, besides being much rarefied, is very dry. 
+The rainfall is far below the average, dews are rare, and fogs
+nearly unknown.  The sunshine is bright and almost constant, and
+three-fourths of the days are cloudless.  The milk, beef, and
+bread are good.  The climate is neither so hot in summer nor so
+cold in winter as that of the States, and when the days are hot
+the nights are cool.  Snow rarely lies on the lower ranges, and
+horses and cattle don't require to be either fed or housed during
+the winter.  Of course the rarefied air quickens respiration. 
+All this is from hearsay.[8] I am not under favorable
+circumstances, either for mind or body, and at present I feel a
+singular lassitude and difficulty in taking exercise, but this is
+said to be the milder form of the affliction known on higher
+altitudes as soroche, or "mountain sickness," and is only
+temporary.  I am forming a plan for getting farther into the
+mountains, and hope that my next letter will be more lively.  I
+killed a rattlesnake this morning close to the cabin, and have
+taken its rattle, which has eleven joints.  My life is embittered
+by the abundance of these reptiles--rattlesnakes and moccasin
+snakes, both deadly, carpet snakes and "green racers," reputed
+dangerous, water snakes, tree snakes, and mouse snakes, harmless
+but abominable.  Seven rattlesnakes have been killed just outside
+the cabin since I came.  A snake, three feet long, was coiled
+under the pillow of the sick woman.  I see snakes in all withered
+twigs, and am ready to flee at "the sound of a shaken leaf."  And
+besides snakes, the earth and air are alive and noisy with forms
+of insect life, large and small, stinging, humming, buzzing,
+striking, rasping, devouring!
+
+[8] The curative effect of the climate of Colorado can hardly be
+exaggerated.  In traveling extensively through the Territory
+afterwards I found that nine out of every ten settlers were cured
+invalids.  Statistics and medical workers on the climate of the
+State(as it now is) represent Colorado as the most remarkable
+sanatorium in the world.
+                                I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter V
+
+A dateless day--"Those hands of yours"--A Puritan--Persevering
+shiftlessness--The house-mother--Family worship--A grim Sunday--A
+"thick-skulled Englishman"--A morning call--Another
+atmosphere--The Great Lone Land--"Ill found"--A log camp--Bad
+footing for horses--Accidents--Disappointment.
+
+CANYON, September.
+
+The absence of a date shows my predicament.  THEY have no
+newspaper; _I_ have no almanack; the father is away for the day,
+and none of the others can help me, and they look contemptuously
+upon my desire for information on the subject.  The monotony will
+come to an end to-morrow, for Chalmers offers to be my guide over
+the mountains to Estes Park, and has persuaded his wife "for once
+to go for a frolic"; and with much reluctance, many growls at the
+waste of time, and many apprehensions of danger and loss, she has
+consented to accompany him.  My life has grown less dull from
+their having become more interesting to me, and as I have "made
+myself agreeable," we are on fairly friendly terms.  My first
+move in the direction of fraternizing was, however, snubbed.  A
+few days ago, having finished my own work, I offered to wash up
+the plates, but Mrs. C., with a look which conveyed more than
+words, a curl of her nose, and a sneer in her twang, said "Guess
+you'll make more work nor you'll do.  Those hands of yours" (very
+brown and coarse they were) "ain't no good; never done nothing, I
+guess."  Then to her awkward daughter: "This woman says she'll
+wash up!  Ha! ha! look at her arms and hands!"  This was the
+nearest approach to a laugh I have heard, and have never seen
+even a tendency towards a smile.  Since then I have risen in
+their estimation by improvizing a lamp--Hawaiian fashion--by
+putting a wisp of rag into a tin of fat.  They have actually
+condescended to sit up till the stars come out since.  Another
+advance was made by means of the shell-pattern quilt I am
+knitting for you.  There has been a tendency towards approving of
+it, and a few days since the girl snatched it out of my hand,
+saying, "I want this," and apparently took it to the camp.  This
+has resulted in my having a knitting class, with the woman, her
+married daughter, and a woman from the camp, as pupils.  Then I
+have gained ground with the man by being able to catch and saddle
+a horse.  I am often reminded of my favorite couplet,--
+
+     Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day,
+     Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.
+
+But oh! what a hard, narrow life it is with which I am now in
+contact!  A narrow and unattractive religion, which I believe
+still to be genuine, and an intense but narrow patriotism, are
+the only higher influences.  Chalmers came from Illinois nine
+years ago, pronounced by the doctors to be far gone in
+consumption, and in two years he was strong.  They are a queer
+family; somewhere in the remote Highlands I have seen such
+another.  Its head is tall, gaunt, lean, and ragged, and has
+lost one eye.  On an English road one would think him a starving
+or a dangerous beggar.  He is slightly intelligent, very
+opinionated, and wishes to be thought well informed, which he is
+not.  He belongs to the straitest sect of Reformed Presbyterians
+("Psalm-singers"), but exaggerates anything of bigotry and
+intolerance which may characterize them, and rejoices in truly
+merciless fashion over the excision of the philanthropic Mr.
+Stuart, of Philadelphia, for worshipping with congregations which
+sing hymns.  His great boast is that his ancestors were Scottish
+Covenanters.  He considers himself a profound theologian, and by
+the pine logs at night discourses to me on the mysteries of the
+eternal counsels and the divine decrees.  Colorado, with its
+progress and its future, is also a constant theme.  He hates
+England with a bitter, personal hatred, and regards any allusions
+which I make to the progress of Victoria as a personal insult. 
+He trusts to live to see the downfall of the British monarchy and
+the disintegration of the empire.  He is very fond of talking,
+and asks me a great deal about my travels, but if I speak
+favorably of the climate or resources of any other country, he
+regards it as a slur on Colorado.
+     
+They have one hundred and sixty acres of land, a "Squatter's
+claim," and an invaluable water power.  He is a lumberer, and has
+a saw-mill of a very primitive kind.  I notice that every day
+something goes wrong with it, and this is the case throughout. 
+If he wants to haul timber down, one or other of the oxen cannot
+be found; or if the timber is actually under way, a wheel or a
+part of the harness gives way, and the whole affair is at a
+standstill for days.  The cabin is hardly a shelter, but is
+allowed to remain in ruins because the foundation of a frame
+house was once dug.  A horse is always sure to be lame for want
+of a shoe nail, or a saddle to be useless from a broken buckle,
+and the wagon and harness are a marvel of temporary shifts,
+patchings, and insecure linkings with strands of rope.  Nothing
+is ever ready or whole when it is wanted.  Yet Chalmers is a
+frugal, sober, hard-working man, and he, his eldest son, and a
+"hired man" "Rise early," "going forth to their work and labor
+till the evening"; and if they do not "late take rest," they
+truly "eat the bread of carefulness."  It is hardly surprising
+that nine years of persevering shiftlessness should have resulted
+in nothing but the ability to procure the bare necessaries of
+life.
+     
+Of Mrs. C. I can say less.  She looks like one of the English
+poor women of our childhood--lean, clean, toothless, and speaks,
+like some of them, in a piping, discontented voice, which seems
+to convey a personal reproach.  All her waking hours are spent in
+a large sun-bonnet.  She is never idle for one minute, is severe
+and hard, and despises everything but work.  I think she suffers
+from her husband's shiftlessness.  She always speaks of me as
+"This" or "that woman."  The family consists of a grown-up son, a
+shiftless, melancholy-looking youth, who possibly pines for a
+wider life; a girl of sixteen, a sour, repellent-looking
+creature, with as much manners as a pig; and three hard, un-
+child-like younger children.  By the whole family all courtesy
+and gentleness of act or speech seem regarded as "works of the
+flesh," if not of "the devil."  They knock over all one's things
+without apologizing or picking them up, and when I thank them for
+anything they look grimly amazed.  I feel that they think it
+sinful that I do not work as hard as they do.  I wish I could
+show them "a more excellent way."  This hard greed, and the
+exclusive pursuit of gain, with the indifference to all which
+does not aid in its acquisition, are eating up family love and
+life throughout the West.  I write this reluctantly, and after a
+total experience of  nearly two years in the United States.  They
+seem to have no "Sunday clothes," and few of any kind.  The
+sewing machine, like most other things, is out of order.  One
+comb serves the whole family.  Mrs. C. is cleanly in her person
+and dress, and the food, though poor, is clean.  Work, work,
+work, is their day and their life.  They are thoroughly ungenial,
+and have that air of suspicion in speaking of every one which is
+not unusual in the land of their ancestors.  Thomas Chalmers
+is the man's ecclesiastical hero, in spite of his own severe
+Puritanism.  Their live stock consists of two wretched horses, a
+fairly good bronco mare, a mule, four badly-bred cows, four gaunt
+and famished-looking oxen, some swine of singularly active
+habits, and plenty of poultry.  The old saddles are tied on with
+twine; one side of the bridle is a worn-out strap and the other a
+rope.  They wear boots, but never two of one pair, and never
+blacked, of course, but no stockings.  They think it quite
+effeminate to sleep under a roof, except during the severest
+months of the year.  There is a married daughter across the
+river, just the same hard, loveless, moral, hard-working being as
+her mother.  Each morning, soon after seven, when I have swept
+the cabin, the family come in for "worship."  Chalmers "wales" a
+psalm, in every sense of the word wail, to the most doleful of
+dismal tunes; they read a chapter round, and he prays.  If his
+prayer has something of the tone of the imprecatory psalms, he
+has high authority in his favor; and if there be a tinge of the
+Pharisaic thanksgiving, it is hardly surprising that he is
+grateful that he is not as other men are when he contemplates the
+general godlessness of the region.
+     
+Sunday was a dreadful day.  The family kept the Commandment
+literally, and did no work.  Worship was conducted twice, and was
+rather longer than usual.  Chalmers does not allow of any books
+in his house but theological works, and two or three volumes of
+dull travels, so the mother and children slept nearly all day.
+The man attempted to read a well-worn copy of Boston's Fourfold
+State, but shortly fell asleep, and they only woke up for their
+meals.  Friday and Saturday had been passably cool, with frosty
+nights, but on Saturday night it changed, and I have not felt
+anything like the heat of Sunday since I left New Zealand, though
+the mercury was not higher than 91 degrees.  It was sickening,
+scorching, melting, unbearable, from the mere power of the sun's
+rays.  It was an awful day, and seemed as if it would never come
+to an end.  The cabin, with its mud roof under the shade of the
+trees, gave a little shelter, but it was occupied by the family,
+and I longed for solitude.  I took the Imitation of Christ, and
+strolled up the canyon among the withered, crackling leaves, in
+much dread of snakes, and lay down on a rough table which some
+passing emigrant had left, and soon fell asleep.  When I awoke it
+was only noon.  The sun looked wicked as it blazed like a white
+magnesium light.  A large tree-snake (quite harmless) hung from
+the pine under which I had taken shelter, and looked as if it
+were going to drop upon me.  I was covered with black flies.  The
+air was full of a busy, noisy din of insects, and snakes,
+locusts, wasps, flies, and grasshoppers were all rioting in the
+torrid heat.  Would the sublime philosophy of Thomas a Kempis,
+I wondered, have given way under this?  All day I seemed to hear
+in mockery the clear laugh of the Hilo streams, and the drip of
+Kona showers, and to see as in a mirage the perpetual Green of
+windward Hawaii.  I was driven back to the cabin in the late
+afternoon, and in the evening listened for two hours to abuse of
+my own country, and to sweeping condemnations of all religionists
+outside of the brotherhood of "Psalm-singers."  It is jarring and
+painful, yet I would say of Chalmers, as Dr. Holland says of
+another:--
+
+     If ever I shall reach the home in heaven,
+     For whose dear rest I humbly hope and pray,
+     In the great company of the forgiven
+     I shall be sure to meet old Daniel Gray.
+
+     
+The night came without coolness, but at daylight on Monday
+morning a fire was pleasant.  You will now have some idea of my
+surroundings.  It is a moral, hard, unloving, unlovely,
+unrelieved, unbeautified, grinding life.  These people live in a
+discomfort and lack of ease and refinement which seems only
+possible to people of British stock.  A "foreigner" fills his
+cabin with ingenuities and elegancies, and a Hawaiian or South
+Sea Islander makes his grass house both pretty and tasteful.  Add
+to my surroundings a mighty canyon, impassable both above and
+below, and walls of mountains with an opening some miles off to
+the vast prairie sea.[9]     
+
+[9] I have not curtailed this description of the roughness
+of a Colorado settler's life, for, with the exceptions of the
+disrepair and the Puritanism, it is a type of the hard,
+unornamented existence with which I came almost universally in
+contact during my subsequent residence in the Territory.
+
+
+An English physician is settled about half a mile from here over
+a hill.  He is spoken of as holding "very extreme opinions." 
+Chalmers rails at him for being "a thick-skulled Englishman," for
+being "fine, polished," etc.  To say a man is "polished" here is
+to give him a very bad name.  He accuses him also of holding
+views subversive of all morality.  In spite of all this, I
+thought he might possess a map, and I induced Mrs. C. to walk
+over with me.  She intended it as a formal morning call, but she
+wore the inevitable sun-bonnet, and had her dress tied up as when
+washing.  It was not till I reached the gate that I remembered
+that I was in my Hawaiian riding dress, and that I still wore the
+spurs with which I had been trying a horse in the morning!  The
+house was in a grass valley which opened from the tremendous
+canyon through which the river had cut its way.  The Foot Hills,
+with their terraces of flaming red rock, were glowing in the
+sunset, and a pure green sky arched tenderly over a soft evening
+scene.  Used to the meanness and baldness of settlers' dwellings. 
+I was delighted to see that in this instance the usual log cabin
+was only the lower floor of a small house, which bore a
+delightful resemblance to a Swiss chalet.  It stood in a
+vegetable garden fertilized by an irrigating ditch, outside of
+which were a barn and cowshed.  A young Swiss girl was bringing
+the cows slowly home from the hill, an Englishwoman in a clean
+print dress stood by the fence holding a baby, and a fine-looking
+Englishman in a striped Garibaldi shirt, and trousers of the same
+tucked into high boots, was shelling corn.  As soon as Mrs.
+Hughes spoke I felt she was truly a lady; and oh! how refreshing
+her refined, courteous, graceful English manner was, as she
+invited us into the house!  The entrance was low, through a log
+porch festooned and almost concealed by a "wild cucumber." 
+Inside, though plain and poor, the room looked a home, not like a
+squatter's cabin.  An old tin was completely covered by a
+graceful clematis mixed with streamers of Virginia creeper, and
+white muslin curtains, and above all two shelves of
+admirably-chosen books, gave the room almost an air of elegance. 
+Why do I write almost?  It was an oasis.  It was barely three
+weeks since I had left "the communion of educated men," and the
+first tones of the voices of my host and hostess made me feel as
+if I had been out of it for a year.  Mrs. C. stayed an hour and a
+half, and then went home to the cows, when we launched upon a sea
+of congenial talk.  They said they had not seen an educated lady
+for two years, and pressed me to go and visit them.  I rode home
+on Dr. Hughes's horse after dark, to find neither fire nor light
+in the cabin.  Mrs. C. had gone back saying, "Those English
+talked just like savages, I couldn't understand a word they
+said."
+     
+I made a fire, and extemporized a light with some fat and a wick
+of rag, and Chalmers came in to discuss my visit and to ask me a
+question concerning a matter which had roused the latent
+curiosity of the whole family.  I had told him, he said, that I
+knew no one hereabouts, but "his woman" told him that Dr. H. and
+I spoke constantly of a Mrs. Grundy, whom we both knew and
+disliked, and who was settled, as we said, not far off!  He had
+never heard of her, he said, and he was the pioneer settler of
+the canyon, and there was a man up here from Longmount who said
+he was sure there was not a Mrs. Grundy in the district, unless
+it was a woman who went by two names!  The wife and family had
+then come in, and I felt completely nonplussed.  I longed to tell
+Chalmers that it was he and such as he, there or anywhere, with
+narrow hearts, bitter tongues, and harsh judgments, who were the
+true "Mrs. Grundys," dwarfing individuality, checking lawful
+freedom of speech, and making men "offenders for a word," but I
+forebore.  How I extricated myself from the difficulty, deponent
+sayeth not.  The rest of the evening has been spent in preparing
+to cross the mountains.  Chalmers says he knows the way well, and
+that we shall sleep to-morrow at the foot of Long's Peak.  Mrs.
+Chalmers repents of having consented, and conjures up doleful
+visions of what the family will come to when left headless, and
+of disasters among the cows and hens.  I could tell her that the
+eldest son and the "hired man" have plotted to close the saw-mill
+and go on a hunting and fishing expedition, that the cows will
+stray, and that the individual spoken respectfully of as "Mr.
+Skunk" will make havoc in the hen-house.
+
+
+NAMELESS REGION, ROCKY MOUNTAINS, September.
+
+This is indeed far removed.  It seems farther away from you than
+any place I have been to yet, except the frozen top of the
+volcano of Mauna Loa.  It is so little profaned by man that if
+one were compelled to live here in solitude one might truly say
+of the bears, deer, and elk which abound, "Their tameness is
+shocking to me." It is the world of "big game."  Just now a
+heavy-headed elk, with much-branched horns fully three feet long,
+stood and looked at me, and then quietly trotted away.  He was so
+near that I heard the grass, crisp with hoar frost, crackle under
+his feet.  Bears stripped the cherry bushes within a few yards of
+us last night.  Now two lovely blue birds, with crests on their
+heads, are picking about within a stone's-throw.  This is "The
+Great Lone Land," until lately the hunting ground of the Indians,
+and not yet settled or traversed, or likely to be so, owing to
+the want of water.  A solitary hunter has built a log cabin up
+here, which he occupies for a few weeks for the purpose of
+elk-hunting, but all the region is unsurveyed, and mostly
+unexplored.  It is 7 A.M.  The sun has not yet risen high enough
+to melt the hoar frost, and the air is clear, bright, and cold. 
+The stillness is profound.  I hear nothing but the far-off
+mysterious roaring of a river in a deep canyon, which we spent
+two hours last night in trying to find.  The horses are lost, and
+if I were disposed to retort upon my companions the term they
+invariably apply to me, I should now write, with bitter emphasis,
+"THAT man" and "THAT woman" have gone in search of them.
+     
+The scenery up here is glorious, combining sublimity with beauty,
+and in the elastic air fatigue has dropped off from me.  This is
+no region for tourists and women, only for a few elk and bear
+hunters at times, and its unprofaned freshness gives me new life. 
+I cannot by any words give you an idea of scenery so different
+from any that you or I have ever seen.  This is an upland valley
+of grass and flowers, of glades and sloping lawns, and
+cherry-fringed beds of dry streams, and clumps of pines
+artistically placed, and mountain sides densely pine clad, the
+pines breaking into fringes as they come down upon the "park,"
+and the mountains breaking into pinnacles of bold grey rock as
+they pierce the blue of the sky.  A single dell of bright green
+grass, on which dwarf clumps of the scarlet poison oak look like
+beds of geraniums, slopes towards the west, as if it must lead to
+the river which we seek.  Deep, vast canyons, all trending
+westwards, lie in purple gloom.  Pine-clad ranges, rising into
+the blasted top of Storm Peak, all run westwards too, and all the
+beauty and glory are but the frame out of which
+rises--heaven-piercing, pure in its pearly luster, as glorious a
+mountain as the sun tinges red in either hemisphere--the
+splintered, pinnacled, lonely, ghastly, imposing, double-peaked
+summit of Long's Peak, the Mont Blanc of Northern Colorado.[10]
+     
+[10] Gray's Peak and Pike's Peak have their partisans, but
+after seeing them all under favorable aspects, Long's Peak stands
+in my memory as it does in that vast congeries of mountains,
+alone in imperial grandeur.
+
+
+This is a view to which nothing needs to be added.  This is truly
+the "lodge in some vast wilderness" for which one often sighs
+when in the midst of "a bustle at once sordid and trivial."  In
+spite of Dr. Johnson, these "monstrous protuberances" do "inflame
+the imagination and elevate the understanding."  This scenery
+satisfies my soul.  Now, the Rocky Mountains realize--nay,
+exceed--the dream of my childhood.  It is magnificent, and the
+air is life giving.  I should like to spend some time in these
+higher regions, but I know that this will turn out an abortive
+expedition, owing to the stupidity and pigheadedness of Chalmers.
+     
+There is a most romantic place called Estes Park, at a height of
+7,500 feet, which can be reached by going down to the plains and
+then striking up the St. Vrain Canyon, but this is a distance of
+fifty-five miles, and as Chalmers was confident that he could
+take me over the mountains, a distance, as he supposed, of about
+twenty miles, we left at mid-day yesterday, with the fervent
+hope, on my part, that I might not return.  Mrs. C. was busy the
+whole of Tuesday in preparing what she called "grub," which,
+together with "plenty of bedding," was to be carried on a pack
+mule; but when we started I was disgusted to find that Chalmers
+was on what should have been the pack animal, and that two
+thickly-quilted cotton "spreads" had been disposed of under my
+saddle, making it broad, high, and uncomfortable.  Any human
+being must have laughed to see an expedition start so grotesquely
+"ill found."  I had a very old iron-grey horse, whose lower lip
+hung down feebly, showing his few teeth, while his fore-legs
+stuck out forwards, and matter ran from both his nearly-blind
+eyes.  It is kindness to bring him up to abundant pasture.  My
+saddle is an old McLellan cavalry saddle, with a battered brass
+peak, and the bridle is a rotten leather strap on one side and a
+strand of rope on the other.  The cotton quilts covered the
+Rosinante from mane to tail.  Mrs. C. wore an old print skirt, an
+old short-gown, a print apron, and a sun-bonnet, with a flap
+coming down to her waist, and looked as careworn and clean as she
+always does. The inside horn of her saddle was broken; to the
+outside one hung a saucepan and a bundle of clothes.  The one
+girth was nearly at the breaking point when we started.
+     
+My pack, with my well-worn umbrella upon it, was behind my
+saddle.  I wore my Hawaiian riding dress, with a handkerchief
+tied over my face and the sun-cover of my umbrella folded and
+tied over my hat, for the sun was very fierce.  The queerest
+figure of all was the would-be guide.  With his one eye, his
+gaunt, lean form, and his torn clothes, he looked more like a
+strolling tinker than the honest worthy settler that he is.  He
+bestrode rather than rode a gaunt mule, whose tail had all been
+shaven off, except a turf for a tassel at the end. Two flour bags
+which leaked were tied on behind the saddle, two quilts were
+under it, and my canvas bag, a battered canteen, a frying pan,
+and two lariats hung from the horn.  On one foot C. wore an old
+high boot, into which his trouser was tucked, and on the other an
+old brogue, through which his toes protruded.
+     
+We had an ascent of four hours through a ravine which gradually
+opened out upon this beautiful "park," but we rode through it for
+some miles before the view burst upon us.  The vastness of this
+range, like astronomical distances, can hardly be conceived of. 
+At this place, I suppose, it is not less than 250 miles wide, and
+with hardly a break in its continuity, it stretches almost from
+the Arctic Circle to the Straits of Magellan.  From the top of
+Long's Peak, within a short distance, twenty-two summits, each
+above 12,000 feet in height, are visible, and the Snowy Range,
+the backbone or "divide" of the continent, is seen snaking
+distinctly through the wilderness of ranges, with its waters
+starting for either ocean.  From the first ridge we crossed after
+leaving Canyon we had a singular view of range beyond range cleft
+by deep canyons, and abounding in elliptical valleys, richly
+grassed.  The slopes of all the hills, as far as one could see,
+were waving with fine grass ready for the scythe, but the food of
+wild animals only.  All these ridges are heavily timbered with
+pitch pines, and where they come down on the grassy slopes they
+look as if the trees had been arranged by a landscape gardener. 
+Far off, through an opening in a canyon, we saw the prairie
+simulating the ocean.  Far off, through an opening in another
+direction, was the glistening outline of the Snowy Range.  But
+still, till we reached this place, it was monotonous, though
+grand as a whole: a grey-green or buff-grey, with outbreaks of
+brilliantly-colored rock, only varied by the black-green of
+pines, which are not the stately pyramidal pines of the Sierra
+Nevada, but much resemble the natural Scotch fir.  Not many miles
+from us is North Park, a great tract of land said to be rich in
+gold, but those who have gone to "prospect" have seldom returned,
+the region being the home of tribes of Indians who live in
+perpetual hostility to the whites and to each other.
+     
+At this great height, and most artistically situated, we came
+upon a rude log camp tenanted in winter by an elk hunter, but now
+deserted.  Chalmers without any scruple picked the padlock; we
+lighted a fire, made some tea, and fried some bacon, and after
+a good meal mounted again and started for Estes Park.  For four
+weary hours we searched hither and thither along every
+indentation of the ground which might be supposed to slope
+towards the Big Thompson River, which we knew had to be forded. 
+Still, as the quest grew more tedious, Long's Peak stood before
+us as a landmark in purple glory; and still at his feet lay a
+hollow filled with deep blue atmosphere, where I knew that Estes
+Park must lie, and still between us and it lay never-lessening
+miles of inaccessibility, and the sun was ever weltering, and the
+shadows ever lengthening, and Chalmers, who had started
+confident, bumptious, blatant, was ever becoming more bewildered,
+and his wife's thin voice more piping and discontented, and my
+stumbling horse more insecure, and I more determined (as I am at
+this moment) that somehow or other I would reach that blue
+hollow, and even stand on Long's Peak where the snow was
+glittering.  Affairs were becoming serious, and Chalmers's
+incompetence a source of real peril, when, after an exploring
+expedition, he returned more bumptious than ever, saying he knew
+it would be all right, he had found a trail, and we could get
+across the river by dark, and camp out for the night.  So he led
+us into a steep, deep, rough ravine, where we had to dismount,
+for trees were lying across it everywhere, and there was almost
+no footing on the great slabs of shelving rock.  Yet there was a
+trail, tolerably well worn, and the branches and twigs near the
+ground were well broken back.  Ah! it was a wild place.  My horse
+fell first, rolling over twice, and breaking off a part of the
+saddle, in his second roll knocking me over a shelf of three feet
+of descent.  Then Mrs. C.'s horse and the mule fell on the top of
+each other, and on recovering themselves bit each other savagely. 
+The ravine became a wild gulch, the dry bed of some awful
+torrent; there were huge shelves of rock, great overhanging walls
+of rock, great prostrate trees, cedar spikes and cacti to wound
+the feet, and then a precipice fully 500 feet deep!  The trail
+was a trail made by bears in search of bear cherries, which
+abounded!
+     
+It was getting dusk as we had to struggle up the rough gulch we
+had so fatuously descended.  The horses fell several times; I
+could hardly get mine up at all, though I helped him as much as I
+could; I was cut and bruised, scratched and torn.  A spine of a
+cactus penetrated my foot, and some vicious thing cut the back of
+my neck.  Poor Mrs. C. was much bruised, and I pitied her, for
+she got no fun out of it as I did.  It was an awful climb.  When
+we got out of the gulch, C. was so confused that he took the
+wrong direction, and after an hour of vague wandering was only
+recalled to the right one by my pertinacious assertions acting on
+his weak brain.  I was inclined to be angry with the incompetent
+braggart, who had boasted that he could take us to Estes Park
+"blindfold"; but I was sorry for him too, so said nothing, even
+though I had to walk during these meanderings to save my tired
+horse.  When at last, at dark, we reached the open, there was
+a snow flurry, with violent gusts of wind, and the shelter of the
+camp, dark and cold as it was, was desirable.  We had no food,
+but made a fire.  I lay down on some dry grass, with my inverted
+saddle for a pillow, and slept soundly, till I was awoke by the
+cold of an intense frost and the pain of my many cuts and
+bruises.  Chalmers promised that we should make a fresh start
+at six, so I woke him up at five, and here I am alone at
+half-past eight!  I said to him many times that unless he hobbled
+or picketed the horses, we should lose them.  "Oh," he said
+"they'll be all right."  In truth he had no picketing pins.  Now,
+the animals are merrily trotting homewards.  I saw them two miles
+off an hour ago with him after them.  His wife, who is also after
+them, goaded to desperation, said, "He's the most ignorant,
+careless, good-for-nothing man I ever saw," upon which I dwelt
+upon his being well meaning.  There is a sort of well here, but
+our "afternoon tea" and watering the horses drained it, so we
+have had nothing to drink since yesterday, for the canteen, which
+started without a cork, lost all its contents when the mule fell.
+I have made a monstrous fire, but thirst and impatience are hard
+to bear, and preventible misfortunes are always irksome.  I have
+found the stomach of a bear with fully a pint of cherrystones in
+it, and have spent an hour in getting the kernels; and lo! now,
+at half-past nine, I see the culprit and his wife coming back
+with the animals.
+                                   I. L. B.
+
+
+LOWER CANYON, September 21.
+
+We never reached Estes Park.  There is no trail, and horses have
+never been across.  We started from camp at ten, and spent four
+hours in searching for the trail.  Chalmers tried gulch after
+gulch again, his self-assertion giving way a little after each
+failure; sometimes going east when we should have gone west,
+always being brought up by a precipice or other impossibility. 
+At last he went off by himself, and returned rejoicing, saying he
+had found the trail; and soon, sure enough, we were on a
+well-defined old trail, evidently made by carcasses which have
+been dragged along it by hunters.  Vainly I pointed out to him
+that we were going north-east when we should have gone
+south-west, and that we were ascending instead of descending. 
+"Oh, it's all right, and we shall soon come to water," he always
+replied.  For two hours we ascended slowly through a thicket of
+aspen, the cold continually intensifying; but the trail, which
+had been growing fainter, died out, and an opening showed the top
+of Storm Peak not far off and not much above us, though it is
+11,000 feet high. I could not help laughing.  He had deliberately
+turned his back on Estes Park.  He then confessed that he was
+lost, and that he could not find the way back.  His wife sat down
+on the ground and cried bitterly.  We ate some dry bread, and
+then I said I had had much experience in traveling, and would
+take the control of the party, which was agreed to, and we began
+the long descent.  Soon after his wife was thrown from her horse,
+and cried bitterly again from fright and mortification.  Soon
+after that the girth of the mule's saddle broke, and having no
+crupper, saddle and addenda went over his head, and the flour was
+dispersed.  Next the girth of the woman's saddle broke, and she
+went over her horse's head.  Then he began to fumble helplessly
+at it, railing against England the whole time, while I secured
+the saddle, and guided the route back to an outlet of the park. 
+There a fire was built, and we had some bread and bacon; and then
+a search for water occupied nearly two hours, and resulted in the
+finding of a mudhole, trodden and defiled by hundreds of feet of
+elk, bears, cats, deer, and other beasts, and containing only
+a few gallons of water as thick as pea soup, with which we
+watered our animals and made some strong tea.
+     
+The sun was setting in glory as we started for the four hours'
+ride home, and the frost was intense, and made our bruised,
+grazed limbs ache painfully.  I was sorry for Mrs. Chalmers, who
+had had several falls, and bore her aches patiently, and had said
+several times to her husband, with a kind meaning, "I am real
+sorry for this woman."  I was so tired with the perpetual
+stumbling of my horse, as well as stiffened with the bitter cold,
+that I walked for the last hour or two; and Chalmers, as if to
+cover his failure, indulged in loud, incessant talk, abusing all
+other religionists, and railing against England in the coarsest
+American fashion.  Yet, after all, they were not bad souls; and
+though he failed so grotesquely, he did his incompetent best. 
+The log fire in the ruinous cabin was cheery, and I kept it up
+all night, and watched the stars through the holes in the roof,
+and thought of Long's Peak in its glorious solitude, and resolved
+that, come what might, I would reach Estes Park.
+                                             I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter VI
+
+A bronco mare--An accident--Wonderland--A sad story--The children
+of the Territories--Hard greed--Halcyon hours--
+Smartness--Old-fashioned prejudices--The Chicago colony--Good
+luck--Three notes of admiration--A good horse--The St.
+Vrain--The Rocky Mountains at last--"Mountain Jim"--A death
+hug--Estes Park.
+
+LOWER CANYON, September 25.
+
+This is another world.  My entrance upon it was signalized in
+this fashion.  Chalmers offered me a bronco mare for a reasonable
+sum, and though she was a shifty, half-broken young thing, I came
+over here on her to try her, when, just as I was going away, she
+took into her head to "scare" and "buck," and when I touched her
+with my foot she leaped over a heap of timber, and the girth gave
+way, and the onlookers tell me that while she jumped I fell over
+her tail from a good height upon the hard gravel, receiving a
+parting kick on my knee.  They could hardly believe that no bones
+were broken.  The flesh of my left arm looks crushed into a
+jelly, but cold-water dressings will soon bring it right; and a
+cut on my back bled profusely; and the bleeding, with many 
+bruises and the general shake, have made me feel weak, but
+circumstances do not admit of "making a fuss," and I really think
+that the rents in my riding dress will prove the most important
+part of the accident.
+     
+The surroundings here are pleasing.  The log cabin, on the top of
+which a room with a steep, ornamental Swiss roof has been built,
+is in a valley close to a clear, rushing river, which emerges a
+little higher up from an inaccessible chasm of great sublimity. 
+One side of the valley is formed by cliffs and terraces of
+porphyry as red as the reddest new brick, and at sunset blazing
+into  vermilion.  Through rifts in the nearer ranges there are
+glimpses  of pine-clothed peaks, which, towards twilight, pass
+through  every shade of purple and violet.  The sky and the earth
+combine to  form a Wonderland every evening--such rich, velvety
+coloring in  crimson and violet; such an orange, green, and
+vermilion sky; such  scarlet and emerald clouds; such an
+extraordinary dryness and purity  of atmosphere, and then the
+glorious afterglow which seems to  blend earth and heaven!  For
+color, the Rocky Mountains beat all I have seen. The air has been
+cold, but the sun bright and hot during  the last few days.
+     
+The story of my host is a story of misfortune.  It indicates who
+should NOT come to Colorado.[11] He and his wife are  under
+thirty-five.  The son of a London physician in large practice,
+with a liberal education in the largest sense of the word,
+unusual culture and accomplishments, and the partner of a
+physician in  good practice in the second city in England, he
+showed symptoms which threatened pulmonary disease.  In an evil
+hour he heard of Colorado with its "unrivalled climate, boundless
+resources," etc., and, fascinated not only by these material
+advantages, but by the notion of being able to found or reform
+society on advanced social theories of his own, he became an
+emigrant.  Mrs. Hughes is one of the most charming, and lovable
+women I have ever seen, and their marriage is an ideal one.  Both
+are fitted to shine in any society, but neither had the slightest
+knowledge of domestic and farming details.  Dr. H. did not know
+how to saddle or harness a horse.  Mrs. H. did not know whether
+you should put an egg into cold or hot water when you meant to
+boil it!  They arrived at Longmount, bought up this claim, rather
+for the beauty of the scenery than for any substantial
+advantages, were cheated in land, goods, oxen, everything, and,
+to the discredit of the settlers, seemed to be regarded as fair
+game.  Everything has failed with them, and though they "rise
+early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness,"
+they hardly keep their heads above water.  A young Swiss girl,
+devoted to them both, works as hard as they do.  They have one
+horse, no wagon, some poultry, and a few cows, but no "hired
+man."  It is the hardest and least ideal struggle that I have
+ever seen made by educated people.  They had all their experience
+to learn, and they have bought it by losses and hardships.  That
+they have learnt so much surprises me.  Dr. H. and these two
+ladies built the upper room and the addition to the house without
+help.  He has cropped the land himself, and has learned the
+difficult art of milking cows.  Mrs. H. makes all the clothes
+required for a family of six, and her evenings, when the hard
+day's work is done and she is ready to drop from fatigue, are
+spent in mending and patching.  The day is one long GRIND,
+without rest or enjoyment, or the pleasure of chance intercourse
+with cultivated people.  The few visitors who have "happened in"
+are the thrifty wives of prosperous settlers, full of housewifely
+pride, whose one object seems to be to make Mrs. H. feel her
+inferiority to themselves.  I wish she did take a more genuine
+interest in the "coming-on" of the last calf, the prospects of
+the squash crop, and the yield and price of butter; but though
+she has learned to make excellent butter and bread, it is all
+against the grain.  The children are delightful.  The little boys
+are refined, courteous, childish gentlemen, with love and
+tenderness to their parents in all their words and actions. 
+Never a rough or harsh word is heard within the house.  But the
+atmosphere of struggles and difficulties has already told on
+these infants.  They consider their mother in all things, going
+without butter when they think the stock is low, bringing in wood
+and water too heavy for them to carry, anxiously speculating on
+the winter prospect and the crops, yet withal the most childlike
+and innocent of children.
+
+[11] The story is ended now.  A few months after my visit
+Mrs. H. died a few days after her confinement, and was buried on
+the bleak hill side, leaving her husband with five children under
+six years old, and Dr. H. is a prosperous man on one of the
+sunniest islands of the Pacific, with the devoted Swiss friend as
+his second wife.
+
+
+One of the most painful things in the Western States and
+Territories is the extinction of childhood.  I have never seen
+any children, only debased imitations of men and women, cankered
+by greed and selfishness, and asserting and gaining complete
+independence of their parents at ten years old.  The atmosphere
+in which they are brought up is one of greed, godlessness, and
+frequently of profanity.  Consequently these sweet things seem
+like flowers in a desert.
+     
+Except for love, which here as everywhere raises life into the
+ideal, this is a wretched existence.  The poor crops have been
+destroyed by grasshoppers over and over again, and that talent
+deified here under the name of "smartness" has taken advantage of
+Dr. H. in all bargains, leaving him with little except food for
+his children.  Experience has been dearly bought in all ways, and
+this instance of failure might be a useful warning to
+professional men without agricultural experience not to come and
+try to make a living by farming in Colorado.
+     
+My time here has passed very delightfully in spite of my regret
+and anxiety for this interesting family.  I should like to stay
+longer, were it not that they have given up to me their straw
+bed, and Mrs. H. and her baby, a wizened, fretful child, sleep on
+the floor in my room, and Dr. H. on the floor downstairs, and the
+nights are frosty and chill.  Work is the order of their day, and
+of mine, and at night, when the children are in bed, we three
+ladies patch the clothes and make shirts, and Dr. H. reads
+Tennyson's poems, or we speak tenderly of that world of culture
+and noble deeds which seems here "the land very far off," or Mrs.
+H. lays aside her work for a few minutes and reads some favorite
+passage of prose or poetry, as I have seldom heard either read
+before, with a voice of large compass and exquisite tone, quick
+to interpret every shade of the author's meaning, and soft,
+speaking eyes, moist with feeling and sympathy.  These are our
+halcyon hours, when we forget the needs of the morrow, and that
+men still buy, sell, cheat, and strive for gold, and that we are
+in the Rocky Mountains, and that it is near midnight.  But
+morning comes hot and tiresome, and the never-ending work is
+oppressive, and Dr. H. comes in from the field two or three times
+in the day, dizzy and faint, and they condole with each other,
+and I feel that the Colorado settler needs to be made of sterner
+stuff and to possess more adaptability.
+     
+To-day has been a very pleasant day for me, though I have only
+once sat down since 9 A.M., and it is now 5 P.M.  I plotted that
+the devoted Swiss girl should go to the nearest settlement with
+two of the children for the day in a neighbor's wagon, and that
+Dr. and Mrs. H. should get an afternoon of rest and sleep
+upstairs, while I undertook to do the work and make something of
+a cleaning.  I had a large "wash" of my own, having been hindered
+last week by my bad arm, but a clothes wringer which screws on to
+the side of the tub is a great assistance, and by folding the
+clothes before passing them through it, I make it serve instead
+of mangle and iron.  After baking the bread and thoroughly
+cleaning the churn and pails, I began upon the tins and pans, the
+cleaning of which had fallen into arrears, and was hard at work,
+very greasy and grimy, when a man came in to know where to ford
+the river with his ox team, and as I was showing him he looked
+pityingly at me, saying, "Be you the new hired girl?  Bless me,
+you're awful small!"
+     
+Yesterday we saved three cwt. of tomatoes for winter use, and
+about two tons of squash and pumpkin for the cattle, two of the
+former weighing 140 lbs.  I pulled nearly a quarter of an acre of
+maize, but it was a scanty crop, and the husks were poorly
+filled.  I much prefer field work to the scouring of greasy pans
+and to the wash tub, and both to either sewing or writing.
+     
+This is not Arcadia.  "Smartness," which consists in
+over-reaching your neighbor in every fashion which is not
+illegal, is the quality which is held in the greatest repute, and
+Mammon is the divinity.  From a generation brought up to worship
+the one and admire the other little can be hoped.  In districts
+distant as this is from "Church Ordinances," there are three ways
+in which Sunday is spent: one, to make it a day for visiting,
+hunting, and fishing; another, to spend it in sleeping and
+abstinence from work; and the third, to continue all the usual
+occupations, consequently harvesting and felling and hauling
+timber are to be seen in progress.
+
+Last Sunday a man came here and put up a door, and said he didn't
+believe in the Bible or in a God, and he wasn't going to
+sacrifice his children's bread to old-fashioned prejudices. 
+There is a manifest indifference to the higher obligations of the
+law, "judgment, mercy and faith"; but in the main the settlers
+are steady, there are few flagrant breaches of morals, industry
+is the rule, life and property are far safer than in England or
+Scotland, and the law of universal respect to women is still in
+full force.
+     
+The days are now brilliant and the nights sharply frosty.  People
+are preparing for the winter.  The tourists from the East are
+trooping into Denver, and the surveying parties are coming down
+from the mountains.  Snow has fallen on the higher ranges, and my
+hopes of getting to Estes Park are down at zero.
+
+
+LONGMOUNT, September 25.
+
+Yesterday was perfect.  The sun was brilliant and the air cool
+and bracing.  I felt better, and after a hard day's work and an
+evening stroll with my friends in the glorious afterglow, I went
+to bed cheerful and hopeful as to the climate and its effect on
+my health.  This morning I awoke with a sensation of extreme
+lassitude, and on going out, instead of the delicious atmosphere
+of yesterday, I found intolerable suffocating heat, a BLAZING
+(not BRILLIANT) sun, and a sirocco like a Victorian hot wind. 
+Neuralgia, inflamed eyes, and a sense of extreme prostration
+followed, and my acclimatized hosts were somewhat similarly
+affected.  The sparkle, the crystalline atmosphere, and the glory
+of color of yesterday, had all vanished.  We had borrowed a
+wagon, but Dr. H.'s strong but lazy horse and a feeble hired one
+made a poor span; and though the distance here is only twenty-two
+miles over level prairie, our tired animal, and losing the way
+three times, have kept us eight and a half hours in the broiling
+sun.  All notions of locality fail me on the prairie, and Dr. H.
+was not much better.  We took wrong tracks, got entangled among
+fences, plunged through the deep mud of irrigation ditches, and
+were despondent.  It was a miserable drive, sitting on a heap of
+fodder under the angry sun.  Half-way here we camped at a river,
+now only a series of mud holes, and I fell asleep under the
+imperfect shade of a cotton-wood tree, dreading the thought of
+waking and jolting painfully along over the dusty prairie in the
+dust-laden, fierce sirocco, under the ferocious sun.  We never
+saw man or beast the whole day.
+     
+This is the "Chicago Colony," and it is said to be prospering,
+after some preliminary land swindles.  It is as uninviting as
+Fort Collins.  We first came upon dust-colored frame houses set
+down at intervals on the dusty buff plain, each with its dusty
+wheat or barley field adjacent, the crop, not the product of the
+rains of heaven, but of the muddy overflow of "Irrigating Ditch
+No.2."  Then comes a road made up of many converging wagon
+tracks, which stiffen into a wide straggling street, in which
+glaring frame houses and a few shops stand opposite to each
+other.  A two-storey house, one of the whitest and most glaring,
+and without a veranda like all the others, is the "St. Vrain
+Hotel," called after the St. Vrain River, out of which the ditch
+is taken which enables Longmount to exist.  Everything was
+broiling in the heat of the slanting sun, which all day long had
+been beating on the unshaded wooden rooms.  The heat within was
+more sickening than outside, and black flies covered everything,
+one's face included.  We all sat fighting the flies in my
+bedroom, which was cooler than elsewhere, till a glorious sunset
+over the Rocky Range, some ten miles off, compelled us to go out
+and enjoy it.  Then followed supper, Western fashion, without
+table-cloths, and all the "unattached" men of Longmount came in
+and fed silently and rapidly.  It was a great treat to have tea
+to drink, as I had not tasted any for a fortnight.  The landlord
+is a jovial, kindly man.  I told him how my plans had faded, and
+how I was reluctantly going on to-morrow to Denver and New York,
+being unable to get to Estes Park, and he said there might yet be
+a chance of some one coming in to-night who would be going up. 
+He soon came to my room and asked definitely what I could do--if
+I feared cold, if I could "rough it," if I could "ride horseback
+and lope."  Estes Park and its surroundings are, he says, "the
+most beautiful scenery in Colorado," and "it's a real shame," he
+added, "for you not to see it."  We had hardly sat down to tea
+when he came, saying "You're in luck this time; two young men
+have just come in and are going up to-morrow morning."  I am
+rather pleased, and have hired a horse for three days; but I am
+not very hopeful, for I am almost ill of the smothering heat, and
+still suffer from my fall, and not having been on horseback
+since, thirty miles will be a long ride.  Then I fear that the
+accommodation is as rough as Chalmers's, and that solitude will
+be impossible.  We have been strolling in the street every since
+it grew dark to get the little air which is moving.
+
+
+ESTES PARK!!!  September 28.
+
+I wish I could let those three notes of admiration go to you
+instead of a letter.  They mean everything that is rapturous and
+delightful--grandeur, cheerfulness, health, enjoyment, novelty,
+freedom, etc., etc.  I have just dropped into the very place I
+have been seeking, but in everything it exceeds all my dreams. 
+There is health in every breath of air; I am much better already,
+and get up to a seven o'clock breakfast without difficulty.  It
+is quite comfortable--in the fashion that I like.  I have a log
+cabin, raised on six posts, all to myself, with a skunk's lair
+underneath it, and a small lake close to it.  There is a frost
+every night, and all day it is cool enough for a roaring fire. 
+The ranchman, who is half-hunter, half-stockman, and his wife are
+jovial, hearty Welsh people from Llanberis, who laugh with loud,
+cheery British laughs, sing in parts down to the youngest child,
+are free hearted and hospitable, and pile the pitch-pine logs
+half-way up the great rude chimney.  There has been fresh meat
+each day since I came, delicious bread baked daily, excellent
+potatoes, tea and coffee, and an abundant supply of milk like
+cream.  I have a clean hay bed with six blankets, and there are
+neither bugs nor fleas.  The scenery is the most glorious I have
+ever seen, and is above us, around us, at the very door.  Most
+people have advized me to go to Colorado Springs, and only one
+mentioned this place, and till I reached Longmount I never saw
+any one who had been here, but I saw from the lie of the country
+that it must be most superbly situated.  People said, however,
+that it was most difficult of access, and that the season for it
+was over.  In traveling there is nothing like dissecting people's
+statements, which are usually colored by their estimate of the
+powers or likings of the person spoken to, making all reasonable
+inquiries, and then pertinaciously but quietly carrying out one's
+own plans.  This is perfection, and all the requisites for health
+are present, including plenty of horses and grass to ride on.
+     
+It is not easy to sit down to write after ten hours of hard
+riding, especially in a cabin full of people, and wholesome
+fatigue may make my letter flat when it ought to be enthusiastic. 
+I was awake all night at Longmount owing to the stifling heat,
+and got up nervous and miserable, ready to give up the thought of
+coming here, but the sunrise over the Plains, and the wonderful
+red of the Rocky Mountains, as they reflected the eastern sky,
+put spirit into me.  The landlord had got a horse, but could not
+give any satisfactory assurances of his being quiet, and being
+much shaken by my fall at Canyon, I earnestly wished that the
+Greeley Tribune had not given me a reputation for horsemanship,
+which had preceded me here.  The young men who were to escort me
+"seemed very innocent," he said, but I have not arrived at his
+meaning yet.  When the horse appeared in the street at 8:30, I
+saw, to my dismay, a high-bred, beautiful creature, stable kept,
+with arched neck, quivering nostrils, and restless ears and eyes. 
+My pack, as on Hawaii, was strapped behind the Mexican saddle,
+and my canvas bag hung on the horn, but the horse did not look
+fit to carry "gear," and seemed to require two men to hold and
+coax him.  There were many loafers about, and I shrank from going
+out and mounting in my old Hawaiian riding dress, though Dr. and
+Mrs. H. assured me that I looked quite "insignificant and
+unnoticeable."  We got away at nine with repeated injunctions
+from the landlord in the words, "Oh, you should be heroic!"
+     
+The sky was cloudless, and a deep brilliant blue, and though the
+sun was hot the air was fresh and bracing.  The ride for glory
+and delight I shall label along with one to Hanalei, and another
+to Mauna Kea, Hawaii.  I felt better quite soon; the horse in
+gait and temper turned out perfection--all spring and spirit,
+elastic in his motion, walking fast and easily, and cantering
+with a light, graceful swing as soon as one pressed the reins on
+his neck, a blithe, joyous animal, to whom a day among the
+mountains seemed a pleasant frolic.  So gentle he was, that when
+I got off and walked he followed me without being led, and
+without needing any one to hold him he allowed me to mount on
+either side.  In addition to the charm of his movements he has
+the catlike sure-footedness of a Hawaiian horse, and fords rapid
+and rough-bottomed rivers, and gallops among stones and stumps,
+and down steep hills, with equal security.  I could have ridden
+him a hundred miles as easily as thirty.  We have only been
+together two days, yet we are firm friends, and thoroughly
+understand each other.  I should not require another companion on
+a long mountain tour.  All his ways are those of an animal
+brought up without curb, whip, or spur, trained by the voice, and
+used only to kindness, as is happily the case with the majority
+of horses in the Western States.  Consequently, unless they are
+broncos, they exercise their intelligence for your advantage, and
+do their work rather as friends than as machines.
+     
+I soon began not only to feel better, but to be exhilarated with
+the delightful motion.  The sun was behind us, and puffs of a
+cool elastic air came down from the glorious mountains in front. 
+We cantered across six miles of prairie, and then reached the
+beautiful canyon of the St. Vrain, which, towards its mouth, is a
+narrow, fertile, wooded valley, through which a bright rapid
+river, which we forded many times, hurries along, with twists and
+windings innumerable.  Ah, how brightly its ripples danced in the
+glittering sunshine, and how musically its waters murmured like
+the streams of windward Hawaii!  We lost our way over and over
+again, though the "innocent" young men had been there before;
+indeed, it would require some talent to master the intricacies of
+that devious trail, but settlers making hay always appeared in
+the nick of time to put us on the right track.  Very fair it was,
+after the brown and burning plains, and the variety was endless.
+Cotton-wood trees were green and bright, aspens shivered in gold
+tremulousness, wild grape-vines trailed their lemon-colored
+foliage along the ground, and the Virginia creeper hung its
+crimson sprays here and there, lightening up green and gold into
+glory.  Sometimes from under the cool and bowery shade of the
+colored tangle we passed into the cool St. Vrain, and then were
+wedged between its margin and lofty cliffs and terraces of
+incredibly staring, fantastic rocks, lined, patched, and splashed
+with carmine, vermilion, greens of all tints, blue, yellow,
+orange, violet, deep crimson, coloring that no artist would dare
+to represent, and of which, in sober prose, I scarcely dare tell.
+Long's wonderful peaks, which hitherto had gleamed above the
+green, now disappeared, to be seen no more for twenty miles.  We
+entered on an ascending valley, where the gorgeous hues of the
+rocks were intensified by the blue gloom of the pitch pines, and
+then taking a track to the north-west, we left the softer world
+behind, and all traces of man and his works, and plunged into
+the Rocky Mountains.
+     
+There were wonderful ascents then up which I led my horse; wild
+fantastic views opening up continually, a recurrence of
+surprises; the air keener and purer with every mile, the
+sensation of loneliness more singular.  A tremendous ascent among
+rocks and pines to a height of 9,000 feet brought us to a passage
+seven feet wide through a wall of rock, with an abrupt descent of
+2,000 feet, and a yet higher ascent beyond.  I never saw anything
+so strange as looking back.  It was a single gigantic ridge which
+we had passed through, standing up knifelike, built up entirely
+of great brick-shaped masses of bright red rock, some of them as
+large as the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, piled one on another
+by Titans.  Pitch pines grew out of their crevices, but there
+was not a vestige of soil.  Beyond, wall beyond wall of similar
+construction, and range above range, rose into the blue sky. 
+Fifteen miles more over great ridges, along passes dark with
+shadow, and so narrow that we had to ride in the beds of the
+streams which had excavated them, round the bases of colossal
+pyramids of rock crested with pines, up into fair upland "parks,"
+scarlet in patches with the poison oak, parks so beautifully
+arranged by nature that I momentarily expected to come upon some
+stately mansion, but that afternoon crested blue jays and
+chipmunks had them all to themselves.  Here, in the early
+morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk, come down to feed,
+and there, in the night, prowl and growl the Rocky Mountain lion,
+the grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf.  There were chasms of
+immense depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains
+with snow gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to
+bewilder and grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools,
+and cool depths of shadow; mountains again, dense with pines,
+among which patches of aspen gleamed like gold; valleys
+where the yellow cotton-wood mingled with the crimson oak, and
+so, on and on through the lengthening shadows, till the trail,
+which in places had been hardly legible, became well defined, and
+we entered a long gulch with broad swellings of grass belted with
+pines.
+    
+A very pretty mare, hobbled, was feeding; a collie dog barked at
+us, and among the scrub, not far from the track, there was a
+rude, black log cabin, as rough as it could be to be a shelter at
+all, with smoke coming out of the roof and window.  We diverged
+towards it; it mattered not that it was the home, or rather den,
+of a notorious "ruffian" and "desperado."  One of my companions
+had disappeared hours before, the remaining one was a town-bred
+youth.  I longed to speak to some one who loved the mountains.  I
+called the hut a DEN--it looked like the den of a wild beast. 
+The big dog lay outside it in a threatening attitude and growled.
+The mud roof was covered with lynx, beaver, and other furs laid
+out to dry, beaver paws were pinned out on the logs, a part of
+the carcass of a deer hung at one end of the cabin, a skinned
+beaver lay in front of a heap of peltry just within the door, and
+antlers of deer, old horseshoes, and offal of many animals, lay
+about the den.
+     
+Roused by the growling of the dog, his owner came out, a broad,
+thickset man, about the middle height, with an old cap on his
+head, and wearing a grey hunting suit much the worse for wear
+(almost falling to pieces, in fact), a digger's scarf knotted
+round his waist, a knife in his belt, and "a bosom friend," a
+revolver, sticking out of the breast pocket of his coat; his
+feet, which were very small, were bare, except for some
+dilapidated moccasins made of horse hide.  The marvel was how his
+clothes hung together, and on him.  The scarf round his waist
+must have had something to do with it.  His face was remarkable. 
+He is a man about forty-five, and must have been strikingly
+handsome.  He has large grey-blue eyes, deeply set, with
+well-marked eyebrows, a handsome aquiline nose, and a very
+handsome mouth.  His face was smooth shaven except for a dense
+mustache and imperial.  Tawny hair, in thin uncared-for curls,
+fell from under his hunter's cap and over his collar.  One eye
+was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the face
+repulsive, while the other might have been modeled in marble. 
+"Desperado" was written in large letters all over him.  I almost
+repented of having sought his acquaintance.  His first impulse
+was to swear at the dog, but on seeing a lady he contented
+himself with kicking him, and coming to me he raised his cap,
+showing as he did so a magnificently-formed brow and head, and in
+a cultured tone of voice asked if there were anything he could do
+for me?  I asked for some water, and he brought some in a
+battered tin, gracefully apologizing for not having anything more
+presentable.  We entered into conversation, and as he spoke I
+forgot both his reputation and appearance, for his manner was
+that of a chivalrous gentleman, his accent refined, and his
+language easy and elegant.  I inquired about some beavers' paws
+which were drying, and in a moment they hung on the horn of my
+saddle.  Apropos of the wild animals of the region, he told me
+that the loss of his eye was owing to a recent encounter with a
+grizzly bear, which, after giving him a death hug, tearing him
+all over, breaking his arm and scratching out his eye, had left
+him for dead.  As we rode away, for the sun was sinking, he said,
+courteously, "You are not an American.  I know from your voice
+that you are a countrywoman of mine.  I hope you will allow me
+the pleasure of calling on you."[12]
+
+[12] Of this unhappy man, who was shot nine months later within
+two miles of his cabin, I write in the subsequent letters only as
+he appeared to me.  His life, without doubt, was deeply stained
+with crimes and vices, and his reputation for ruffianism was a
+deserved one.  But in my intercourse with him I saw more of his
+nobler instincts than of the darker parts of his character,
+which, unfortunately for himself and others, showed itself in its
+worst colors at the time of his tragic end.  It was not until
+after I left Colorado, not indeed until after his death, that I
+heard of the worst points of his character.
+
+     
+This man, known through the Territories and beyond them as "Rocky
+Mountain Jim," or, more briefly, as "Mountain Jim," is one of the
+famous scouts of the Plains, and is the original of some daring
+portraits in fiction concerning Indian Frontier warfare.  So far
+as I have at present heard, he is a man for whom there is now no
+room, for the time for blows and blood in this part of Colorado
+is past, and the fame of many daring exploits is sullied by
+crimes which are not easily forgiven here.  He now has a
+"squatter's claim," but makes his living as a trapper, and is a
+complete child of the mountains.  Of his genius and chivalry to
+women there does not appear to be any doubt; but he is a
+desperate character, and is subject to "ugly fits," when people
+think it best to avoid him.  It is here regarded as an evil that
+he has located himself at the mouth of the only entrance to the
+park, for he is dangerous with his pistols, and it would be safer
+if he were not here.  His besetting sin is indicated in the
+verdict pronounced on him by my host: "When he's sober Jim's a
+perfect gentleman; but when he's had liquor he's the most awful
+ruffian in Colorado."
+     
+From the ridge on which this gulch terminates, at a height of
+9,000 feet, we saw at last Estes Park, lying 1,500 feet below in
+the glory of the setting sun, an irregular basin, lighted up by
+the bright waters of the rushing Thompson, guarded by sentinel
+mountains of fantastic shape and monstrous size, with Long's Peak
+rising above them all in unapproachable grandeur, while the Snowy
+Range, with its outlying spurs heavily timbered, come down upon
+the park slashed by stupendous canyons lying deep in purple
+gloom.  The rushing river was blood red, Long's Peak was aflame,
+the glory of the glowing heaven was given back from earth. 
+Never, nowhere, have I seen anything to equal the view into Estes
+Park.  The mountains "of the land which is very far off" are very
+near now, but the near is more glorious than the far, and reality
+than dreamland.  The mountain fever seized me, and, giving my
+tireless horse one encouraging word, he dashed at full gallop
+over a mile of smooth sward at delirious speed.
+     
+But I was hungry, and the air was frosty, and I was wondering
+what the prospects of food and shelter were in this enchanted
+region, when we came suddenly upon a small lake, close to which
+was a very trim-looking log cabin, with a flat mud roof, with
+four smaller ones; picturesquely dotted about near it, two
+corrals,[13] a long shed, in front of which a steer was being
+killed, a log dairy with a water wheel, some hay piles, and
+various evidences of comfort; and two men, on serviceable horses,
+were just bringing in some tolerable cows to be milked.  A short,
+pleasant-looking man ran up to me and shook hands gleefully,
+which surprised me; but he has since told me that in the evening
+light he thought I was "Mountain Jim, dressed up as a woman!"  I
+recognized in him a countryman, and he introduced himself as
+Griffith Evans, a Welshman from the slate quarries near
+Llanberis.  When the cabin door was opened I saw a good-sized log
+room, unchinked, however, with windows of infamous glass, looking
+two ways; a rough stone fireplace, in which pine logs, half as
+large as I am, were burning; a boarded floor, a round table, two
+rocking chairs, a carpet-covered backwoods couch; and skins,
+Indian bows and arrows, wampum belts, and antlers, fitly
+decorated the rough walls, and equally fitly, rifles were stuck
+up in the corners.  Seven men, smoking, were lying about on the
+floor, a sick man lay on the couch, and a middle-aged lady sat at
+the table writing.  I went out again and asked Evans if he could
+take me in, expecting nothing better than a shakedown; but, to my
+joy, he told me he could give me a cabin to myself, two minutes'
+walk from his own.  So in this glorious upper world, with the
+mountain pines behind and the clear lake in front, in the "blue
+hollow at the foot of Long's Peak," at a height of 7,500 feet,
+where the hoar frost crisps the grass every night of the year, I
+have found far more than I ever dared to hope for.
+
+[13] A corral is a fenced enclosure for cattle.  This word, with
+bronco, ranch, and a few others, are adaptations from the
+Spanish, and are used as extensively throughout California and
+the Territories as is the Spanish or Mexican saddle.
+                                                I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter VII
+
+Personality of Long's Peak--"Mountain Jim"--Lake of the Lilies--A
+silent forest--The camping ground--"Ring"--A lady's bower--Dawn
+and sunrise--A glorious view--Links of diamonds--The ascent of
+the Peak--The "Dog's Lift"--Suffering from thirst--The
+descent--The bivouac.
+
+ESTES PARK, COLORADO, October.
+
+As this account of the ascent of Long's Peak could not
+be written at the time, I am much disinclined to write it,
+especially as no sort of description within my powers could
+enable another to realize the glorious sublimity, the majestic
+solitude, and the unspeakable awfulness and fascination of the
+scenes in which I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
+     
+Long's Peak, 14,700 feet high, blocks up one end of Estes Park,
+and dwarfs all the surrounding mountains.  From it on this side
+rise, snow-born, the bright St. Vrain, and the Big and Little
+Thompson.  By sunlight or moonlight its splintered grey crest is
+the one object which, in spite of wapiti and bighorn, skunk and
+grizzly, unfailingly arrests the eyes.  From it come all
+storms of snow and wind, and the forked lightnings play round its
+head like a glory.  It is one of the noblest of mountains, but in
+one's imagination it grows to be much more than a mountain.  It
+becomes invested with a personality.  In its caverns and abysses
+one comes to fancy that it generates and chains the strong winds,
+to let them loose in its fury.  The thunder becomes its voice,
+and the lightnings do it homage.  Other summits blush under the
+morning kiss of the sun, and turn pale the next moment; but it
+detains the first sunlight and holds it round its head for an
+hour at least, till it pleases to change from rosy red to deep
+blue; and the sunset, as if spell-bound, lingers latest on its
+crest.  The soft winds which hardly rustle the pine needles down
+here are raging rudely up there round its motionless summit.  The
+mark of fire is upon it; and though it has passed into a grim
+repose, it tells of fire and upheaval as truly, though not as
+eloquently, as the living volcanoes of Hawaii.  Here under its
+shadow one learns how naturally nature worship, and the
+propitiation of the forces of nature, arose in minds which had no
+better light.
+     
+Long's Peak, "the American Matterhorn," as some call it, was
+ascended five years ago for the first time.  I thought I should
+like to attempt it, but up to Monday, when Evans left for Denver,
+cold water was thrown upon the project.  It was too late in the
+season, the winds were likely to be strong, etc.; but just before
+leaving, Evans said that the weather was looking more settled,
+and if I did not get farther than the timber line it would be
+worth going.  Soon after he left, "Mountain Jim" came in, and
+said he would go up as guide, and the two youths who rode here
+with me from Longmount and I caught at the proposal.  Mrs.
+Edwards at once baked bread for three days, steaks were cut from
+the steer which hangs up conveniently, and tea, sugar, and butter
+were benevolently added.  Our picnic was not to be a luxurious or
+"well-found" one, for, in order to avoid the expense of a pack
+mule, we limited our luggage to what our saddle horses could
+carry.  Behind my saddle I carried three pair of camping blankets
+and a quilt, which reached to my shoulders.  My own boots were so
+much worn that it was painful to walk, even about the park, in
+them, so Evans had lent me a pair of his hunting boots, which
+hung to the horn of my saddle.  The horses of the two young men
+were equally loaded, for we had to prepare for many degrees of
+frost.  "Jim" was a shocking figure; he had on an old pair of
+high boots, with a baggy pair of old trousers made of deer hide,
+held on by an old scarf tucked into them; a leather shirt, with
+three or four ragged unbuttoned waistcoats over it; an old
+smashed wideawake, from under which his tawny, neglected ringlets
+hung; and with his one eye, his one long spur, his knife in his
+belt, his revolver in his waistcoat pocket, his saddle covered
+with an old beaver skin, from which the paws hung down; his
+camping blankets behind him, his rifle laid across the saddle in
+front of him, and his axe, canteen, and other gear hanging to the
+horn, he was as awful-looking a ruffian as one could see.  By way
+of contrast he rode a small Arab mare, of exquisite beauty,
+skittish, high spirited, gentle, but altogether too light for
+him, and he fretted her incessantly to make her display herself.
+     
+Heavily loaded as all our horses were, "Jim" started over the
+half-mile of level grass at a hard gallop, and then throwing his
+mare on her haunches, pulled up alongside of me, and with a grace
+of manner which soon made me forget his appearance, entered into
+a conversation which lasted for more than three hours, in spite
+of the manifold checks of fording streams, single file, abrupt
+ascents and descents, and other incidents of mountain travel. 
+The ride was one series of glories and surprises, of "park" and
+glade, of lake and stream, of mountains on mountains, culminating
+in the rent pinnacles of Long's Peak, which looked yet grander
+and ghastlier as we crossed an attendant mountain 11,000 feet
+high.  The slanting sun added fresh beauty every hour.  There
+were dark pines against a lemon sky, grey peaks reddening and
+etherealizing, gorges of deep and infinite blue, floods of golden
+glory pouring through canyons of enormous depth, an atmosphere of
+absolute purity, an occasional foreground of cottonwood and aspen
+flaunting in red and gold to intensify the blue gloom of the
+pines, the trickle and murmur of streams fringed with icicles,
+the strange sough of gusts moving among the pine tops--sights and
+sounds not of the lower earth, but of the solitary,
+beast-haunted, frozen upper altitudes.  From the dry, buff grass
+of Estes Park we turned off up a trail on the side of a pine-hung
+gorge, up a steep pine-clothed hill, down to a small valley, rich
+in fine, sun-cured hay about eighteen inches high, and enclosed
+by high mountains whose deepest hollow contains a lily-covered
+lake, fitly named "The Lake of the Lilies."  Ah, how magical its
+beauty was, as it slept in silence, while THERE the dark pines
+were mirrored motionless in its pale gold, and HERE the great
+white lily cups and dark green leaves rested on amethyst-colored
+water!
+     
+From this we ascended into the purple gloom of great pine forests
+which clothe the skirts of the mountains up to a height of about
+11,000 feet, and from their chill and solitary depths we had
+glimpses of golden atmosphere and rose-lit summits, not of "the
+land very far off," but of the land nearer now in all its
+grandeur, gaining in sublimity by nearness--glimpses, too,
+through a broken vista of purple gorges, of the illimitable
+Plains lying idealized in the late sunlight, their baked, brown
+expanse transfigured into the likeness of a sunset sea rolling
+infinitely in waves of misty gold.
+     
+We rode upwards through the gloom on a steep trail blazed through
+the forest, all my intellect concentrated on avoiding being
+dragged off my horse by impending branches, or having the
+blankets badly torn, as those of my companions were, by sharp
+dead limbs, between which there was hardly room to pass--the
+horses breathless, and requiring to stop every few yards, though
+their riders, except myself, were afoot.  The gloom of the dense,
+ancient, silent forest is to me awe inspiring.  On such an
+evening it is soundless, except for the branches creaking in the
+soft wind, the frequent snap of decayed timber, and a murmur in
+the pine tops as of a not distant waterfall, all tending to
+produce EERINESS and a sadness "hardly akin to pain."  There no
+lumberer's axe has ever rung.  The trees die when they have
+attained their prime, and stand there, dead and bare, till the
+fierce mountain winds lay them prostrate.  The pines grew smaller
+and more sparse as we ascended, and the last stragglers wore a
+tortured, warring look.  The timber line was passed, but yet a
+little higher a slope of mountain meadow dipped to the south-west
+towards a bright stream trickling under ice and icicles, and
+there a grove of the beautiful silver spruce marked our camping
+ground.  The trees were in miniature, but so exquisitely arranged
+that one might well ask what artist's hand had planted them,
+scattering them here, clumping them there, and training their
+slim spires towards heaven.  Hereafter, when I call up memories
+of the glorious, the view from this camping ground will come up. 
+Looking east, gorges opened to the distant Plains, then fading
+into purple grey.  Mountains with pine-clothed skirts rose in
+ranges, or, solitary, uplifted their grey summits, while close
+behind, but nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered the bald white
+crest of Long's Peak, its huge precipices red with the light of a
+sun long lost to our eyes.  Close to us, in the caverned side of
+the Peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal.  Soon
+the afterglow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung
+out of the heavens, shining through the silver blue foliage of
+the pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the
+whole into fairyland.  The "photo" which accompanies this letter
+is by a courageous Denver artist who attempted the ascent just
+before I arrived, but, after camping out at the timber line for a
+week, was foiled by the perpetual storms, and was driven down
+again, leaving some very valuable apparatus about 3,000 feet
+from the summit.
+     
+Unsaddling and picketing the horses securely, making the beds of
+pine shoots, and dragging up logs for fuel, warmed us all.  "Jim"
+built up a great fire, and before long we were all sitting around
+it at supper.  It didn't matter much that we had to drink our tea
+out of the battered meat tins in which it was boiled, and eat
+strips of beef reeking with pine smoke without plates or forks.
+     
+"Treat Jim as a gentleman and you'll find him one," I had been
+told; and though his manner was certainly bolder and freer than
+that of gentlemen generally, no imaginary fault could be found. 
+He was very agreeable as a man of culture as well as a child of
+nature; the desperado was altogether out of sight.  He was very
+courteous and even kind to me, which was fortunate, as the young
+men had little idea of showing even ordinary civilities.  That
+night I made the acquaintance of his dog "Ring," said to be the
+best hunting dog in Colorado, with the body and legs of a collie,
+but a head approaching that of a mastiff, a noble face with a
+wistful human expression, and the most truthful eyes I ever saw
+in an animal.  His master loves him if he loves anything, but in
+his savage moods ill-treats him.  "Ring's" devotion never
+swerves, and his truthful eyes are rarely taken off his master's
+face.  He is almost human in his intelligence, and, unless he is
+told to do so, he never takes notice of any one but "Jim."  In a
+tone as if speaking to a human being, his master, pointing to me,
+said, "Ring, go to that lady, and don't leave her again
+to-night."  "Ring" at once came to me, looked into my face, laid
+his head on my shoulder, and then lay down beside me with his
+head on my lap, but never taking his eyes from "Jim's" face.
+     
+The long shadows of the pines lay upon the frosted grass, an
+aurora leaped fitfully, and the moonlight, though intensely
+bright, was pale beside the red, leaping flames of our pine logs
+and their red glow on our gear, ourselves, and Ring's truthful
+face.  One of the young men sang a Latin student's song and two
+Negro melodies; the other "Sweet Spirit, hear my Prayer."  "Jim"
+sang one of Moore's melodies in a singular falsetto, and all
+together sang, "The Star-spangled Banner" and "The Red, White,
+and Blue."  Then "Jim" recited a very clever poem of his own
+composition, and told some fearful Indian stories.  A group of
+small silver spruces away from the fire was my sleeping place. 
+The artist who had been up there had so woven and interlaced
+their lower branches as to form a bower, affording at once
+shelter from the wind and a most agreeable privacy.  It was
+thickly strewn with young pine shoots, and these, when covered
+with a blanket, with an inverted saddle for a pillow, made a
+luxurious bed.  The mercury at 9 P.M. was 12 degrees below the
+freezing point.  "Jim," after a last look at the horses, made a
+huge fire, and stretched himself out beside it, but "Ring" lay at
+my back to keep me warm.  I could not sleep, but the night passed
+rapidly.  I was anxious about the ascent, for gusts of ominous
+sound swept through the pines at intervals.  Then wild animals
+howled, and "Ring" was perturbed in spirit about them.  Then it
+was strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man,
+sleeping as quietly as innocence sleeps.  But, above all, it was
+exciting to lie there, with no better shelter than a bower of
+pines, on a mountain 11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the
+Rocky Range, under twelve degrees of frost, hearing sounds of
+wolves, with shivering stars looking through the fragrant canopy,
+with arrowy pines for bed-posts, and for a night lamp the red
+flames of a camp-fire.
+     
+Day dawned long before the sun rose, pure and lemon colored.  The
+rest were looking after the horses, when one of the students came
+running to tell me that I must come farther down the slope, for
+"Jim" said he had never seen such a sunrise.  From the chill,
+grey Peak above, from the everlasting snows, from the silvered
+pines, down through mountain ranges with their depths of Tyrian
+purple, we looked to where the Plains lay cold, in blue-grey,
+like a morning sea against a far horizon.  Suddenly, as a
+dazzling streak at first, but enlarging rapidly into a dazzling
+sphere, the sun wheeled above the grey line, a light and glory as
+when it was first created.  "Jim" involuntarily and reverently
+uncovered his head, and exclaimed, "I believe there is a God!"  I
+felt as if, Parsee-like, I must worship.  The grey of the Plains
+changed to purple, the sky was all one rose-red flush, on which
+vermilion cloud-streaks rested; the ghastly peaks gleamed like
+rubies, the earth and heavens were new created.  Surely "the Most
+High dwelleth not in temples made with hands!"  For a full hour
+those Plains simulated the ocean, down to whose limitless expanse
+of purple, cliff, rocks, and promontories swept down.
+     
+By seven we had finished breakfast, and passed into the ghastlier
+solitudes above, I riding as far as what, rightly, or wrongly,
+are called the "Lava Beds," an expanse of large and small
+boulders, with snow in their crevices.  It was very cold; some
+water which we crossed was frozen hard enough to bear the horse.
+"Jim" had advised me against taking any wraps, and my thin
+Hawaiian riding dress, only fit for the tropics, was penetrated
+by the keen air The rarefied atmosphere soon began to oppress our
+breathing, and I found that Evans's boots were so large that I
+had no foothold.  Fortunately, before the real difficulty of the
+ascent began, we found, under a rock, a pair of small overshoes,
+probably left by the Hayden exploring expedition, which just
+lasted for the day.  As we were leaping from rock to rock, "Jim"
+said, "I was thinking in the night about your traveling alone,
+and wondering where you carried your Derringer, for I could see
+no signs of it."  On my telling him that I traveled unarmed, he
+could hardly believe it, and adjured me to get a revolver at
+once.
+     
+On arriving at the "Notch" (a literal gate of rock), we found
+ourselves absolutely on the knifelike ridge or backbone of Long's
+Peak, only a few feet wide, covered with colossal boulders and
+fragments, and on the other side shelving in one precipitous,
+snow-patched sweep of 3,000 feet to a picturesque hollow,
+containing a lake of pure green water.  Other lakes, hidden among
+dense pine woods, were farther off, while close above us rose the
+Peak, which, for about 500 feet, is a smooth, gaunt,
+inaccessible-looking pile of granite.  Passing through the
+"Notch," we looked along the nearly inaccessible side of the
+Peak, composed of boulders and debris of all shapes and sizes,
+through which appeared broad, smooth ribs of reddish-colored
+granite, looking as if they upheld the towering rock mass above. 
+I usually dislike bird's-eye and panoramic views, but, though
+from a mountain, this was not one.  Serrated ridges, not much
+lower than that on which we stood, rose, one beyond another, far
+as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision, broken into awful
+chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles piercing the
+heavenly blue with their cold, barren grey, on, on for ever, till
+the most distant range upbore unsullied snow alone.  There were
+fair lakes mirroring the dark pine woods, canyons dark and
+blue-black with unbroken expanses of pines, snow-slashed
+pinnacles, wintry heights frowning upon lovely parks, watered and
+wooded, lying in the lap of summer; North Park floating off into
+the blue distance, Middle Park closed till another season, the
+sunny slopes of Estes Park, and winding down among the mountains
+the snowy ridge of the Divide, whose bright waters seek both the
+Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  There, far below, links of diamonds
+showed where the Grand River takes its rise to seek the
+mysterious Colorado, with its still unsolved enigma, and lose
+itself in the waters of the Pacific; and nearer the snow-born
+Thompson bursts forth from the ice to begin its journey to the
+Gulf of Mexico.  Nature, rioting in her grandest mood, exclaimed
+with voices of grandeur, solitude, sublimity, beauty, and
+infinity, "Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or
+the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"  Never-to-be-forgotten
+glories they were, burnt in upon my memory by six succeeding
+hours of terror.
+    
+You know I have no head and no ankles, and never ought to dream
+of mountaineering; and had I known that the ascent was a real
+mountaineering feat I should not have felt the slightest ambition
+to perform it.  As it is, I am only humiliated by my success, for
+"Jim" dragged me up, like a bale of goods, by sheer force of
+muscle.  At the "Notch" the real business of the ascent began. 
+Two thousand feet of solid rock towered above us, four thousand
+feet of broken rock shelved precipitously below; smooth granite
+ribs, with barely foothold, stood out here and there; melted snow
+refrozen several times, presented a more serious obstacle; many
+of the rocks were loose, and tumbled down when touched.  To
+me it was a time of extreme terror.  I was roped to "Jim," but it
+was of no use; my feet were paralyzed and slipped on the bare
+rock, and he said it was useless to try to go that way, and we
+retraced our steps.  I wanted to return to the "Notch," knowing
+that my incompetence would detain the party, and one of the
+young men said almost plainly that a woman was a dangerous
+encumbrance, but the trapper replied shortly that if it were not
+to take a lady up he would not go up at all.  He went on to
+explore, and reported that further progress on the correct line
+of ascent was blocked by ice; and then for two hours we
+descended, lowering ourselves by our hands from rock to rock
+along a boulder-strewn sweep of 4,000 feet, patched with ice and
+snow, and perilous from rolling stones.  My fatigue, giddiness,
+and pain from bruised ankles, and arms half pulled out of their
+sockets, were so great that I should never have gone halfway had
+not "Jim," nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience and
+skill, and withal a determination that I should ascend the Peak,
+which never failed.  After descending about 2,000 feet to avoid
+the ice, we got into a deep ravine with inaccessible sides,
+partly filled with ice and snow and partly with large and small
+fragments of rock, which were constantly giving away, rendering
+the footing very insecure.  That part to me was two hours of
+painful and unwilling submission to the inevitable; of trembling,
+slipping, straining, of smooth ice appearing when it was least
+expected, and of weak entreaties to be left behind while the
+others went on.  "Jim" always said that there was no danger, that
+there was only a short bad bit ahead, and that I should go up
+even if he carried me!
+     
+Slipping, faltering, gasping from the exhausting toil in the
+rarefied air, with throbbing hearts and panting lungs, we reached
+the top of the gorge and squeezed ourselves between two gigantic
+fragments of rock by a passage called the "Dog's Lift," when I
+climbed on the shoulders of one man and then was hauled up.  This
+introduced us by an abrupt turn round the south-west angle of the
+Peak to a narrow shelf of considerable length, rugged, uneven,
+and so overhung by the cliff in some places that it is necessary
+to crouch to pass at all.  Above, the Peak looks nearly vertical
+for 400 feet; and below, the most tremendous precipice I have
+ever seen descends in one unbroken fall.  This is usually
+considered the most dangerous part of the ascent, but it does not
+seem so to me, for such foothold as there is is secure, and one
+fancies that it is possible to hold on with the hands.  But
+there, and on the final, and, to my thinking, the worst part of
+the climb, one slip, and a breathing, thinking, human being would
+lie 3,000 feet below, a shapeless, bloody heap!  "Ring" refused
+to traverse the Ledge, and remained at the "Lift" howling
+piteously.
+     
+From thence the view is more magnificent even than that from the
+"Notch."  At the foot of the precipice below us lay a lovely
+lake, wood embosomed, from or near which the bright St. Vrain and
+other streams take their rise.  I thought how their clear cold
+waters, growing turbid in the affluent flats, would heat under
+the tropic sun, and eventually form part of that great ocean
+river which renders our far-off islands habitable by impinging on
+their shores.  Snowy ranges, one behind the other, extended to
+the distant horizon, folding in their wintry embrace the beauties
+of Middle Park.  Pike's Peak, more than one hundred miles off,
+lifted that vast but shapeless summit which is the landmark of
+southern Colorado.  There were snow patches, snow slashes,
+snow abysses, snow forlorn and soiled looking, snow pure and
+dazzling, snow glistening above the purple robe of pine worn by
+all the mountains; while away to the east, in limitless breadth,
+stretched the green-grey of the endless Plains.  Giants
+everywhere reared their splintered crests.  From thence, with a
+single sweep, the eye takes in a distance of 300 miles--that
+distance to the west, north, and south being made up of mountains
+ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen thousand feet in height,
+dominated by Long's Peak, Gray's Peak, and Pike's Peak, all
+nearly the height of Mont Blanc!  On the Plains we traced the
+rivers by their fringe of cottonwoods to the distant Platte, and
+between us and them lay glories of mountain, canyon, and lake,
+sleeping in depths of blue and purple most ravishing to the eye.
+     
+As we crept from the ledge round a horn of rock I beheld what
+made me perfectly sick and dizzy to look at--the terminal Peak
+itself--a smooth, cracked face or wall of pink granite, as nearly
+perpendicular as anything could well be up which it was possible
+to climb, well deserving the name of the "American
+Matterhorn.[14]
+     
+[14] Let no practical mountaineer be allured by my description
+into the ascent of Long's Peak.  Truly terrible as it was to me,
+to a member of the Alpine Club it would not be a feat worth
+performing.
+
+
+SCALING, not climbing, is the correct term for this last ascent. 
+It took one hour to accomplish 500 feet, pausing for breath every
+minute or two.  The only foothold was in narrow cracks or on
+minute projections on the granite.  To get a toe in these cracks,
+or here and there on a scarcely obvious projection, while
+crawling on hands and knees, all the while tortured with thirst
+and gasping and struggling for breath, this was the climb; but at
+last the Peak was won.  A grand, well-defined mountain top it is,
+a nearly level acre of boulders, with precipitous sides all
+round, the one we came up being the only accessible one.
+     
+It was not possible to remain long.  One of the young men was
+seriously alarmed by bleeding from the lungs, and the intense
+dryness of the day and the rarefication of the air, at a height
+of nearly 15,000 feet, made respiration very painful.  There is
+always water on the Peak, but it was frozen as hard as a rock,
+and the sucking of ice and snow increases thirst.  We all
+suffered severely from the want of water, and the gasping for
+breath made our mouths and tongues so dry that articulation was
+difficult, and the speech of all unnatural.
+     
+From the summit were seen in unrivalled combination all the views
+which had rejoiced our eyes during the ascent.  It was something
+at last to stand upon the storm-rent crown of this lonely
+sentinel of the Rocky Range, on one of the mightiest of the
+vertebrae of the backbone of the North American continent, and
+to see the waters start for both oceans.  Uplifted above love and
+hate and storms of passion, calm amidst the eternal silences,
+fanned by zephyrs and bathed in living blue, peace rested for
+that one bright day on the Peak, as if it were some region
+
+     Where falls not rain, or hail, or any snow,
+     Or ever wind blows loudly.
+
+We placed our names, with the date of ascent, in a tin within a
+crevice, and descended to the Ledge, sitting on the smooth
+granite, getting our feet into cracks and against projections,
+and letting ourselves down by our hands, "Jim" going before me,
+so that I might steady my feet against his powerful shoulders.  I
+was no longer giddy, and faced the precipice of 3,500 feet
+without a shiver.  Repassing the Ledge and Lift, we accomplished
+the descent through 1,500 feet of ice and snow, with many falls
+and bruises, but no worse mishap, and there separated, the young
+men taking the steepest but most direct way to the "Notch," with
+the intention of getting ready for the march home, and "Jim" and
+I taking what he thought the safer route for me--a descent over
+boulders for 2,000 feet, and then a tremendous ascent to the
+"Notch."  I had various falls, and once hung by my frock, which
+caught on a rock, and "Jim" severed it with his hunting knife,
+upon which I fell into a crevice full of soft snow.  We were
+driven lower down the mountains than he had intended by
+impassable tracts of ice, and the ascent was tremendous.  For the
+last 200 feet the boulders were of enormous size, and the
+steepness fearful.  Sometimes I drew myself up on hands and
+knees, sometimes crawled; sometimes "Jim" pulled me up by my arms
+or a lariat, and sometimes I stood on his shoulders, or he made
+steps for me of his feet and hands, but at six we stood on the
+"Notch" in the splendor of the sinking sun, all color deepening,
+all peaks glorifying, all shadows purpling, all peril past.
+     
+"Jim" had parted with his brusquerie when we parted from the
+students, and was gentle and considerate beyond anything, though
+I knew that he must be grievously disappointed, both in my
+courage and strength.  Water was an object of earnest desire.  My
+tongue rattled in my mouth, and I could hardly articulate.  It is
+good for one's sympathies to have for once a severe experience of
+thirst.  Truly, there was
+
+          Water, water, everywhere,
+          But not a drop to drink.
+
+Three times its apparent gleam deceived even the mountaineer's
+practiced eye, but we found only a foot of "glare ice."  At last,
+in a deep hole, he succeeded in breaking the ice, and by putting
+one's arm far down one could scoop up a little water in one's
+hand, but it was tormentingly insufficient.  With great
+difficulty and much assistance I recrossed the "Lava Beds," was
+carried to the horse and lifted upon him, and when we reached the
+camping ground I was lifted off him, and laid on the ground
+wrapped up in blankets, a humiliating termination of a great
+exploit.  The horses were saddled, and the young men were all
+ready to start, but "Jim" quietly said, "Now, gentlemen, I want a
+good night's rest, and we shan't stir from here to-night."  I
+believe they were really glad to have it so, as one of them was
+quite "finished."  I retired to my arbor, wrapped myself in a
+roll of blankets, and was soon asleep.
+     
+When I woke, the moon was high shining through the silvery
+branches, whitening the bald Peak above, and glittering on the
+great abyss of snow behind, and pine logs were blazing like a
+bonfire in the cold still air.  My feet were so icy cold that I
+could not sleep again, and getting some blankets to sit in, and
+making a roll of them for my back, I sat for two hours by the
+camp-fire.  It was weird and gloriously beautiful.  The students
+were asleep not far off in their blankets with their feet towards
+the fire.  "Ring" lay on one side of me with his fine head on my
+arm, and his master sat smoking, with the fire lighting up the
+handsome side of his face, and except for the tones of our
+voices, and an occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot
+blazed up, there was no sound on the mountain side.  The beloved
+stars of my far-off home were overhead, the Plough and Pole Star,
+with their steady light; the glittering Pleiades, looking larger
+than I ever saw them, and "Orion's studded belt" shining
+gloriously.  Once only some wild animals prowled near the camp,
+when "Ring," with one bound, disappeared from my side; and the
+horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke their lariats,
+stampeded, and came rushing wildly towards the fire, and it was
+fully half an hour before they were caught and quiet was
+restored.  "Jim," or Mr. Nugent, as I always scrupulously called
+him, told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow which
+had led him to embark on a lawless and desperate life.  His voice
+trembled, and tears rolled down his cheek.  Was it semi-conscious
+acting, I wondered, or was his dark soul really stirred to its
+depths by the silence, the beauty, and the memories of youth?
+     
+We reached Estes Park at noon of the following day.  A more
+successful ascent of the Peak was never made, and I would not now
+exchange my memories of its perfect beauty and extraordinary
+sublimity for any other experience of mountaineering in any part
+of the world.  Yesterday snow fell on the summit, and it will be
+inaccessible for eight months to come.
+                                      I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter VIII
+
+Estes Park--Big game--"Parks" in Colorado--Magnificent
+scenery--Flowers and pines--An awful road--Our log
+cabin--Griffith Evans--A miniature world--Our topics--A
+night alarm--A skunk--Morning glories--Daily routine--The
+panic--"Wait for the wagon"--A musical evening.
+
+ESTES PARK, COLORADO TERRITORY, October 2.
+
+How time has slipped by I do not know.  This is a glorious
+region, and the air and life are intoxicating.  I live mainly out
+of doors and on horseback, wear my half-threadbare Hawaiian
+dress, sleep sometimes under the stars on a bed of pine boughs,
+ride on a Mexican saddle, and hear once more the low music of my
+Mexican spurs.  "There's a stranger!  Heave arf a brick at him!"
+is said by many travelers to express the feeling of the new
+settlers in these Territories.  This is not my experience in my
+cheery mountain home.  How the rafters ring as I write with songs
+and mirth, while the pitch-pine logs blaze and crackle in the
+chimney, and the fine snow dust drives in through the chinks and
+forms mimic snow wreaths on the floor, and the wind raves and
+howls and plays among the creaking pine branches and snaps them
+short off, and the lightning plays round the blasted top of
+Long's Peak, and the hardy hunters divert themselves with the
+thought that when I go to bed I must turn out and face the storm!
+     
+You will ask, "What is Estes Park?"  This name, with the quiet
+Midland Countries' sound, suggests "park palings" well lichened,
+a lodge with a curtseying woman, fallow deer, and a Queen Anne
+mansion.  Such as it is, Estes Park is mine.  It is unsurveyed,
+"no man's land," and mine by right of love, appropriation, and
+appreciation; by the seizure of its peerless sunrises and
+sunsets, its glorious afterglow, its blazing noons, its
+hurricanes sharp and furious, its wild auroras, its glories of
+mountain and forest, of canyon, lake, and river, and the
+stereotyping them all in my memory.  Mine, too, in a better than
+the sportsman's sense, are its majestic wapiti, which play and
+fight under the pines in the early morning, as securely as fallow
+deer under our English oaks; its graceful "black-tails," swift of
+foot; its superb bighorns, whose noble leader is to be seen now
+and then with his classic head against the blue sky on the top of
+a colossal rock; its sneaking mountain lion with his hideous
+nocturnal caterwaulings, the great "grizzly," the beautiful
+skunk, the wary beaver, who is always making lakes, damming and
+turning streams, cutting down young cotton-woods, and setting an
+example of thrift and industry; the wolf, greedy and cowardly;
+the coyote and the lynx, and all the lesser fry of mink, marten,
+cat, hare, fox, squirrel, and chipmunk, as well as things that
+fly, from the eagle down to the crested blue-jay.  May their
+number never be less, in spite of the hunter who kills for food
+and gain, and the sportsman who kills and marauds for
+pastime!
+     
+But still I have not answered the natural question,[15] "What is
+Estes Park?"  Among the striking peculiarities of these mountains
+are hundreds of high-lying valleys, large and small, at heights
+varying from 6,000 to 11,000 feet.  The most important are North
+Park, held by hostile Indians; Middle Park, famous for hot
+springs and trout; South Park is 10,000 feet high, a great
+rolling prairie seventy miles long, well grassed and watered, but
+nearly closed by snow in winter.  But parks innumerable are
+scattered throughout the mountains, most of them unnamed, and
+others nicknamed by the hunters or trappers who have made them
+their temporary resorts.  They always lie far within the flaming
+Foot Hills, their exquisite stretches of flowery pastures dotted
+artistically with clumps of trees sloping lawnlike to bright
+swift streams full of red-waist-coated trout, or running up in
+soft glades into the dark forest, above which the snow peaks rise
+in their infinite majesty.  Some are bits of meadow a mile long
+and very narrow, with a small stream, a beaver dam, and a pond
+made by beaver industry.  Hundreds of these can only be reached
+by riding in the bed of a stream, or by scrambling up some narrow
+canyon till it debouches on the fairy-like stretch above.  These
+parks are the feeding grounds of innumerable wild animals, and
+some, like one three miles off, seem chosen for the process of
+antler-casting, the grass being covered for at least a square
+mile with the magnificent branching horns of the elk.
+     
+[15] Nor should I at this time, had not Henry Kingsley, Lord
+Dunraven, and "The Field," divulged the charms and whereabouts of
+these "happy hunting grounds," with the certain result of
+directing a stream of tourists into the solitary, beast-haunted
+paradise.
+
+
+Estes Park combines the beauties of all.  Dismiss all thoughts of
+the Midland Counties.  For park palings there are mountains,
+forest skirted, 9,000, 11,000, 14,000 feet high; for a lodge, two
+sentinel peaks of granite guarding the only feasible entrance;
+and for a Queen Anne mansion an unchinked log cabin with a vault
+of sunny blue overhead.  The park is most irregularly shaped, and
+contains hardly any level grass.  It is an aggregate of lawns,
+slopes, and glades, about eighteen miles in length, but never
+more than two miles in width.  The Big Thompson, a bright, rapid
+trout stream, snow born on Long's Peak a few miles higher, takes
+all sorts of magical twists, vanishing and reappearing
+unexpectedly, glancing among lawns, rushing through romantic
+ravines, everywhere making music through the still, long nights. 
+Here and there the lawns are so smooth, the trees so artistically
+grouped, a lake makes such an artistic foreground, or a waterfall
+comes tumbling down with such an apparent feeling for the
+picturesque, that I am almost angry with Nature for her close
+imitation of art.  But in another hundred yards Nature, glorious,
+unapproachable, inimitable, is herself again, raising one's
+thoughts reverently upwards to her Creator and ours.  Grandeur
+and sublimity, not softness, are the features of Estes Park.  The
+glades which begin so softly are soon lost in the dark primaeval
+forests, with their peaks of rosy granite, and their stretches of
+granite blocks piled and poised by nature in some mood of fury. 
+The streams are lost in canyons nearly or quite inaccessible,
+awful in their blackness and darkness; every valley ends in
+mystery; seven mountain ranges raise their frowning barriers
+between us and the Plains, and at the south end of the park
+Long's Peak rises to a height of 14,700 feet, with his bare,
+scathed head slashed with eternal snow.  The lowest part of the
+Park is 7,500 feet high; and though the sun is hot during the
+day, the mercury hovers near the freezing point every night of
+the summer.  An immense quantity of snow falls, but partly owing
+to the tremendous winds which drift it into the deep valleys,
+and partly to the bright warm sun of the winter months, the park
+is never snowed up, and a number of cattle and horses are
+wintered out of doors on its sun-cured saccharine grasses, of
+which the gramma grass is the most valuable.
+     
+The soil here, as elsewhere in the neighborhood, is nearly
+everywhere coarse, grey, granitic dust, produced probably by the
+disintegration of the surrounding mountains.  It does not hold
+water, and is never wet in any weather.  There are no thaws here
+The snow mysteriously disappears by rapid evaporation.  Oats
+grow, but do not ripen, and, when well advanced, are cut and
+stacked for winter fodder.  Potatoes yield abundantly, and,
+though not very large, are of the best quality, mealy throughout. 
+Evans has not attempted anything else, and probably the more
+succulent vegetables would require irrigation.  The wild flowers
+are gorgeous and innumerable, though their beauty, which
+culminates in July and August, was over before I arrived, and the
+recent snow flurries have finished them.  The time between winter
+and winter is very short, and the flowery growth and blossom of a
+whole year are compressed into two months.  Here are dandelions,
+buttercups, larkspurs, harebells, violets, roses, blue gentian,
+columbine, painter's brush, and fifty others, blue and yellow
+predominating; and though their blossoms are stiffened by the
+cold every morning, they are starring the grass and drooping over
+the brook long before noon, making the most of their brief lives
+in the sunshine.  Of ferns, after many a long hunt, I have only
+found the Cystopteris fragilis and the Blechnum spicant, but
+I hear that the Pteris aquilina is also found.  Snakes and
+mosquitoes do not appear to be known here.  Coming almost direct
+from the tropics, one is dissatisfied with the uniformity of the
+foliage; indeed, foliage can hardly be written of, as the trees
+properly so called at this height are exclusively Coniferae, and
+bear needles instead of leaves.  In places there are patches of
+spindly aspens, which have turned a lemon yellow, and along the
+streams bear cherries, vines, and roses lighten the gulches with
+their variegated crimson leaves.  The pines are not imposing,
+either from their girth or height.  Their coloring is blackish
+green, and though they are effective singly or in groups, they
+are somber and almost funereal when densely massed, as here,
+along the mountain sides.  The timber line is at a height of
+about 11,000 feet, and is singularly well defined.  The most
+attractive tree I have seen is the silver spruce, Abies
+Englemanii, near of kin to what is often called the balsam fir. 
+Its shape and color are both beautiful.  My heart warms towards
+it, and I frequent all the places where I can find it.  It looks
+as if a soft, blue, silver powder had fallen on its deep-green
+needles, or as if a bluish hoar-frost, which must melt at noon,
+were resting upon it.  Anyhow, one can hardly believe that the
+beauty is permanent, and survives the summer heat and the winter
+cold.  The universal tree here is the Pinus ponderosa, but it
+never attains any very considerable size, and there is nothing to
+compare with the red-woods of the Sierra Nevada, far less with
+the sequoias of California.
+     
+As I have written before, Estes Park is thirty miles from
+Longmount, the nearest settlement, and it can be reached on
+horseback only by the steep and devious track by which I came,
+passing through a narrow rift in the top of a precipitous ridge,
+9,000 feet high, called the Devil's Gate.  Evans takes a lumber
+wagon with four horses over the mountains, and a Colorado
+engineer would have no difficulty in making a wagon road.  In
+several of the gulches over which the track hangs there are the
+remains of wagons which have come to grief in the attempt to
+emulate Evans's feat, which without evidence, I should have
+supposed to be impossible.  It is an awful road.  The only
+settlers in the park are Griffith Evans, and a married man a mile
+higher up.  "Mountain Jim's" cabin is in the entrance gulch, four
+miles off, and there is not another cabin for eighteen miles
+toward the Plains.  The park is unsurveyed, and the huge tract of
+mountainous country beyond is almost altogether unexplored.  Elk
+hunters occasionally come up and camp out here; but the two
+settlers, who, however, are only squatters, for various reasons
+are not disposed to encourage such visitors.  When Evans, who is
+a very successful hunter, came here, he came on foot, and for
+some time after settling here he carried the flour and
+necessaries required by his family on his back over the
+mountains.
+     
+As I intend to make Estes Park my headquarters until the winter
+sets in, I must make you acquainted with my surroundings and mode
+of living.  The "Queen Anne mansion" is represented by a log
+cabin made of big hewn logs.  The chinks should be filled with
+mud and lime, but these are wanting.  The roof is formed of
+barked young spruce, then a layer of hay, and an outer coating of
+mud, all nearly flat.  The floors are roughly boarded.  The
+"living room" is about sixteen feet square, and has a rough stone
+chimney in which pine logs are always burning.  At one end there
+is a door into a small bedroom, and at the other a door into a
+small eating room, at the table of which we feed in relays.  This
+opens into a very small kitchen with a great American
+cooking-stove, and there are two "bed closets" besides.  Although
+rude, it is comfortable, except for the draughts.  The fine snow
+drives in through the chinks and covers the floors, but sweeping
+it out at intervals is both fun and exercise.  There are no heaps
+or rubbish places outside.  Near it, on the slope under the
+pines, is a pretty two-roomed cabin, and beyond that, near the
+lake, is my cabin, a very rough one.  My door opens into a little
+room with a stone chimney, and that again into a small room with
+a hay bed, a chair with a tin basin on it, a shelf and some pegs. 
+A small window looks on the lake, and the glories of the sunrises
+which I see from it are indescribable.  Neither of my doors has a
+lock, and, to say the truth, neither will shut, as the wood has
+swelled.  Below the house, on the stream which issues from the
+lake, there is a beautiful log dairy, with a water wheel outside,
+used for churning.  Besides this, there are a corral, a shed for
+the wagon, a room for the hired man, and shelters for horses and
+weakly calves.  All these things are necessaries at this height.
+     
+The ranchmen are two Welshmen, Evans and Edwards, each with a
+wife and family.  The men are as diverse as they can be. 
+"Griff," as Evans is called, is short and small, and is
+hospitable, careless, reckless, jolly, social, convivial,
+peppery, good natured, "nobody's enemy but his own."  He had the
+wit and taste to find out Estes Park, where people have found him
+out, and have induced him to give them food and lodging, and add
+cabin to cabin to take them in.  He is a splendid shot, an expert
+and successful hunter, a bold mountaineer, a good rider, a
+capital cook, and a generally "jolly fellow."  His cheery laugh
+rings through the cabin from the early morning, and is
+contagious, and when the rafters ring at night with such songs as
+"D'ye ken John Peel?" "Auld Lang Syne," and "John Brown," what
+would the chorus be without poor "Griff's" voice?  What would
+Estes Park be without him, indeed?  When he went to Denver lately
+we missed him as we should have missed the sunshine, and perhaps
+more.  In the early morning, when Long's Peak is red, and the
+grass crackles with the hoar-frost, he arouses me with a cheery
+thump on my door.  "We're going cattle-hunting, will you come?"
+or, "Will you help to drive in the cattle?  You can take your
+pick of the horses.  I want another hand."  Free-hearted, lavish,
+popular, poor "Griff" loves liquor too well for his prosperity,
+and is always tormented by debt.  He makes lots of money, but
+puts it into "a bag with holes." He has fifty horses and 1,000
+head of cattle, many of which are his own, wintering up here, and
+makes no end of money by taking in people at eight dollars a
+week, yet it all goes somehow.  He has a most industrious wife, a
+girl of seventeen, and four younger children, all musical, but
+the wife has to work like a slave; and though he is a kind
+husband, her lot, as compared with her lord's, is like that of a
+squaw.  Edwards, his partner, is his exact opposite, tall, thin,
+and condemnatory looking, keen, industrious, saving, grave, a
+teetotaler, grieved for all reasons at Evans's follies, and
+rather grudging; as naturally unpopular as Evans is popular; a
+"decent man," who, with his industrious wife, will certainly make
+money as fast as Evans loses it.
+     
+I pay eight dollars a week, which includes the unlimited use of a
+horse, when one can be found and caught.  We breakfast at seven
+on beef, potatoes, tea, coffee, new bread, and butter.  Two
+pitchers of cream and two of milk are replenished as fast as they
+are exhausted.  Dinner at twelve is a repetition of the
+breakfast, but with the coffee omitted and a gigantic pudding
+added.  Tea at six is a repetition of breakfast.  "Eat whenever
+you are hungry, you can always get milk and bread in the
+kitchen," Evans says--"eat as much as you can, it'll do you
+good"--and we all eat like hunters.  There is no change of food. 
+The steer which was being killed on my arrival is now being eaten
+through from head to tail, the meat being hacked off quite
+promiscuously, without any regard to joints.  In this dry,
+rarefied air, the outside of the flesh blackens and hardens, and
+though the weather may be hot, the carcass keeps sweet for two or
+three months.  The bread is super excellent, but the poor wives
+seem to be making and baking it all day.
+     
+The regular household living and eating together at this time
+consists of a very intelligent and high-minded American couple,
+Mr. and Mrs. Dewy, people whose character, culture, and society I
+should value anywhere; a young Englishman, brother of a
+celebrated African traveler, who, because he rides on an English
+saddle, and clings to some other insular peculiarities, is called
+"The Earl"; a miner prospecting for silver; a young man, the type
+of intelligent, practical "Young America," whose health showed
+consumptive tendencies when he was in business, and who is living
+a hunter's life here; a grown-up niece of Evans; and a
+melancholy-looking hired man.  A mile off there is an industrious
+married settler, and four miles off, in the gulch leading to the
+park, "Mountain Jim," otherwise Mr. Nugent, is posted.  His
+business as a trapper takes him daily up to the beaver dams in
+Black Canyon to look after his traps, and he generally spends
+some time in or about our cabin, not, I can see, to Evans's
+satisfaction.  For, in truth, this blue hollow, lying solitary
+at the foot of Long's Peak, is a miniature world of great
+interest, in which love, jealousy, hatred, envy, pride,
+unselfishness, greed, selfishness, and self-sacrifice can be
+studied hourly, and there is always the unpleasantly exciting
+risk of an open quarrel with the neighboring desperado, whose
+"I'll shoot you!" has more than once been heard in the cabin.
+     
+The party, however, has often been increased by "campers," either
+elk hunters or "prospectors" for silver or locations, who feed
+with us and join us in the evening.  They get little help from
+Evans, either as to elk or locations, and go away disgusted and
+unsuccessful.  Two Englishmen of refinement and culture camped
+out here prospecting a few weeks ago, and then, contrary to
+advice, crossed the mountains into North Park, where gold is said
+to abound, and it is believed that they have fallen victims to
+the bloodthirsty Indians of the region.  Of course, we never get
+letters or newspapers unless some one rides to Longmount for
+them.  Two or three novels and a copy of Our New West are our
+literature.  Our latest newspaper is seventeen days old.  Somehow
+the park seems to become the natural limit of our interests so
+far as they appear in conversation at table.  The last grand
+aurora, the prospect of a snow-storm, track and sign of elk and
+grizzly, rumors of a bighorn herd near the lake, the canyons in
+which the Texan cattle were last seen, the merits of different
+rifles, the progress of two obvious love affairs, the probability
+of some one coming up from the Plains with letters, "Mountain
+Jim's" latest mood or escapade, and the merits of his dog "Ring"
+as compared with those of Evans's dog "Plunk," are among the
+topics which are never abandoned as exhausted.
+     
+On Sunday work is nominally laid aside, but most of the men go
+out hunting or fishing till the evening, when we have the
+harmonium and much sacred music and singing in parts.  To be
+alone in the park from the afternoon till the last glory of the
+afterglow has faded, with no books but a Bible and Prayer-book,
+is truly delightful.  No worthier temple for a "Te Deum" or
+"Gloria in Excelsis" could be found than this "temple not made
+with hands," in which one may worship without being distracted by
+the sight of bonnets of endless form, and curiously intricate
+"back hair," and countless oddities of changing fashion.
+
+I shall not soon forget my first night here.
+     
+Somewhat dazed by the rarefied air, entranced by the glorious
+beauty, slightly puzzled by the motley company, whose faces
+loomed not always quite distinctly through the cloud of smoke
+produced by eleven pipes, I went to my solitary cabin at nine,
+attended by Evans.  It was very dark, and it seemed a long way
+off.  Something howled--Evans said it was a wolf--and owls
+apparently innumerable hooted incessantly.  The pole-star,
+exactly opposite my cabin door, burned like a lamp.  The frost
+was sharp.  Evans opened the door, lighted a candle, and left me,
+and I was soon in my hay bed.  I was frightened--that is, afraid
+of being frightened, it was so eerie--but sleep soon got the
+better of my fears.  I was awoke by a heavy breathing, a noise
+something like sawing under the floor, and a pushing and
+upheaving, all very loud.  My candle was all burned, and, in
+truth, I dared not stir.  The noise went on for an hour fully,
+when, just as I thought the floor had been made sufficiently thin
+for all purposes of ingress, the sounds abruptly ceased, and I
+fell asleep again.  My hair was not, as it ought to have been,
+white in the morning!
+     
+I was dressed by seven, our breakfast hour, and when I reached
+the great cabin and told my story, Evans laughed hilariously, and
+Edwards contorted his face dismally.  They told me that there was
+a skunk's lair under my cabin, and that they dare not make any
+attempt to dislodge him for fear of rendering the cabin
+untenable.  They have tried to trap him since, but without
+success, and each night the noisy performance is repeated.  I
+think he is sharpening his claws on the under side of my floor,
+as the grizzlies sharpen theirs upon the trees.  The odor with
+which this creature, truly named Mephitis, can overpower its
+assailants is truly AWFUL.  We were driven out of the cabin for
+some hours merely by the passage of one across the corral.  The
+bravest man is a coward in its neighborhood.  Dogs rub their
+noses on the ground till they bleed when they have touched the
+fluid, and even die of the vomiting produced by the effluvia. 
+The odor can be smelt a mile off.  If clothes are touched by the
+fluid they must be destroyed.  At present its fur is very
+valuable.  Several have been killed since I came.  A shot well
+aimed at the spine secures one safely, and an experienced dog
+can kill one by leaping upon it suddenly without being
+exposed to danger.  It is a beautiful beast, about the size and
+length of a fox, with long thick black or dark-brown fur, and two
+white streaks from the head to the long bushy tail.  The claws of
+its fore-feet are long and polished.  Yesterday one was seen
+rushing from the dairy and was shot.  "Plunk," the big dog,
+touched it and has to be driven into exile.  The body was
+valiantly removed by a man with a long fork, and carried to a
+running stream, but we are nearly choked with the odor from the
+spot where it fell.  I hope that my skunk will enjoy a quiet
+spirit so long as we are near neighbors.
+
+October 3.
+
+This is surely one of the most entrancing spots on earth.  Oh,
+that I could paint with pen or brush!  From my bed I look on
+Mirror Lake, and with the very earliest dawn, when objects are
+not discernible, it lies there absolutely still, a purplish lead
+color.  Then suddenly into its mirror flash inverted peaks, at
+first a dawn darker all round.  This is a new sight, each morning
+new.  Then the peaks fade, and when morning is no longer "spread
+upon the mountains," the pines are mirrored in my lake almost as
+solid objects, and the glory steals downwards, and a red flush
+warms the clear atmosphere of the park, and the hoar-frost
+sparkles and the crested blue-jays step forth daintily on the
+jewelled grass.  The majesty and beauty grow on me daily.  As
+I crossed from my cabin just now, and the long mountain shadows
+lay on the grass, and form and color gained new meanings, I was
+almost false to Hawaii; I couldn't go on writing for the glory of
+the sunset, but went out and sat on a rock to see the deepening
+blue in the dark canyons, and the peaks becoming rose color one
+by one, then fading into sudden ghastliness, the awe-inspiring
+heights of Long's Peak fading last.  Then came the glories of the
+afterglow, when the orange and lemon of the east faded into gray,
+and then gradually the gray for some distance above the horizon
+brightened into a cold blue, and above the blue into a broad band
+of rich, warm red, with an upper band of rose color; above it
+hung a big cold moon.  This is the "daily miracle" of evening, as
+the blazing peaks in the darkness of Mirror Lake are the miracle
+of morning.  Perhaps this scenery is not lovable, but, as if it
+were a strong stormy character, it has an intense fascination.
+     
+The routine of my day is breakfast at seven, then I go back and
+"do" my cabin and draw water from the lake, read a little, loaf a
+little, return to the big cabin and sweep it alternately with
+Mrs. Dewy, after which she reads aloud till dinner at twelve. 
+Then I ride with Mr. Dewy, or by myself, or with Mrs. Dewy, who
+is learning to ride cavalier fashion in order to accompany her
+invalid husband, or go after cattle till supper at six.  After
+that we all sit in the living room, and I settle down to write to
+you, or mend my clothes, which are dropping to pieces.  Some sit
+round the table playing at eucre, the strange hunters and
+prospectors lie on the floor smoking, and rifles are cleaned,
+bullets cast, fishing flies made, fishing tackle repaired, boots
+are waterproofed, part-songs are sung, and about half-past eight
+I cross the crisp grass to my cabin, always expecting to find
+something in it.  We all wash our own clothes, and as my stock is
+so small, some part of every day has to be spent at the wash tub. 
+Politeness and propriety always prevail in our mixed company, and
+though various grades of society are represented, true democratic
+equality prevails, not its counterfeit, and there is neither
+forwardness on one side nor condescension on the other.
+     
+Evans left for Denver ten days ago, taking his wife and family to
+the Plains for the winter, and the mirth of our party departed
+with him.  Edwards is somber, except when he lies on the floor in
+the evening, and tells stories of his march through Georgia with
+Sherman.  I gave Evans a 100-dollar note to change, and asked him
+to buy me a horse for my tour, and for three days we have
+expected him.  The mail depends on him.  I have had no letters
+from you for five weeks, and can hardly curb my impatience.  I
+ride or walk three or four miles out on the Longmount trail two
+or three times a day to look for him.  Others, for different
+reasons, are nearly equally anxious.  After dark we start at
+every sound, and every time the dogs bark all the able-bodied of
+us turn out en masse.  "Wait for the wagon" has become a nearly
+maddening joke.
+
+
+October 9.
+
+The letter and newspaper fever has seized on every one.  We have
+sent at last to Longmount.  The evening I rode out on the
+Longmount trail towards dusk, escorted by "Mountain Jim," and in
+the distance we saw a wagon with four horses and a saddle horse
+behind, and the driver waved a handkerchief, the concerted signal
+if I were the possessor of a horse.  We turned back, galloping
+down the long hill as fast as two good horses could carry us, and
+gave the joyful news.  It was an hour before the wagon arrived,
+bringing not Evans but two "campers" of suspicious aspect, who
+have pitched their camp close to my cabin!  You cannot imagine
+what it is to be locked in by these mountain walls, and not to
+know where your letters are lying.  Later on, Mr. Buchan, one of
+our usual inmates, returned from Denver with papers, letters for
+every one but me, and much exciting news.  The financial panic
+has spread out West, gathering strength on its way.  The Denver
+banks have all suspended business.  They refuse to cash their own
+checks, or to allow their customers to draw a dollar, and would
+not even give green-backs for my English gold!  Neither Mr.
+Buchan nor Evans could get a cent.  Business is suspended, and
+everybody, however rich, is for the time being poor.  The Indians
+have taken to the "war path," and are burning ranches and killing
+cattle.  There is a regular "scare" among the settlers, and wagon
+loads of fugitives are arriving in Colorado Springs.  The Indians
+say, "The white man has killed the buffalo and left them to rot
+on the plains.  We will be revenged."  Evans had reached
+Longmount, and will be here tonight.
+
+
+October 10.
+
+"Wait for the wagon" still!  We had a hurricane of wind and hail
+last night; it was eleven before I could go to my cabin, and I
+only reached it with the help of two men.  The moon was not up,
+and the sky overhead was black with clouds, when suddenly Long's
+Peak, which had been invisible, gleamed above the dark mountains,
+all glistening with new-fallen snow, on which the moon, as yet
+uprisen here, was shining.  The evening before, after sunset, I
+saw another novel effect.  My lake turned a brilliant orange in
+the twilight, and in its still mirror the mountains were
+reflected a deep rich blue.  It is a world of wonders.  To-day we
+had a great storm with flurries of fine snow; and when the clouds
+rolled up at noon, the Snowy Range and all the higher mountains
+were pure white.  I have been hard at work all day to drown my
+anxieties, which are heightened by a rumor that Evans has gone
+buffalo-hunting on the Platte!
+     
+This evening, quite unexpectedly, Evans arrived with a heavy mail
+in a box.  I sorted it, but there was nothing for me and Evans
+said he was afraid that he had left my letters, which were
+separate from the others, behind at Denver, but he had written
+from Longmount for them.  A few hours later they were found in a
+box of groceries!
+     
+All the hilarity of the house has returned with Evans, and he has
+brought a kindred spirit with him, a young man who plays and
+sings splendidly, has an inexhaustible repertoire, and produces
+sonatas, funeral marches, anthems, reels, strathspeys, and all
+else, out of his wonderful memory.  Never, surely was a chamber
+organ compelled to such service.  A little cask of suspicious
+appearance was smuggled into the cabin from the wagon, and
+heightens the hilarity a little, I fear.  No churlishness could
+resist Evans's unutterable jollity or the contagion of his hearty
+laugh.  He claps people on the back, shouts at them, will do
+anything for them, and makes a perpetual breeze.  "My kingdom for
+a horse!"  He has not got one for me, and a shadow crossed his
+face when I spoke of the subject.  Eventually he asked for a
+private conference, when he told me, with some confusion, that he
+had found himself "very hard up" in Denver, and had been obliged
+to appropriate my 100-dollar note.  He said he would give me, as
+interest for it up to November 25th, a good horse, saddle, and
+bridle for my proposed journey of 600 miles.  I was somewhat
+dismayed, but there was no other course, as the money was gone.
+
+[16]] I tried a horse, mended my clothes, reduced my pack to a
+weight of twelve pounds, and was all ready for an early start,
+when before daylight I was wakened by Evans's cheery voice at my
+door.  "I say, Miss B., we've got to drive wild cattle to-day; I
+wish you'd lend a hand, there's not enough of us; I'll give you a
+good horse; one day won't make much difference."  So we've been
+driving cattle all day, riding about twenty miles, and fording
+the Big Thompson about as many times.  Evans flatters me by
+saying that I am "as much use as another man"; more than one of
+our party, I hope, who always avoided the "ugly" cows.
+
+[16] In justice to Evans, I must mention here that every cent of
+the money was ultimately paid, that the horse was perfection, and
+that the arrangement turned out a most advantageous one for me.
+
+
+October 12.
+
+I am still here, helping in the kitchen, driving cattle, and
+riding four or five times a day.  Evans detains me each morning
+by saying, "Here's lots of horses for you to try," and after
+trying five or six a day, I do not find one to my liking.  Today,
+as I was cantering a tall well-bred one round the lake, he threw
+the bridle off by a toss of his head, leaving me with the reins
+in my hands; one bucked, and two have tender feet, and tumbled
+down.  Such are some of our little varieties.  Still I hope to
+get off on my tour in a day or two, so at least as to be able to
+compare Estes Park with some of the better-known parts of
+Colorado.
+     
+You would be amused if you could see our cabin just now.  There
+are nine men in the room and three women.  For want of seats most
+of the men are lying on the floor; all are smoking, and the
+blithe young French Canadian who plays so beautifully, and
+catches about fifty speckled trout for each meal, is playing the
+harmonium with a pipe in his mouth.  Three men who have camped in
+Black Canyon for a week are lying like dogs on the floor.  They
+are all over six feet high, immovably solemn, neither smiling at
+the general hilarity, nor at the absurd changes which are being
+rung on the harmonium.  They may be described as clothed only in
+boots, for their clothes are torn to rags.  They stare vacantly. 
+They have neither seen a woman nor slept under a roof for six
+months.  Negro songs are being sung, and before that "Yankee
+Doodle" was played immediately after "Rule Britannia," and it
+made every one but the strangers laugh, it sounded so foolish
+and mean.  The colder weather is bringing the beasts down from
+the heights.  I heard both wolves and the mountain lion as I
+crossed to my cabin last night.
+                                   I. L. B.
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+"Please Ma'ams"--A desperado--A cattle hunt--The muster--A mad
+cow--A snowstorm--Snowed up--Birdie--The Plains--A prairie
+schooner--Denver--A find--Plum Creek--"Being
+agreeable"--Snowbound--The grey mare.
+
+ESTES PARK, COLORADO.
+
+This afternoon, as I was reading in my cabin, little Sam Edwards
+ran in, saying, "Mountain Jim wants to speak to you."  This
+brought to my mind images of infinite worry, gauche servants,
+"please Ma'am," contretemps, and the habit growing out of our
+elaborate and uselessly conventional life of magnifying the
+importance of similar trifles.  Then "things" came up, with
+the tyranny they exercise.  I REALLY need nothing more than this
+log cabin offers.  But elsewhere one must have a house and
+servants, and burdens and worries--not that one may be hospitable
+and comfortable, but for the "thick clay" in the shape of
+"things" which one has accumulated.  My log house takes me about
+five minutes to "do," and you could eat off the floor, and
+it needs no lock, as it contains nothing worth stealing.      
+
+But "Mountain Jim" was waiting while I made these reflections to
+ask us to take a ride; and he, Mr. and Mrs. Dewy, and I, had a
+delightful stroll through colored foliage, and then, when they
+were fatigued, I changed my horse for his beautiful mare, and we
+galloped and raced in the beautiful twilight, in the intoxicating
+frosty air.  Mrs. Dewy wishes you could have seen us as we
+galloped down the pass, the fearful-looking ruffian on my heavy
+wagon horse, and I on his bare wooden saddle, from which beaver,
+mink, and marten tails, and pieces of skin, were hanging
+raggedly, with one spur, and feet not in the stirrups, the mare
+looking so aristocratic and I so beggarly!  Mr. Nugent is what is
+called "splendid company."  With a sort of breezy mountain
+recklessness in everything, he passes remarkably acute judgments
+on men and events; on women also.  He has pathos, poetry, and
+humor, an intense love of nature, strong vanity in certain
+directions, an obvious desire to act and speak in character, and
+sustain his reputation as a desperado, a considerable
+acquaintance with literature, a wonderful verbal memory, opinions
+on every person and subject, a chivalrous respect for women in
+his manner, which makes it all the more amusing when he suddenly
+turns round upon one with some graceful raillery, a great power
+of fascination, and a singular love of children.  The children of
+this house run to him, and when he sits down they climb on his
+broad shoulders and play with his curls.  They say in the house
+that "no one who has been here thinks any one worth speaking to
+after Jim," but I think that this is probably an opinion which
+time would alter.  Somehow, he is kept always before the public
+of Colorado, for one can hardly take up a newspaper without
+finding a paragraph about him, a contribution by him, or a
+fragment of his biography.  Ruffian as he looks, the first word
+he speaks--to a lady, at least--places him on a level with
+educated gentlemen, and his conversation is brilliant, and full
+of the light and fitfulness of genius.  Yet, on the whole, he is
+a most painful spectacle.  His magnificent head shows so plainly
+the better possibilities which might have been his.  His life, in
+spite of a certain dazzle which belongs to it, is a ruined and
+wasted one, and one asks what of good can the future have in
+store for one who has for so long chosen evil?[17]
+
+[17] September of the next year answered the question by laying
+him down in a dishonored grave, with a rifle bullet in his brain.
+
+     
+Shall I ever get away?  We were to have had a grand cattle hunt
+yesterday, beginning at 6:30, but the horses were all lost. 
+Often out of fifty horses all that are worth anything are
+marauding, and a day is lost in hunting for them in the canyons. 
+However, before daylight this morning Evans called through my
+door, "Miss Bird, I say we've got to drive cattle fifteen miles,
+I wish you'd lend a hand; there's not enough of us; I'll give you
+a good horse."
+     
+The scene of the drive is at a height of 7,500 feet, watered by
+two rapid rivers.  On all sides mountains rise to an altitude of
+from 11,000 to 15,000 feet, their skirts shaggy with pitch-pine
+forests, and scarred by deep canyons, wooded and boulder strewn,
+opening upon the mountain pasture previously mentioned.  Two
+thousand head of half-wild Texan cattle are scattered in herds
+throughout the canyons, living on more or less suspicious terms
+with grizzly and brown bears, mountain lions, elk, mountain
+sheep, spotted deer, wolves, lynxes, wild cats, beavers, minks,
+skunks, chipmunks, eagles, rattlesnakes, and all the other
+two-legged, four-legged, vertebrate, and invertebrate inhabitants
+of this lonely and romantic region.  On the whole, they show a
+tendency rather to the habits of wild than of domestic cattle. 
+They march to water in Indian file, with the bulls leading, and
+when threatened, take strategic advantage of ridgy ground,
+slinking warily along in the hollows, the bulls acting as
+sentinels, and bringing up the rear in case of an attack from
+dogs. Cows have to be regularly broken in for milking, being as
+wild as buffaloes in their unbroken state; but, owing to the
+comparative dryness of the grasses, and the system of allowing
+the calf to have the milk during the daytime, a dairy of 200 cows
+does not produce as much butter as a Devonshire dairy of fifty. 
+Some "necessary" cruelty is involved in the stockman's business,
+however humane he may be.  The system is one of terrorism, and
+from the time that the calf is bullied into the branding pen, and
+the hot iron burns into his shrinking flesh, to the day when the
+fatted ox is driven down from his boundless pastures to be
+slaughtered in Chicago, "the fear and dread of man" are upon him.
+     
+The herds are apt to penetrate the savage canyons which come down
+from the Snowy Range, when they incur a risk of being snowed up
+and starved, and it is necessary now and then to hunt them out
+and drive them down to the "park."  On this occasion, the whole
+were driven down for a muster, and for the purpose of branding
+the calves.
+     
+After a 6:30 breakfast this morning, we started, the party being
+composed of my host, a hunter from the Snowy Range, two stockmen
+from the Plains, one of whom rode a violent buck-jumper, and was
+said by his comrade to be the "best rider in North Americay,"
+and myself.  We were all mounted on Mexican saddles, rode, as the
+custom is, with light snaffle bridles, leather guards over our
+feet, and broad wooden stirrups, and each carried his lunch in a
+pouch slung on the lassoing horn of his saddle.  Four big,
+badly-trained dogs accompanied us.  It was a ride of nearly
+thirty miles, and of many hours, one of the most splendid I ever
+took.  We never got off our horses except to tighten the girths,
+we ate our lunch with our bridles knotted over saddle horns,
+started over the level at full gallops, leapt over trunks of
+trees, dashed madly down hillsides rugged with rocks or strewn
+with great stones, forded deep, rapid streams, saw lovely lakes
+and views of surpassing magnificence, startled a herd of elk with
+uncouth heads and in the chase, which for some time was
+unsuccessful, rode to the very base of Long's Peak, over 14,000
+feet high, where the bright waters of one of the affluents of the
+Platte burst from the eternal snows through a canyon of
+indescribable majesty.  The sun was hot, but at a height of over
+8,000 feet the air was crisp and frosty, and the enjoyment of
+riding a good horse under such exhilarating circumstances was
+extreme.  In one wild part of the ride we had to come down a
+steep hill, thickly wooded with pitch pines, to leap over the
+fallen timber, and steer between the dead and living trees to
+avoid being "snagged," or bringing down a heavy dead branch by an
+unwary touch.
+     
+Emerging from this, we caught sight of a thousand Texan cattle
+feeding in a valley below.  The leaders scented us, and, taking
+fright, began to move off in the direction of the open "park,"
+while we were about a mile from and above them.  "Head them off,
+boys!" our leader shouted; "all aboard; hark away!" and with
+something of the "High, tally-ho in the morning!" away we all
+went at a hard gallop down-hill.  I could not hold my excited
+animal; down-hill, up-hill, leaping over rocks and timber, faster
+every moment the pace grew, and still the leader shouted, "Go it,
+boys!" and the horses dashed on at racing speed, passing and
+repassing each other, till my small but beautiful bay was keeping
+pace with the immense strides of the great buck-jumper ridden by
+"the finest rider in North Americay," and I was dizzied and
+breathless by the pace at which we were going.  A shorter time
+than it takes to tell it brought us close to and abreast of the
+surge of cattle.  The bovine waves were a grand sight:  huge
+bulls, shaped like buffaloes, bellowed and roared, and with great
+oxen and cows with yearling calves, galloped like racers, and we
+galloped alongside of them, and shortly headed them and in no
+time were placed as sentinels across the mouth of the valley.  It
+seemed like infantry awaiting the shock of cavalry as we stood
+as still as our excited horses would allow.  I almost quailed as
+the surge came on, but when it got close to us my comrades hooted
+fearfully, and we dashed forward with the dogs, and, with
+bellowing, roaring, and thunder of hoofs, the wave receded as it
+came.  I rode up to our leader, who received me with much
+laughter. He said I was "a good cattleman," and that he had
+forgotten that a lady was of the party till he saw me "come
+leaping over the timber, and driving with the others."
+     
+It was not for two hours after this that the real business of
+driving began, and I was obliged to change my thoroughbred for a
+well-trained cattle horse--a bronco, which could double like a
+hare, and go over any ground.  I had not expected to work like a
+vachero, but so it was, and my Hawaiian experience was very
+useful.  We hunted the various canyons and known "camps," driving
+the herds out of them; and, until we had secured 850 head in the
+corral some hours afterwards, we scarcely saw each other to speak
+to.  Our first difficulty was with a herd which got into some
+swampy ground, when a cow, which afterwards gave me an infinity
+of trouble, remained at bay for nearly an hour, tossing the dog
+three times, and resisting all efforts to dislodge her.  She had
+a large yearling calf with her, and Evans told me that the
+attachment of a cow to her first calf is sometimes so great that
+she will kill her second that the first may have the milk.
+I got a herd of over a hundred out of a canyon by myself, and
+drove them down to the river with the aid of one badly-broken
+dog, which gave me more trouble than the cattle.  The getting
+over was most troublesome; a few took to the water readily and
+went across, but others smelt it, and then, doubling back, ran in
+various directions; while some attacked the dog as he was
+swimming, and others, after crossing, headed back in search of
+some favorite companions which had been left behind, and one
+specially vicious cow attacked my horse over and over again.  It
+took an hour and a half of time and much patience to gather them
+all on the other side.
+     
+It was getting late in the day, and a snowstorm was impending,
+before I was joined by the other drivers and herds, and as the
+former had diminished to three, with only three dogs, it was very
+difficult to keep the cattle together.  You drive them as gently
+as possible, so as not to frighten or excite them,[18] riding
+first on one side, then on the other, to guide them; and if they
+deliberately go in a wrong direction, you gallop in front and
+head them off.  The great excitement is when one breaks away from
+the herd and gallops madly up and down-hill, and you gallop after
+him anywhere, over and among rocks and trees, doubling when he
+doubles, and heading him till you get him back again.  The bulls
+were quite easily managed, but the cows with calves, old or
+young, were most troublesome.  By accident I rode between one cow
+and her calf in a narrow place, and the cow rushed at me and was
+just getting her big horns under the horse, when he reared, and
+spun dexterously aside.  This kind of thing happened continually. 
+There was one very handsome red cow which became quite mad.  She
+had a calf with her nearly her own size, and thought every one
+its enemy, and though its horns were well developed, and it was
+quite able to take care of itself, she insisted on protecting it
+from all fancied dangers.  One of the dogs, a young, foolish
+thing, seeing that the cow was excited, took a foolish pleasure
+in barking at her, and she was eventually quite infuriated.  She
+turned to bay forty times at least; tore up the ground with her
+horns, tossed and killed the calves of two other cows, and
+finally became so dangerous to the rest of the herd that, just as
+the drive was ending, Evans drew his revolver and shot her, and
+the calf for which she had fought so blindly lamented her
+piteously.  She rushed at me several times mad with rage, but
+these trained cattle horses keep perfectly cool, and, nearly
+without will on my part, mine jumped aside at the right moment,
+and foiled the assailant.  Just at dusk we reached the corral--an
+acre of grass enclosed by stout post-and-rail fences seven feet
+high--and by much patience and some subtlety lodged the whole
+herd within its shelter, without a blow, a shout, or even a crack
+of a whip, wild as the cattle were.  It was fearfully cold.  We
+galloped the last mile and a half in four and a half minutes,
+reached the cabin just as the snow began to fall, and found
+strong, hot tea ready.
+
+[18] In several visits to America I have observed that the
+Americans are far in advance of us and our colonial kinsmen in
+their treatment of horses and other animals.  This was very
+apparent with regard to this Texan herd.  There were no stock
+whips, no needless worrying of the animals in the excitement of
+sport.  Any dog seizing a bullock by his tail or heels would have
+been called off and punished, and quietness and gentleness were
+the rule.  The horses were ridden without whips, and with spurs
+so blunt that they could not hurt even a human skin, and were
+ruled by the voice and a slight pressure on the light snaffle
+bridle.  This is the usual plan, even where, as in Colorado, the
+horses are bronchos, and inherit ineradicable vice.  I never yet
+saw a horse BULLIED into submission in the United States.
+
+
+October 18.
+
+Snow-bound for three days!  I could not write yesterday, it was
+so awful.  People gave up all occupation, and talked of nothing
+but the storm.  The hunters all kept by the great fire in the
+living room, only going out to bring in logs and clear the snow
+from the door and windows.  I never spent a more fearful night
+than two nights ago, alone in my cabin in the storm, with the
+roof lifting, the mud cracking and coming off, and the fine snow
+hissing through the chinks between the logs, while splittings and
+breaking of dead branches, wind wrung and snow laden, went on
+incessantly, with screechings, howlings, thunder and lightning,
+and many unfamiliar sounds besides.  After snowing fiercely all
+day, another foot of it fell in the early night, and, after
+drifting against my door, blocked me effectually in.  About
+midnight the mercury fell to zero, and soon after a gale rose,
+which lasted for ten hours.  My window frame is swelled, and
+shuts, apparently, hermetically; and my bed is six feet from it. 
+I had gone to sleep with six blankets on, and a heavy sheet over
+my face.  Between two and three I was awoke by the cabin being
+shifted from underneath by the wind, and the sheet was frozen to
+my lips.  I put out my hands, and the bed was thickly covered
+with fine snow.  Getting up to investigate matters, I found the
+floor some inches deep in parts in fine snow, and a gust of fine,
+needle-like snow stung my face.  The bucket of water was solid
+ice.  I lay in bed freezing till sunrise, when some of the men
+came to see if I "was alive," and to dig me out.  They brought a
+can of hot water, which turned to ice before I could use it.  I
+dressed standing in snow, and my brushes, boots, and etceteras
+were covered with snow.  When I ran to the house, not a mountain
+or anything else could be seen, and the snow on one side was
+drifted higher than the roof.  The air, as high as one could see,
+was one white, stinging smoke of snowdrift--a terrific sight.  In
+the living room, the snow was driving through the chinks, and
+Mrs. Dewy was shoveling it from the floor.  Mr. D.'s beard was
+hoary with frost in a room with a fire all night.  Evans was
+lying ill, with his bed covered with snow.  Returning from my
+cabin after breakfast, loaded with occupations for the day, I was
+lifted off my feet, and deposited in a drift, and all my things,
+writing book and letter included, were carried in different
+directions.  Some, including a valuable photograph, were
+irrecoverable.  The writing book was found, some hours
+afterwards, under three feet of snow.
+     
+There are tracks of bears and deer close to the house, but no one
+can hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding.  We have been
+slightly overcrowded in our one room.  Chess, music, and whist
+have been resorted to.  One hunter, for very ennui, has devoted
+himself to keeping my ink from freezing.  We all sat in great
+cloaks and coats, and kept up an enormous fire, with the pitch
+running out of the logs.  The isolation is extreme, for we are
+literally snowed up, and the other settler in the Park and
+"Mountain Jim" are both at Denver.  Late in the evening the storm
+ceased.  In some places the ground is bare of snow, while in
+others all irregularities are leveled, and the drifts are forty
+feet deep. Nature is grand under this new aspect.  The cold is
+awful; the high wind with the mercury at zero would skin any part
+exposed to it.
+
+
+October 19.
+
+Evans offers me six dollars a week if I will stay into the winter
+and do the cooking after Mrs. Edwards leaves!  I think I should
+like playing at being a "hired girl" if it were not for the
+bread-making!  But it would suit me better to ride after cattle. 
+The men don't like "baching," as it is called in the wilds--i.e.
+"doing for themselves."  They washed and ironed their clothes
+yesterday, and there was an incongruity about the last
+performance.  I really think (though for the fifteenth time) that
+I shall leave to-morrow.  The cold has moderated, the sky is
+bluer than ever, the snow is evaporating, and a hunter who has
+joined us to-day says that there are no drifts on the trail which
+one cannot get through.
+
+
+LONGMOUNT, COLORADO, October 20.
+
+"The Island Valley of Avillon" is left, but how shall I finally
+tear myself from its freedom and enchantments?  I see Long's
+snowy peak rising into the night sky, and know and long after the
+magnificence of the blue hollow at its base.  We were to have
+left at 8 but the horses were lost, so it was 9:30 before we
+started, the WE being the musical young French Canadian and
+myself.  I have a bay Indian pony, "Birdie," a little beauty,
+with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with
+luggage for some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my
+saddle, I am tolerably independent.  It was a most glorious ride. 
+We passed through the gates of rock, through gorges where the
+unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-colored aspens; caught
+glimpses of far-off, snow-clad giants rising into a sky of deep
+sad blue; lunched above the Foot Hills at a cabin where two
+brothers and a "hired man" were "keeping bach," where everything
+was so trim, clean, and ornamental that one did not miss a woman;
+crossed a deep backwater on a narrow beaver dam, because the log
+bridge was broken down, and emerged from the brilliantly-colored
+canyon of the St. Vrain just at dusk upon the featureless
+prairies, when we had some trouble in finding Longmount in the
+dark.  A hospitable welcome awaited me at this inn, and an
+English friend came in and spent the evening with me.
+
+
+GREAT PLATTE CANYON, October 23.
+
+My letters on this tour will, I fear, be very dull, for after
+riding all day, looking after my pony, getting supper, hearing
+about various routes, and the pastoral, agricultural, mining, and
+hunting gossip of the neighborhood, I am so sleepy and
+wholesomely tired that I can hardly write.  I left Longmount
+pretty early on Tuesday morning, the day being sad, with the
+blink of an impending snow-storm in the air.  The evening before
+I was introduced to a man who had been a colonel in the rebel
+army, who made a most unfavorable impression upon me, and it was
+a great annoyance to me when he presented himself on horse-back
+to guide me "over the most intricate part of the journey." 
+Solitude is infinitely preferable to uncongeniality, and is bliss
+when compared with repulsiveness, so I was thoroughly glad when I
+got rid of my escort and set out upon the prairie alone.  It is a
+dreary ride of thirty miles over the low brown plains to Denver,
+very little settled, and with trails going in all directions.
+My sailing orders were "steer south, and keep to the best beaten
+track," and it seemed like embarking on the ocean without a
+compass.  The rolling brown waves on which you see a horse a mile
+and a half off impress one strangely, and at noon the sky
+darkened up for another storm, the mountains swept down in
+blackness to the Plains, and the higher peaks took on a ghastly
+grimness horrid to behold.  It was first very cold, then very
+hot, and finally settled down to a fierce east-windy cold,
+difficult to endure.  It was free and breezy, however, and my
+horse was companionable.  Sometimes herds of cattle were browsing
+on the sun-cured grass, then herds of horses.  Occasionally I met
+a horseman with a rifle lying across his saddle, or a wagon of
+the ordinary sort, but oftener I saw a wagon with a white tilt,
+of the kind known as a "Prairie Schooner," laboring across the
+grass, or a train of them, accompanied by herds, mules, and
+horsemen, bearing emigrants and their household goods in dreary
+exodus from the Western States to the much-vaunted prairies of
+Colorado.
+     
+The host and hostess of one of these wagons invited me to join
+their mid-day meal, I providing tea (which they had not tasted
+for four weeks) and they hominy. They had been three months on
+the journey from Illinois, and their oxen were so lean and weak
+that they expected to be another month in reaching Wet Mountain
+Valley.  They had buried a child en route, had lost several oxen,
+and were rather out of heart.  Owing to their long isolation and
+the monotony of the march they had lost count of events, and
+seemed like people of another planet.  They wanted me to join
+them, but their rate of travel was too slow, so we parted with
+mutual expressions of good will, and as their white tilt went
+"hull down" in the distance on the lonely prairie sea, I felt
+sadder than I often feel on taking leave of old acquaintances. 
+That night they must have been nearly frozen, camping out in the
+deep snow in the fierce wind.  I met afterwards 2,000 lean Texan
+cattle, herded by three wild-looking men on horseback, followed
+by two wagons containing women, children, and rifles.  They had
+traveled 1,000 miles.  Then I saw two prairie wolves, like
+jackals, with gray fur, cowardly creatures, which fled from me
+with long leaps.
+     
+The windy cold became intense, and for the next eleven miles I
+rode a race with the coming storm.  At the top of every prairie
+roll I expected to see Denver, but it was not till nearly five
+that from a considerable height I looked down upon the great
+"City of the Plains," the metropolis of the Territories.  There
+the great braggart city lay spread out, brown and treeless, upon
+the brown and treeless plain, which seemed to nourish nothing but
+wormwood and the Spanish bayonet.  The shallow Platte, shriveled
+into a narrow stream with a shingly bed six times too large for
+it, and fringed by shriveled cotton-wood, wound along by Denver,
+and two miles up its course I saw a great sandstorm, which in a
+few minutes covered the city, blotting it out with a dense brown
+cloud.  Then with gusts of wind the snowstorm began, and I had
+to trust entirely to Birdie's sagacity for finding Evans's
+shanty.  She had been there once before only, but carried me
+direct to it over rough ground and trenches.  Gleefully Mrs.
+Evans and the children ran out to welcome the pet pony, and I was
+received most hospitably, and made warm and comfortable, though
+the house consists only of a kitchen and two bed closets.  My
+budget of news from "the park" had to be brought out constantly,
+and I wondered how much I had to tell.  It was past eleven when
+we breakfasted the next morning.  It was cloudless with an
+intense frost, and six inches of snow on the ground, and
+everybody thought it too cold to get up and light the fire.  I
+had intended to leave Birdie at Denver, but Governor Hunt and Mr.
+Byers of the Rocky Mountain News both advised me to travel on
+horseback rather than by train and stage telling me that I should
+be quite safe, and Governor Hunt drew out a route for me and gave
+me a circular letter to the settlers along it.
+     
+Denver is no longer the Denver of Hepworth Dixon.  A shooting
+affray in the street is as rare as in Liverpool, and one no
+longer sees men dangling to the lamp-posts when one looks out in
+the morning!  It is a busy place, the entrepot and distributing
+point for an immense district, with good shops, some factories,
+fair hotels, and the usual deformities and refinements of
+civilization.  Peltry shops abound, and sportsman, hunter, miner,
+teamster, emigrant, can be completely rigged out at fifty
+different stores.  At Denver, people who come from the East to
+try the "camp cure" now so fashionable, get their outfit of
+wagon, driver, horses, tent, bedding, and stove, and start for
+the mountains.  Asthmatic people are there in such numbers as to
+warrant the holding of an "asthmatic convention" of patients
+cured and benefited.  Numbers of invalids who cannot bear the
+rough life of the mountains fill its hotels and boarding-houses,
+and others who have been partially restored by a summer of
+camping out, go into the city in the winter to complete the cure. 
+It stands at a height of 5,000 feet, on an enormous plain, and
+has a most glorious view of the Rocky Range.  I should hate even
+to spend a week there.  The sight of those glories so near and
+yet out of reach would make me nearly crazy.  Denver is at
+present the terminus of the Kansas Pacific Railroad.  It has a
+line connecting it with the Union Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne,
+and by means of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, open for
+about 200 miles, it is expecting to reach into Mexico.  It has
+also had the enterprise, by means of another narrow-gauge
+railroad, to push its way right up into the mining districts near
+Gray's Peak.  The number of "saloons" in the streets impresses
+one, and everywhere one meets the characteristic loafers of a
+frontier town, who find it hard even for a few days or hours to
+submit to the restraints of civilization, as hard as I did to
+ride sidewise to Governor Hunt's office.  To Denver men go to
+spend the savings of months of hard work in the maddest
+dissipation, and there such characters as "Comanche Bill,"
+"Buffalo Bill," "Wild Bill," and "Mountain Jim," go on the spree,
+and find the kind of notoriety they seek.
+     
+A large number of Indians added to the harlequin appearance of
+the Denver streets the day I was there.  They belonged to the Ute
+tribe, through which I had to pass, and Governor Hunt introduced
+me to a fine-looking young chief, very well dressed in beaded
+hide, and bespoke his courtesy for me if I needed it.  The Indian
+stores and fur stores and fur depots interested me most.  The
+crowds in the streets, perhaps owing to the snow on the ground,
+were almost solely masculine.  I only saw five women the whole
+day.  There were men in every rig: hunters and trappers in
+buckskin clothing; men of the Plains with belts and revolvers, in
+great blue cloaks, relics of the war; teamsters in leathern
+suits; horsemen in fur coats and caps and buffalo-hide boots with
+the hair outside, and camping blankets behind their huge Mexican
+saddles; Broadway dandies in light kid gloves; rich English
+sporting tourists, clean, comely, and supercilious looking; and
+hundreds of Indians on their small ponies, the men wearing
+buckskin suits sewn with beads, and red blankets, with faces
+painted vermilion and hair hanging lank and straight, and squaws
+much bundled up, riding astride with furs over their saddles.
+     
+Town tired and confused me, and in spite of Mrs. Evans's kind
+hospitality, I was glad when a man brought Birdie at nine
+yesterday morning.  He said she was a little demon, she had done
+nothing but buck, and had bucked him off on the bridge!  I found
+that he had put a curb on her, and whenever she dislikes anything
+she resents it by bucking.  I rode sidewise till I was well
+through the town, long enough to produce a severe pain in my
+spine, which was not relieved for some time even after I had
+changed my position.  It was a lovely Indian summer day, so warm
+that the snow on the ground looked an incongruity.  I rode over
+the Plains for some time, then gradually reached the rolling
+country along the base of the mountains, and a stream with
+cottonwoods along it, and settlers' houses about every halfmile. 
+I passed and met wagons frequently, and picked up a muff
+containing a purse with 500 dollars in it, which I afterwards had
+the great pleasure of restoring to the owner.  Several times I
+crossed the narrow track of the quaint little Rio Grande
+Railroad, so that it was a very cheerful ride.
+
+
+RANCH, PLUM CREEK, October 24.
+
+You must understand that in Colorado travel, unless on the main
+road and in the larger settlements, there are neither hotels nor
+taverns, and that it is the custom for the settlers to receive
+travelers, charging them at the usual hotel rate for
+accommodation.  It is a very satisfactory arrangement.  However,
+at Ranch, my first halting place, the host was unwilling to
+receive people in this way, I afterwards found, or I certainly
+should not have presented my credentials at the door of a large
+frame house, with large barns and a generally prosperous look. 
+The host, who opened the door, looked repellent, but his wife, a
+very agreeable, lady-like-looking woman, said they could give me
+a bed on a sofa.  The house was the most pretentious I have yet
+seen, being papered and carpeted, and there were two "hired
+girls."  There was a lady there from Laramie, who kindly offered
+to receive me into her room, a very tall, elegant person,
+remarkable as being the first woman who had settled in the Rocky
+Mountains.  She had been trying the "camp cure" for three months,
+and was then on her way home.  She had a wagon with beds, tent,
+tent floor, cooking-stove, and every camp luxury, a light buggy,
+a man to manage everything, and a most superior "hired girl." 
+She was consumptive and frail in strength, but a very attractive
+person, and her stories of the perils and limitation of her early
+life at Fort Laramie were very interesting.  Still I "wearied,"
+as I had arrived early in the afternoon, and could not out of
+politeness retire and write to you.  At meals the three "hired
+men" and two "hired girls" eat with the family.  I soon found
+that there was a screw loose in the house, and was glad to leave
+early the next morning, although it was obvious that a storm
+was coming on.
+     
+I saw the toy car of the Rio Grande Railroad whirl past, all
+cushioned and warm, and rather wished I were in it, and not out
+among the snow on the bleak hill side.  I only got on four miles
+when the storm came on so badly that I got into a kitchen where
+eleven wretched travelers were taking shelter, with the snow
+melting on them and dripping on the floor.  I had learned the art
+of "being agreeable" so well at the Chalmers's, and practiced it
+so successfully during the two hours I was there, by paring
+potatoes and making scones, that when I left, though the hosts
+kept "an accommodation house for travelers," they would take
+nothing for my entertainment, because they said I was such "good
+company"!  The storm moderated a little, and at one I saddled
+Birdie, and rode four more miles, crossing a frozen creek, the
+ice of which broke and let the pony through, to her great alarm. 
+I cannot describe my feelings on this ride, produced by the utter
+loneliness, the silence and dumbness of all things, the snow
+falling quietly without wind, the obliterated mountains, the
+darkness, the intense cold, and the unusual and appalling aspect
+of nature.  All life was in a shroud, all work and travel
+suspended.  There was not a foot-mark or wheel-mark.  There was
+nothing to be afraid of; and though I can't exactly say that I
+enjoyed the ride, yet there was the pleasant feeling of gaining
+health every hour.
+     
+When the snow darkness began to deepen towards evening, the track
+became quite illegible, and when I found myself at this
+romantically situated cabin, I was thankful to find that they
+could give me shelter.  The scene was a solemn one, and reminded
+me of a description in Whittier's Snow-Bound.  All the stock came
+round the cabin with mute appeals for shelter.  Sheep dogs got
+in, and would not be kicked out.  Men went out muffled up, and
+came back shivering and shaking the snow from their feet.  The
+churn was put by the stove.  Later on, a most pleasant settler,
+on his way to Denver, came in his wagon having been snow blocked
+two miles off, where he had been obliged to leave it and bring
+his horses on here.  The "Grey Mare" had a stentorian voice,
+smoked a clay pipe which she passed to her children, raged at
+English people, derided the courtesy of English manners, and
+considered that "Please," "Thank you," and the like, were "all
+bosh" when life was so short and busy.  And still the snow fell
+softly, and the air and earth were silent.
+
+
+Letter X
+
+A white world--Bad traveling--A millionaire's home--Pleasant
+Park--Perry's Park--Stock-raising--A cattle king--The
+Arkansas Divide--Birdie's sagacity--Luxury--Monument
+Park--Deference to prejudice--A death scene--The Manitou--A loose
+shoe--The Ute Pass--Bergens Park--A settler's home--Hayden's
+Divide--Sharp criticism--Speaking the truth.
+
+COLORADO SPRINGS, October 28.
+
+It is difficult to make this anything of a letter.  I have
+been riding for a whole week, seeing wonders and greatly enjoying
+the singular adventurousness and novelty of my tour, but ten
+hours or more daily spent in the saddle in this rarefied,
+intoxicating air, disposes one to sleep rather than to write in
+the evening, and is far from conducive to mental brilliancy.  The
+observing faculties are developed, and the reflective lie
+dormant.
+     
+That night on which I last wrote was the coldest I have yet felt. 
+I pulled the rag carpet from the floor and covered myself with
+it, but could not get warm.  The sun rose gloriously on a
+shrouded earth.  Barns, road, shrubs, fences, river, lake, all
+lay under the glittering snow.  It was light and powdery, and
+sparkled like diamonds.  Not a breath of wind stirred, there was
+not a sound.  I had to wait till a passing horseman had broken
+the track, but soon after I set off into the new, shining world. 
+I soon lost the horseman's foot-marks, but kept on near the road
+by means of the innumerable foot-prints of birds and ground
+squirrels, which all went in one direction.  After riding for an
+hour I was obliged to get off and walk for another, for the snow
+balled in Birdie's feet to such an extent that she could hardly
+keep up even without my weight on her, and my pick was not strong
+enough to remove it.  Turning off the road to ask for a chisel, I
+came upon the cabin of the people whose muff I had picked up a
+few days before, and they received me very warmly, gave me a
+tumbler of cream, and made some strong coffee.  They were "old
+Country folk," and I stayed too long with them.  After leaving
+them I rode twelve miles, but it was "bad traveling," from the
+balling of the snow and the difficulty of finding the track. 
+There was a fearful loneliness about it.  The track was
+untrodden, and I saw neither man nor beast.  The sky became
+densely clouded, and the outlook was awful.  The great Divide of
+the Arkansas was in front, looming vaguely through a heavy snow
+cloud, and snow began to fall, not in powder, but in heavy
+flakes.  Finding that there would be risk in trying to ride till
+nightfall, in the early afternoon I left the road and went two
+miles into the hills by an untrodden path, where there were gates
+to open, and a rapid steep-sided creek to cross; and at the en-
+trance to a most fantastic gorge I came upon an elegant frame
+house belonging to Mr. Perry, a millionaire, to whom I had an
+introduction which I did not hesitate to present, as it was
+weather in which a traveler might almost ask for shelter without
+one.
+     
+Mr. Perry was away, but his daughter, a very bright-looking,
+elegantly-dressed girl, invited me to dine and remain.  They had
+stewed venison and various luxuries on the table, which was
+tasteful and refined, and an adroit, colored table-maid waited,
+one of five attached Negro servants who had been their slaves
+before the war.  After dinner, though snow was slowly falling, a
+gentleman cousin took me a ride to show me the beauties of
+Pleasant Park, which takes rank among the finest scenery of
+Colorado, and in good weather is very easy of access.  It did
+look very grand as we entered it by a narrow pass guarded by two
+buttes, or isolated upright masses of rock, bright red, and about
+300 feet in height.  The pines were very large, and the narrow
+canyons which came down on the park gloomily magnificent.  It is
+remarkable also from a quantity of "monumental" rocks, from 50 to
+300 feet in height, bright vermilion, green, buff, orange, and
+sometimes all combined, their gay tinting a contrast to the
+disastrous-looking snow and the somber pines.  Bear Canyon, a
+gorge of singular majesty, comes down on the park, and we crossed
+the Bear Creek at the foot of this on the ice, which gave way,
+and both our horses broke through into pretty deep and very cold
+water, and shortly afterwards Birdie put her foot into a prairie
+dog's hole which was concealed by the snow, and on recovering
+herself fell three times on her nose.  I thought of Bishop
+Wilberforce's fatal accident from a smaller stumble, and felt
+sure that he would have kept his seat had he been mounted, as I
+was, on a Mexican saddle.  It was too threatening for a long
+ride, and on returning I passed into a region of vivacious
+descriptions of Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Turkey, Russia, and
+other countries, in which Miss Perry had traveled with her family
+for three years.
+     
+Perry's Park is one of the great cattle-raising ranches in
+Colorado.  This, the youngest State in the Union, a Territory
+until quite recently, has an area of about 68,000,000 acres, a
+great portion of which, though rich in mineral wealth, is
+worthless either for stock or arable farming, and the other or
+eastern part is so dry that crops can only be grown profitably
+where irrigation is possible.  This region is watered by the
+South Fork of the Platte and its affluents, and, though subject
+to the grasshopper pest, it produces wheat of the finest quality,
+the yield varying according to the mode of cultivation from
+eighteen to thirty bushels per acre.  The necessity for
+irrigation, however, will always bar the way to an indefinite
+extension of the area of arable farms.  The prospects of
+cattle-raising seem at present practically unlimited.  In 1876
+Colorado had 390,728, valued at L2:13s. per head, about half of
+which were imported as young beasts from Texas.  The climate is
+so fine and the pasturage so ample that shelter and hand-feeding
+are never resorted to except in the case of imported breeding
+stock from the Eastern States, which sometimes in severe winters
+need to be fed in sheds for a short time.  Mr. Perry devotes
+himself mainly to the breeding of graded shorthorn bulls, which
+he sells when young for L6 per head.
+     
+The cattle run at large upon the prairies; each animal being
+branded, they need no herding, and are usually only mustered,
+counted, and the increase branded in the summer.  In the fall,
+when three or four years old, they are sold lean or in tolerable
+condition to dealers who take them by rail to Chicago, or
+elsewhere, where the fattest lots are slaughtered for tinning or
+for consumption in the Eastern cities, while the leaner are sold
+to farmers for feeding up during the winter.  Some of the
+wealthier stockmen take their best lots to Chicago themselves. 
+The Colorado cattle are either pure Texan or Spanish, or crosses
+between the Texan and graded shorthorns.  They are nearly all
+very inferior animals, being bony and ragged.  The herds mix on
+the vast plains at will; along the Arkansas valley 80,000 roam
+about with the freedom of buffaloes, and of this number about
+16,000 are exported every fall.  Where cattle are killed for use
+in the mining districts their average price is three cents per
+lb.  In the summer thousands of yearlings are driven up from
+Texas, branded, and turned loose on the prairies, and are not
+molested again till they are sent east at three or four years
+old.  These pure Texans, the old Spanish breed, weigh from 900 to
+1,000 pounds, and the crossed Colorado cattle from 1,000 to 1,200
+pounds.
+     
+The "Cattle King" of the State is Mr. Iliff, of South Platte, who
+owns nine ranches, with runs of 15,000 acres, and 35,000 cattle. 
+He is improving his stock; and, indeed, the opening of the
+dead-meat trade with this country is giving a great impetus to
+the improvement of the breed of cattle among all the larger and
+richer stock-owners.  For this enormous herd 40 men are employed
+in summer, about 12 in winter, and 200 horses.  In the rare case
+of a severe and protracted snowstorm the cattle get a little hay. 
+Owners of 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000 head of cattle are quite common
+in Colorado.  Sheep are now raised in the State to the extent of
+half a million, and a chronic feud prevails between the "sheep
+men" and the "cattle men."  Sheep-raising is said to be a very
+profitable business, but its risks and losses are greater, owing
+to storms, while the outlay for labor, dipping materials, etc.,
+is considerably larger, and owing to the comparative inability of
+sheep to scratch away the snow from the grass, hay has to be
+provided to meet the emergency of very severe snow-storms.  The
+flocks are made up mostly of pure and graded Mexicans; but though
+some flocks which have been graded carefully for some years show
+considerable merit, the average sheep is a leggy, ragged beast. 
+Wether mutton, four and five years old, is sold when there is any
+demand for it; but except at Charpiot's, in Denver, I never saw
+mutton on any table, public or private, and wool is the great
+source of profit, the old ewes being allowed to die off.  The
+best flocks yield an average of seven pounds.  The shearing
+season, which begins in early June, lasts about six weeks. 
+Shearers get six and a half cents a head for inferior sheep, and
+seven and a half cents for the better quality, and a good hand
+shears from sixty to eighty in a day.  It is not likely that
+sheep-raising will attain anything of the prominence which
+cattle-raising is likely to assume.  The potato beetle "scare" is
+not of much account in the country of the potato beetle.  The
+farmers seem much depressed by the magnitude and persistency of
+the grasshopper pest which finds their fields in the morning "as
+the garden of Eden," and leaves them at night "a desolate
+wilderness."
+     
+It was so odd and novel to have a beautiful bed room, hot water,
+and other luxuries.  The snow began to fall in good earnest at
+six in the evening, and fell all night, accompanied by intense
+frost, so that in the morning there were eight inches of it
+glittering in the sun.  Miss P. gave me a pair of men's socks to
+draw on over my boots, and I set out tolerably early, and broke
+my own way for two miles.  Then a single wagon had passed, making
+a legible track for thirty miles, otherwise the snow was
+pathless.  The sky was absolutely cloudless, and as I made the
+long ascent of the Arkansas Divide, the mountains, gashed by deep
+canyons, came sweeping down to the valley on my right, and on my
+left the Foot Hills were crowned with colored fantastic rocks
+like castles.  Everything was buried under a glittering shroud of
+snow.  The babble of the streams was bound by fetters of ice.  No
+branches creaked in the still air.  No birds sang.  No one passed
+or met me.  There were no cabins near or far.  The only sound was
+the crunch of the snow under Birdie's feet.  We came to a river
+over which some logs were laid with some young trees across them. 
+Birdie put one foot on this, then drew it back and put another
+on, then smelt the bridge noisily.  Persuasions were useless; she
+only smelt, snorted, held back, and turned her cunning head and
+looked at me.  It was useless to argue the point with so
+sagacious a beast.  To the right of the bridge the ice was much
+broken, and we forded the river there; but as it was deep enough
+to come up to her body, and was icy cold to my feet, I wondered
+at her preference.  Afterwards I heard that the bridge was
+dangerous.  She is the queen of ponies, and is very gentle,
+though she has not only wild horse blood, but is herself the wild
+horse.  She is always cheerful and hungry, never tired, looks
+intelligently at everything, and her legs are like rocks.  Her
+one trick is that when the saddle is put on she swells herself to
+a very large size, so that if any one not accustomed to her
+saddles her I soon find the girth three or four inches too large.
+When I saddle her a gentle slap on her side, or any slight start
+which makes her cease to hold her breath, puts it all right.  She
+is quite a companion, and bathing her back, sponging her
+nostrils, and seeing her fed after my day's ride, is always my
+first care.
+     
+At last I reached a log cabin where I got a feed for us both and
+further directions.  The rest of the day's ride was awful enough. 
+The snow was thirteen inches deep, and grew deeper as I ascended
+in silence and loneliness, but just as the sun sank behind a
+snowy peak I reached the top of the Divide, 7,975 feet above the
+sea level.  There, in unspeakable solitude, lay a frozen lake. 
+Owls hooted among the pines, the trail was obscure, the country
+was not settled, the mercury was 9 degrees below zero, my feet
+had lost all sensation, and one of them was frozen to the wooden
+stirrup.  I found that owing to the depth of the snow I had only
+ridden fifteen miles in eight and a half hours, and must look
+about for a place to sleep in.  The eastern sky was unlike
+anything I ever saw before.  It had been chrysoprase, then it
+turned to aquamarine, and that to the bright full green of an
+emerald.  Unless I am color-blind, this is true.  Then suddenly
+the whole changed, and flushed with the pure, bright, rose color
+of the afterglow.  Birdie was sliding at every step, and I was
+nearly paralyzed with the cold when I reached a cabin which had
+been mentioned to me, but they said that seventeen snow-bound men
+were lying on the floor, and they advised me to ride half a mile
+farther, which I did, and reached the house of a German from
+Eisenau, with a sweet young wife and a venerable mother-in-law.
+Though the house was very poor, it was made attractive by
+ornaments, and the simple, loving, German ways gave it a sweet
+home atmosphere.  My room was reached by a ladder, but I had it
+to myself and had the luxury of a basin to wash in.  Under the
+kindly treatment of the two women my feet came to themselves, but
+with an amount of pain that almost deserved the name of torture.
+     
+The next morning was gray and sour, but brightened and warmed as
+the day went on.  After riding twelve miles I got bread and milk
+for myself and a feed for Birdie at a large house where there
+were eight boarders, each one looking nearer the grave than the
+other, and on remounting was directed to leave the main road and
+diverge through Monument Park, a ride of twelve miles among
+fantastic rocks, but I lost my way, and came to an end of all
+tracks in a wild canyon.  Returning about six miles, I took
+another track, and rode about eight miles without seeing a
+creature.  I then came to strange gorges with wonderful upright
+rocks of all shapes and colors, and turning through a gate of
+rock, came upon what I knew must be Glen Eyrie, as wild and
+romantic a glen as imagination ever pictured.  The track then
+passed down a valley close under some ghastly peaks, wild, cold,
+awe-inspiring scenery.  After fording a creek several times, I
+came upon a decayed-looking cluster of houses bearing the
+arrogant name of Colorado City, and two miles farther on, from
+the top of one of the Foot Hill ridges, I saw the bleak-looking
+scattered houses of the ambitious watering place of Colorado
+Springs, the goal of my journey of 150 miles.  I got off, put on
+a long skirt, and rode sidewise, though the settlement scarcely
+looked like a place where any deference to prejudices was
+necessary.  A queer embryo-looking place it is, out on the bare
+Plains, yet it is rising and likely to rise, and has some big
+hotels much resorted to.  It has a fine view of the mountains,
+specially of Pike's Peak, but the celebrated springs are at
+Manitou, three miles off, in really fine scenery.  To me no place
+could be more unattractive than Colorado Springs, from its utter
+treelessness.
+     
+I found the -----s living in a small room which served for
+parlor, bedroom, and kitchen, and combined the comforts of all. 
+It is inhabited also by two prairie dogs, a kitten, and a
+deerhound.  It was truly homelike.  Mrs. ----- walked with me to
+the boarding-house where I slept, and we sat some time in the
+parlor talking with the landlady.  Opposite to me there was a
+door wide open into a bed room, and on a bed opposite to the door
+a very sick-looking young man was half-lying, half-sitting, fully
+dressed, supported by another, and a very sick-looking young man
+much resembling him passed in and out occasionally, or leaned on
+the chimney piece in an attitude of extreme dejection.  Soon the
+door was half-closed, and some one came to it, saying rapidly,
+"Shields, quick, a candle!" and then there were movings about in
+the room.  All this time the seven or eight people in the room in
+which I was were talking, laughing, and playing backgammon, and
+none laughed louder than the landlady, who was sitting where she
+saw that mysterious door as plainly as I did.  All this time, and
+during the movings in the room, I saw two large white feet
+sticking up at the end of the bed.  I watched and watched, hoping
+those feet would move, but they did not; and somehow, to my
+thinking, they grew stiffer and whiter, and then my horrible
+suspicion deepened, and while we were sitting there a human
+spirit untended and desolate had passed forth into the night. 
+Then a man came out with a bundle of clothes, and then the sick
+young man, groaning and sobbing, and then a third, who said to
+me, with some feeling, that the man who had just died was the
+sick young man's only brother.  And still the landlady laughed
+and talked, and afterwards said to me, "It turns the house upside
+down when they just come here and die; we shall be half the night
+laying him out."  I could not sleep for the bitter cold and the
+sound of the sobs and groans of the bereaved brother.  The next
+day the landlady, in a fashionably-made black dress, was bustling
+about, proud of the prospective arrival of a handsome coffin.  I
+went into the parlor to get a needle, and the door of THAT room
+was open, and children were running in and out, and the landlady,
+who was sweeping there, called cheerily to me to come in for the
+needle, and there, to my horror, not even covered with a face
+cloth, and with the sun blazing in through the unblinded window,
+lay that thing of terror, a corpse, on some chairs which were not
+even placed straight.  It was buried in the afternoon, and from
+the looks of the brother, who continued to sob and moan, his end
+cannot be far off.
+     
+The -----s say that many go to the Springs in the last stage of
+consumption, thinking that the Colorado climate will cure them,
+without money enough to pay for even the coarsest board.  We
+talked most of that day, and I equipped myself with arctics and
+warm gloves for the mountain tour which has been planned for me,
+and I gave Birdie the Sabbath she was entitled to on Tuesday, for
+I found, on arriving at the Springs, that the day I crossed the
+Arkansas Divide was Sunday, though I did not know it.  Several
+friends of Miss Kingsley called on me; she is much remembered and
+beloved.  This is not an expensive tour; we cost about ten
+shillings a day, and the five days which I have spent en route
+from Denver have cost something less than the fare for the few
+hours' journey by the cars.  There are no real difficulties.  It
+is a splendid life for health and enjoyment.  All my luggage
+being in a pack, and my conveyance being a horse, we can go
+anywhere where we can get food and shelter.
+
+
+GREAT GORGE OF THE MANITOU, October 29.
+
+This is a highly picturesque place, with several springs, still
+and effervescing, the virtues of which were well known to the
+Indians.  Near it are places, the names of which are familiar to
+every one--the Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Pike's Peak,
+Monument Park, and the Ute Pass.  It has two or three immense
+hotels, and a few houses picturesquely situated.  It is thronged
+by thousands of people in the summer who come to drink the
+waters, try the camp cure, and make mountain excursions; but it
+is all quiet now, and there are only a few lingerers in this
+immense hotel.  There is a rushing torrent in a valley, with
+mountains, covered with snow and rising to a height of nearly
+15,000 feet, overhanging it.  It is grand and awful, and has a
+strange, solemn beauty like death.  And the Snowy Mountains are
+pierced by the torrent which has excavated the Ute Pass, by
+which, to-morrow, I hope to go into the higher regions.  But all
+may be "lost for want of a horseshoe nail."  One of Birdie's
+shoes is loose, and not a nail is to be got here, or can be got
+till I have ridden for ten miles up the Pass.  Birdie amuses
+every one with her funny ways.  She always follows me closely,
+and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlor door
+open.  She walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder,
+licking my face and teasing me for sugar, and sometimes, when any
+one else takes hold of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious
+bronco soul comes into her eyes.  Her face is cunning and pretty,
+and she makes a funny, blarneying noise when I go up to her.  The
+men at all the stables make a fuss with her, and call her "Pet." 
+She gallops up and down hill, and never stumbles even on the
+roughest ground, or requires even a touch with a whip.
+     
+The weather is again perfect, with a cloudless sky and a hot sun,
+and the snow is all off the plains and lower valleys.  After
+lunch, the -----s in a buggy, and I on Birdie, left Colorado
+Springs, crossing the Mesa, a high hill with a table top, with a
+view of extraordinary laminated rocks, LEAVES of rock a bright
+vermilion color, against a background of snowy mountains,
+surmounted by Pike's Peak.  Then we plunged into cavernous Glen
+Eyrie, with its fantastic needles of colored rock, and were
+entertained at General Palmer's "baronial mansion," a perfect
+eyrie, the fine hall filled with buffalo, elk, and deer heads,
+skins of wild animals, stuffed birds, bear robes, and numerous
+Indian and other weapons and trophies.  Then through a gate of
+huge red rocks, we passed into the valley, called fantastically,
+Garden of the Gods, in which, were I a divinity, I certainly
+would not choose to dwell.  Many places in this neighborhood are
+also vulgarized by grotesque names.  From this we passed into a
+ravine, down which the Fountain River rushed, and there I left my
+friends with regret, and rode into this chill and solemn gorge,
+from which the mountains, reddening in the sunset, are only seen
+afar off.  I put Birdie up at a stable, and as there was no place
+to put myself up but this huge hotel, I came here to have a last
+taste of luxury.  They charge six dollars a day in the season,
+but it is now half-price; and instead of four hundred fashionable
+guests there are only fifteen, most of whom are speaking in the
+weak, rapid accents of consumption, and are coughing their hearts
+out.  There are seven medicinal springs.  It is strange to have
+the luxuries of life in my room.  It will be only the fourth
+night in Colorado that I have slept on anything better than hay
+or straw.  I am glad that there are so few inns.  As it is, I get
+a good deal of insight into the homes and modes of living of the
+settlers.
+
+
+BERGENS PARK, October 31.
+
+This cabin was so dark, and I so sleepy last night, that I could
+not write; but the frost during the night has been very severe,
+and I am detained until the bright, hot sun melts the ice and
+renders traveling safe.  I left the great Manitou at ten
+yesterday.  Birdie, who was loose in the stable, came trotting
+down the middle of it when she saw me for her sugar and biscuits. 
+No nails could be got, and her shoe was hanging by two, which
+doomed me to a foot's pace and the dismal clink of a loose shoe
+for three hours.  There was not a cloud on the bright blue sky
+the whole day, and though it froze hard in the shade, it was
+summer heat in the sun.  The mineral fountains were sparkling in
+their basins and sending up their full perennial jets but the
+snow-clad, pine-skirted mountains frowned and darkened over the
+Ute Pass as I entered it to ascend it for twenty miles.  A narrow
+pass it is, with barely room for the torrent and the wagon road
+which has been blasted out of its steep sides.  All the time I
+was in sight of the Fountain River, brighter than any stream,
+because it tumbles over rose-red granite, rocky or disintegrated,
+a truly fair stream, cutting and forcing its way through hard
+rocks, under arches of alabaster ice, through fringes of
+crystalline ice, thumping with a hollow sound in cavernous
+recesses cold and dark, or leaping in foam from heights with rush
+and swish; always bright and riotous, never pausing in still
+pools to rest, dashing through gates of rock, pine hung, pine
+bridged, pine buried; twinkling and laughing in the sunshine,
+or frowning in "dowie dens" in the blue pine gloom. And there,
+for a mile or two in a sheltered spot, owing to the more southern
+latitude, the everlasting northern pine met the trees of other
+climates.  There were dwarf oaks, willows, hazel, and spruce; the
+white cedar and the trailing juniper jostled each other for a
+precarious foothold; the majestic redwood tree of the Pacific met
+the exquisite balsam pine of the Atlantic slopes, and among them
+all the pale gold foliage of the large aspen trembled (as the
+legend goes) in endless remorse.  And above them towered the
+toothy peaks of the glittering mountains, rising in pure white
+against the sunny blue.  Grand! glorious! sublime! but not
+lovable.  I would give all for the luxurious redundance of one
+Hilo gulch, or for one day of those soft dreamy "skies whose
+very tears are balm."
+
+
+Bergens Park
+
+Up ever! the road being blasted out of the red rock which often
+overhung it, the canyon only from fifteen to twenty feet wide,
+the thunder of the Fountain, which is crossed eight times, nearly
+deafening.  Sometimes the sun struck the road, and then it was
+absolutely hot; then one entered unsunned gorges where the snow
+lay deep, and the crowded pines made dark twilight, and the river
+roared under ice bridges fringed by icicles.  At last the Pass
+opened out upon a sunlit upland park, where there was a forge,
+and with Birdie's shoe put on, and some shoe nails in my purse, I
+rode on cheerfully, getting food for us both at a ranch belonging
+to some very pleasant people, who, like all Western folk, when
+they are not taciturn, asked a legion of questions.  There I met
+a Colonel Kittridge, who said that he believed his valley, twelve
+miles off the track, to be the loveliest valley in Colorado, and
+invited me to his house.  Leaving the road, I went up a long
+ascent deep in snow, but as it did not seem to be the way, I tied
+up the pony, and walked on to a cabin at some distance, which I
+had hardly reached when I found her trotting like a dog by my
+side, pulling my sleeve and laying her soft gray nose on my
+shoulder.  Does it all mean sugar?  We had eight miles farther to
+go--most of the way through a forest, which I always dislike when
+alone, from the fear of being frightened by something which may
+appear from behind a tree.  I saw a beautiful white fox, several
+skunks, some chipmunks and gray squirrels, owls, crows, and
+crested blue-jays.  As the sun was getting low I reached Bergens
+Park, which was to put me out of conceit with Estes Park.  Never!
+It is long and featureless, and its immediate surroundings are
+mean.  It reminded me in itself of some dismal Highland
+strath--Glenshee, possibly.  I looked at it with special
+interest, as it was the place at which Miss Kingsley had
+suggested that I might remain.  The evening was glorious, and the
+distant views were very fine.  A stream fringed with cotton-wood
+runs through the park; low ranges come down upon it.  The south
+end is completely closed up, but at a considerable distance, by
+the great mass of Pike's Peak, while far beyond the other end are
+peaks and towers, wonderful in blue and violet in the lovely
+evening, and beyond these, sharply defined against the clear
+green sky, was the serrated ridge of the Snowy Range, said to be
+200 miles away.  Bergens Park had been bought by Dr. Bell, of
+London, but its present occupant is Mr. Thornton, an English
+gentleman, who has a worthy married Englishman as his manager. 
+Mr. Thornton is building a good house, and purposes to build
+other cabins, with the intention of making the park a resort for
+strangers.  I thought of the blue hollow lying solitary at the
+foot of Long's Peak, and rejoiced that I had "happened into it."
+     
+The cabin is long, low, mud roofed, and very dark.  The middle
+place is full of raw meat, fowls, and gear.  One end, almost
+dark, contains the cooking-stove, milk, crockery, a long deal
+table, two benches, and some wooden stools; the other end houses
+the English manager or partner, his wife, and three children,
+another cooking-stove, gear of all kinds, and sacks of beans and
+flour.  They put up a sheet for a partition, and made me a
+shake-down on the gravel floor of this room.  Ten hired men sat
+down to meals with us.  It was all very rough, dark, and
+comfortless, but Mr. T., who is not only a gentleman by birth,
+but an M.A. of Cambridge, seems to like it.  Much in this way (a
+little smoother if a lady is in the case) every man must begin
+life here.  Seven large dogs--three of them with cats upon their
+backs--are usually warming themselves at the fire.
+
+
+TWIN ROCK, SOUTH FORK OF THE PLATTE, November 1.
+
+I did not leave Mr. Thornton's till ten, because of the
+slipperiness.  I rode four miles along a back trail, and then was
+so tired that I stayed for two hours at a ranch, where I heard,
+to my dismay, that I must ride twenty-four miles farther before I
+could find any place to sleep at.  I did not enjoy yesterday's
+ride.  I was both tired and rheumatic, and Birdie was not so
+sprightly as usual.  After starting again I came on a hideous
+place, of which I had not heard before, Hayden's Divide, one of
+the great back-bones of the region, a weary expanse of deep snow
+eleven miles across, and fearfully lonely.  I saw nothing the
+whole way but a mule lately dead lying by the road.  I was very
+nervous somehow, and towards evening believed that I had lost the
+road, for I came upon wild pine forests, with huge masses of rock
+from 100 to 700 feet high, cast here and there among them; beyond
+these pine-sprinkled grass hills; these, in their turn, were
+bounded by interminable ranges, ghastly in the lurid evening,
+with the Spanish Peaks quite clear, and the colossal summit of
+Mount Lincoln, the King of the Rocky Mountains, distinctly
+visible, though seventy miles away.  It seemed awful to be alone
+on that ghastly ridge, surrounded by interminable mountains, in
+the deep snow, knowing that a party of thirty had been lost here
+a month ago.  Just at nightfall the descent of a steep hill took
+me out of the forest and upon a clean log cabin, where, finding
+that the proper halting place was two miles farther on, I
+remained.  A truly pleasing, superior-looking woman placed me in
+a rocking chair; would not let me help her otherwise than by
+rocking the cradle, and made me "feel at home."  The room, though
+it serves them and their two children for kitchen, parlor, and
+bed room, is the pattern of brightness, cleanliness, and comfort. 
+At supper there were canned raspberries, rolls, butter, tea,
+venison, and fried rabbit, and at seven I went to bed in a
+carpeted log room, with a thick feather bed on a mattress,
+sheets, ruffled pillow slips, and a pile of warm white blankets! 
+I slept for eleven hours.  They discourage me much about the
+route which Governor Hunt has projected for me.  They think that
+it is impassable, owing to snow, and that another storm is
+brewing.
+
+
+HALL'S GULCH, November 6.
+
+I have ridden 150 miles since I wrote last.  On leaving Twin Rock
+on Saturday I had a short day's ride to Colonel Kittridge's cabin
+at Oil Creek, where I spent a quiet Sunday with agreeable people. 
+The ride was all through parks and gorges, and among pine-clothed
+hills, about 9,000 feet high, with Pike's Peak always in sight. 
+I have developed much sagacity in finding a trail, or I should
+not be able to make use of such directions as these: "Keep along
+a gulch four or five miles till you get Pike's Peak on your left,
+then follow some wheel-marks till you get to some timber, and
+keep to the north till you come to a creek, where you'll find a
+great many elk tracks; then go to your right and cross the creek
+three times, then you'll see a red rock to your left," etc., etc. 
+The K's cabin was very small and lonely, and the life seemed a
+hard grind for an educated and refined woman.  There were snow
+flurries after I arrived, but the first Sunday of November was as
+bright and warm as June, and the atmosphere had resumed its
+exquisite purity.  Three peaks of Pike's Peak are seen from Oil
+Creek, above the nearer hills, and by them they tell the time. 
+We had been in the evening shadows for half an hour before those
+peaks ceased to be transparent gold.
+     
+On leaving Colonel Kittridge's hospitable cabin I dismounted, as
+I had often done before, to lower a bar, and, on looking round,
+Birdie was gone!  I spent an hour in trying to catch her, but she
+had taken an "ugly fit," and would not let me go near her; and I
+was getting tired and vexed, when two passing trappers, on mules,
+circumvented and caught her.  I rode the twelve miles back to
+Twin Rock, and then went on, a kindly teamster, who was going in
+the same direction, taking my pack.  I must explain that every
+mile I have traveled since leaving Colorado Springs has taken me
+farther and higher into the mountains.  That afternoon I rode
+through lawnlike upland parks, with the great snow mass of Pike's
+Peak behind, and in front mountains bathed in rich atmospheric
+coloring of blue and violet, all very fine, but threatening to
+become monotonous, when the wagon road turned abruptly to the
+left, and crossed a broad, swift, mountain river, the head-
+waters of the Platte.  There I found the ranch to which I had
+been recommended, the quarters of a great hunter named Link,
+which much resembled a good country inn.  There was a pleasant,
+friendly woman, but the men were all away, a thing I always
+regret, as it gives me half an hour's work at the horse before I
+can write to you.  I had hardly come in when a very pleasant
+German lady, whom I met at Manitou, with three gentlemen,
+arrived, and we were as sociable as people could be.  We had a
+splendid though rude supper.  While Mrs. Link was serving us, and
+urging her good things upon us, she was orating on the greediness
+of English people, saying that "you would think they traveled
+through the country only to gratify their palates"; and addressed
+me, asking me if I had not observed it!  I am nearly always taken
+for a Dane or a Swede, never for an Englishwoman, so I often hear
+a good deal of outspoken criticism.
+     
+In the evening Mr. Link returned, and there was a most vehement
+discussion between him, an old hunter, a miner, and the teamster
+who brought my pack, as to the route by which I should ride
+through the mountains for the next three or four days--because at
+that point I was to leave the wagon road--and it was renewed
+with increased violence the next morning, so that if my nerves
+had not been of steel I should have been appalled.  The old
+hunter acrimoniously said he "must speak the truth," the miner
+was directing me over a track where for twenty-five miles there
+was not a house, and where, if snow came on, I should never be
+heard of again.  The miner said he "must speak the truth," the
+hunter was directing me over a pass where there were five feet of
+snow, and no trail.  The teamster said that the only road
+possible for a horse was so-and-so, and advised me to take the
+wagon road into South Park, which I was determined not to do. 
+Mr. Link said he was the oldest hunter and settler in the
+district, and he could not cross any of the trails in snow.  And
+so they went on.  At last they partially agreed on a route--"the
+worst road in the Rocky Mountains," the old hunter said, with two
+feet of snow upon it, but a hunter had hauled an elk over part of
+it, at any rate. The upshot of the whole you shall have in my
+next letter.
+                                   I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter XI
+
+Tarryall Creek--The Red Range--Excelsior--Importunate
+pedlars--Snow and heat--A bison calf--Deep drifts--South
+Park--The Great Divide--Comanche Bill--Difficulties--Hall's
+Gulch--A Lord Dundreary--Ridiculous fears.
+
+HALL'S GULCH, COLORADO, November 6.
+
+It was another cloudless morning, one of the many here on which
+one awakes early, refreshed, and ready to enjoy the fatigues of
+another day.  In our sunless, misty climate you do not know the
+influence which persistent fine weather exercises on the spirits. 
+I have been ten months in almost perpetual sunshine, and now a
+single cloudy day makes me feel quite depressed.  I did not leave
+till 9:30, because of the slipperiness, and shortly after
+starting turned off into the wilderness on a very dim trail. 
+Soon seeing a man riding a mile ahead, I rode on and overtook
+him, and we rode eight miles together, which was convenient to
+me, as without him I should several times have lost the trail
+altogether.  Then his fine American horse, on which he had only
+ridden two days, broke down, while my "mad, bad bronco," on which
+I had been traveling for a fortnight, cantered lightly over the
+snow.  He was the only traveler I saw in a day of nearly twelve
+hours.  I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of that ride.  I
+concentrated all my faculties of admiration and of locality, for
+truly the track was a difficult one.  I sometimes thought it
+deserved the bad name given to it at Link's.  For the most part
+it keeps in sight of Tarryall Creek, one of the large affluents
+of the Platte, and is walled in on both sides by mountains, which
+are sometimes so close together as to leave only the narrowest
+canyon between them, at others breaking wide apart, till, after
+winding and climbing up and down for twenty-five miles, it
+lands one on a barren rock-girdled park, watered by a rapid
+fordable stream as broad as the Ouse at Huntingdon, snow fed and
+ice fringed, the park bordered by fantastic rocky hills, snow
+covered and brightened only by a dwarf growth of the beautiful
+silver spruce.  I have not seen anything hitherto so thoroughly
+wild and unlike the rest of these parts.
+     
+I rode up one great ascent where hills were tumbled about
+confusedly; and suddenly across the broad ravine, rising above
+the sunny grass and the deep green pines, rose in glowing and
+shaded red against the glittering blue heaven a magnificent and
+unearthly range of mountains, as shapely as could be seen, rising
+into colossal points, cleft by deep blue ravines, broken up into
+sharks' teeth, with gigantic knobs and pinnacles rising from
+their inaccessible sides, very fair to look upon--a glowing,
+heavenly, unforgettable sight, and only four miles off. 
+Mountains they looked not of this earth, but such as one sees in
+dreams alone, the blessed ranges of "the land which is very far
+off."  They were more brilliant than those incredible colors in
+which painters array the fiery hills of Moab and the Desert, and
+one could not believe them for ever uninhabited, for on them
+rose, as in the East, the similitude of stately fortresses, not
+the gray castellated towers of feudal Europe, but gay, massive,
+Saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock.  They
+were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their color
+indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases,
+then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the
+highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of
+transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on
+the hue of sunset.  Below them lay broken ravines of fantastic
+rocks, cleft and canyoned by the river, with a tender unearthly
+light over all, the apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while I
+on the north side was in the shadow among the pure unsullied
+snow.
+
+     With us the damp, the chill, the gloom;
+     With them the sunset's rosy bloom.
+
+The dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them. 
+Here, again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit,
+and the question was ever present, "Lord, what is man, that Thou
+art mindful of him; or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" 
+I rode up and down hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off
+often to ease my faithful Birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes,
+stopping constantly to feast my eyes upon that changeless glory,
+always seeing some new ravine, with its depths of color or
+miraculous brilliancy of red, or phantasy of form.  Then below,
+where the trail was locked into a deep canyon where there was
+scarcely room for it and the river, there was a beauty of an-
+other kind in solemn gloom.  There the stream curved and twisted
+marvellously, widening into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling
+eddies, with pyramidal firs and the beautiful silver spruce
+fringing its banks, and often falling across it in artistic
+grace, the gloom chill and deep, with only now and then a light
+trickling through the pines upon the cold snow, when suddenly
+turning round I saw behind, as if in the glory of an eternal
+sunset, those flaming and fantastic peaks.  The effect of the
+combination of winter and summer was singular.  The trail ran on
+the north side the whole time, and the snow lay deep and pure
+white, while not a wreath of it lay on the south side, where
+abundant lawns basked in the warm sun.
+     
+The pitch pine, with its monotonous and somewhat rigid form, had
+disappeared; the white pine became scarce, both being displayed
+by the slim spires and silvery green of the miniature silver
+spruce.  Valley and canyon were passed, the flaming ranges were
+left behind, the upper altitudes became grim and mysterious.  I
+crossed a lake on the ice, and then came on a park surrounded by
+barren contorted hills, overtopped by snow mountains.  There, in
+some brushwood, we crossed a deepish stream on the ice, which
+gave way, and the fearful cold of the water stiffened my limbs
+for the rest of the ride.  All these streams become bigger as you
+draw nearer to their source, and shortly the trail disappeared
+in a broad rapid river, which we forded twice.  The trail was
+very difficult to recover.  It ascended ever in frost and snow,
+amidst scanty timber dwarfed by cold and twisted by storms,
+amidst solitudes such as one reads of in the High Alps; there
+were no sounds to be heard but the crackle of ice and snow, the
+pitiful howling of wolves, and the hoot of owls.  The sun to me
+had long set; the peaks which had blushed were pale and sad; the
+twilight deepened into green; but still "Excelsior!"  There were
+no happy homes with light of household fires; above, the spectral
+mountains lifted their cold summits.  As darkness came on I began
+to fear that I had confused the cabin to which I had been
+directed with the rocks.  To confess the truth, I was cold, for
+my boots and stockings had frozen on my feet, and I was hungry
+too, having eaten nothing but raisins for fourteen hours.  After
+riding thirty miles I saw a light a little way from the track,
+and found it to be the cabin of the daughter of the pleasant
+people with whom I had spent the previous night.  Her husband had
+gone to the Plains, yet she, with two infant children, was living
+there in perfect security.  Two pedlars, who were peddling their
+way down from the mines, came in for a night's shelter soon after
+I arrived--ill-looking fellows enough.  They admired Birdie in a
+suspicious fashion, and offered to "swop" their pack horse for
+her.  I went out the last thing at night and the first thing in
+the morning to see that "the powny" was safe, for they were very
+importunate on the subject of the "swop."  I had before been
+offered 150 dollars for her.  I was obliged to sleep with the
+mother and children, and the pedlars occupied a room within ours. 
+It was hot and airless. The cabin was papered with the
+Phrenological Journal, and in the morning I opened my eyes on the
+very best portrait of Dr. Candlish I ever saw, and grieved truly
+that I should never see that massive brow and fantastic face
+again.
+     
+Mrs. Link was an educated and very intelligent young woman.  The
+pedlars were Irish Yankees, and the way in which they "traded"
+was as amusing as "Sam Slick."  They not only wanted to "swop" my
+pony, but to "trade" my watch.  They trade their souls, I know. 
+They displayed their wares for an hour with much dexterous
+flattery and persuasiveness, but Mrs. Link was untemptable, and I
+was only tempted into buying a handkerchief to keep the sun off. 
+There was another dispute about my route.  It was the most
+critical day of my journey.  If a snowstorm came on, I might be
+detained in the mountains for many weeks; but if I got through
+the snow and reached the Denver wagon road, no detention would
+signify much.  The pedlars insisted that I could not get through,
+for the road was not broken.  Mrs. L. thought I could, and
+advised me to try, so I saddled Birdie and rode away.
+     
+More than half of the day was far from enjoyable.  The morning
+was magnificent, but the light too dazzling, the sun too fierce. 
+As soon as I got out I felt as if I should drop off the horse. 
+My large handkerchief kept the sun from my neck, but the fierce
+heat caused soul and sense, brain and eye, to reel.  I never saw
+or felt the like of it.  I was at a height of 12,000 feet, where,
+of course, the air was highly rarefied, and the snow was so pure
+and dazzling that I was obliged to keep my eyes shut as much as
+possible to avoid snow blindness.  The sky was a different and
+terribly fierce color; and when I caught a glimpse of the sun, he
+was white and unwinking like a lime-ball light, yet threw off
+wicked scintillations.  I suffered so from nausea, exhaustion,
+and pains from head to foot, that I felt as if I must lie down in
+the snow.  It may have been partly the early stage of soroche, or
+mountain sickness.  We plodded on for four hours, snow all round,
+and nothing else to be seen but an ocean of glistening peaks
+against that sky of infuriated blue.  How I found my way I shall
+never know, for the only marks on the snow were occasional
+footprints of a man, and I had no means of knowing whether they
+led in the direction I ought to take.  Earlier, before the snow
+became so deep, I passed the last great haunt of the magnificent
+mountain bison, but, unfortunately, saw nothing but horns and
+bones.  Two months ago Mr. Link succeeded in separating a calf
+from the herd, and has partially domesticated it.  It is a very
+ugly thing at seven months old, with a thick beard, and a short,
+thick, dark mane on its heavy shoulders.  It makes a loud grunt
+like a pig.  It can outrun their fastest horse, and it sometimes
+leaps over the high fence of the corral, and takes all the milk
+of five cows.
+     
+The snow grew seriously deep.  Birdie fell thirty times, I am
+sure.  She seemed unable to keep up at all, so I was obliged to
+get off and stumble along in her footmarks.  By that time my
+spirit for overcoming difficulties had somewhat returned, for I
+saw a lie of country which I knew must contain South Park, and we
+had got under cover of a hill which kept off the sun.  The trail
+had ceased; it was only one of those hunter's tracks which
+continually mislead one.  The getting through the snow was awful
+work.  I think we accomplished a mile in something over two
+hours.  The snow was two feet eight inches deep, and once we went
+down in a drift the surface of which was rippled like sea sand,
+Birdie up to her back, and I up to my shoulders!
+     
+At last we got through, and I beheld, with some sadness, the goal
+of my journey, "The Great Divide," the Snowy Range, and between
+me and it South Park, a rolling prairie seventy-five miles long
+and over 10,000 feet high, treeless, bounded by mountains, and so
+rich in sun-cured hay that one might fancy that all the herds
+of Colorado could find pasture there.  Its chief center is the
+rough mining town of Fairplay, but there are rumors of great
+mineral wealth in various quarters.  The region has been
+"rushed," and mining camps have risen at Alma and elsewhere, so
+lawless and brutal that vigilance committees are forming as a
+matter of necessity.  South Park is closed, or nearly so, by snow
+during an ordinary winter; and just now the great freight wagons
+are carrying up the last supplies of the season, and taking down
+women and other temporary inhabitants.  A great many people come
+up here in the summer.  The rarefied air produces great
+oppression on the lungs, accompanied with bleeding.  It is said
+that you can tell a new arrival by seeing him go about holding a
+blood-stained handkerchief to his mouth.  But I came down upon it
+from regions of ice and snow; and as the snow which had fallen on
+it had all disappeared by evaporation and drifting, it looked to
+me quite lowland and livable, though lonely and indescribably
+mournful, "a silent sea," suggestive of "the muffled oar."  I
+cantered across the narrow end of it, delighted to have got
+through the snow; and when I struck the "Denver stage road" I
+supposed that all the difficulties of mountain travel were at an
+end, but this has not turned out to be exactly the case.
+     
+A horseman shortly joined me and rode with me, got me a fresh
+horse, and accompanied me for ten miles.  He was a picturesque
+figure and rode a very good horse.  He wore a big slouch hat,
+from under which a number of fair curls hung nearly to his waist. 
+His beard was fair, his eyes blue, and his complexion ruddy.
+There was nothing sinister in his expression, and his manner was
+respectful and frank.  He was dressed in a hunter's buckskin suit
+ornamented with beads, and wore a pair of exceptionally big brass
+spurs.  His saddle was very highly ornamented.  What was unusual
+was the number of weapons he carried.  Besides a rifle laid
+across his saddle and a pair of pistols in the holsters, he
+carried two revolvers and a knife in his belt, and a carbine
+slung behind him.  I found him what is termed "good company."  He
+told me a great deal about the country and its wild animals, with
+some hunting adventures, and a great deal about Indians and their
+cruelty and treachery.  All this time, having crossed South Park,
+we were ascending the Continental Divide by what I think is
+termed the Breckenridge Pass, on a fairly good wagon road.  We
+stopped at a cabin, where the woman seemed to know my companion,
+and, in addition to bread and milk, produced some venison steaks. 
+We rode on again, and reached the crest of the Divide (see
+engraving), and saw snow-born streams starting within a quarter
+of a mile from each other, one for the Colorado and the Pacific,
+the other for the Platte and the Atlantic.  Here I wished the
+hunter good-bye, and reluctantly turned north-east.  It was not
+wise to go up the Divide at all, and it was necessary to do it in
+haste.  On my way down I spoke to the woman at whose cabin I had
+dined, and she said, "I am sure you found Comanche Bill a real
+gentleman"; and I then knew that, if she gave me correct
+information, my intelligent, courteous companion was one of the
+most notorious desperadoes of the Rocky Mountains, and the
+greatest Indian exterminator on the frontier--a man whose father
+and family fell in a massacre at Spirit Lake by the hands of
+Indians, who carried away his sister, then a child of eleven. 
+His life has since been mainly devoted to a search for this
+child, and to killing Indians wherever he can find them.
+     
+After riding twenty miles, which made the distance for that day
+fifty, I remounted Birdie to ride six miles farther, to a house
+which had been mentioned to me as a stopping place.  The road
+ascended to a height of 11,000 feet, and from thence I looked my
+last at the lonely, uplifted prairie sea.  "Denver stage road!"
+The worst, rudest, dismallest, darkest road I have yet traveled
+on, nothing but a winding ravine, the Platte canyon, pine crowded
+and pine darkened, walled in on both sides for six miles by
+pine-skirted mountains 12,000 feet high!  Along this abyss for
+fifty miles there are said to be only five houses, and were it
+not for miners going down, and freight wagons going up, the
+solitude would be awful.  As it was, I did not see a creature. 
+It was four when I left South Park, and between those mountain
+walls and under the pines it soon became quite dark, a darkness
+which could be felt.  The snow which had melted in the sun had
+re-frozen, and was one sheet of smooth ice.  Birdie slipped so
+alarmingly that I got off and walked, but then neither of us
+could keep our feet, and in the darkness she seemed so likely to
+fall upon me, that I took out of my pack the man's socks which
+had been given me at Perry's Park, and drew them on over her
+fore-feet--an expedient which for a time succeeded admirably, and
+which I commend to all travelers similarly circumstanced.  It was
+unutterably dark, and all these operations had to be performed by
+the sense of touch only.  I remounted, allowed her to take her
+own way, as I could not see even her ears, and though her hind
+legs slipped badly, we contrived to get along through the
+narrowest part of the canyon, with a tumbling river close to the
+road.  The pines were very dense, and sighed and creaked
+mournfully in the severe frost, and there were other EERIE noises
+not easy to explain.  At last, when the socks were nearly worn
+out, I saw the blaze of a camp-fire, with two hunters sitting by
+it, on the hill side, and at the mouth of a gulch something which
+looked like buildings.  We got across the river partly on ice and
+partly by fording, and I found that this was the place where, in
+spite of its somewhat dubious reputation, I had been told that I
+could put up.
+     
+A man came out in the sapient and good-natured stage of
+intoxication, and, the door being opened, I was confronted by a
+rough bar and a smoking, blazing kerosene lamp without a chimney. 
+This is the worst place I have put up at as to food, lodging, and
+general character; an old and very dirty log cabin, not chinked,
+with one dingy room used for cooking and feeding, in which a
+miner was lying very ill of fever; then a large roofless shed
+with a canvas side, which is to be an addition, and then the bar. 
+They accounted for the disorder by the building operations.  They
+asked me if I were the English lady written of in the Denver
+News, and for once I was glad that my fame had preceded me, as it
+seemed to secure me against being quietly "put out of the way." 
+A horrible meal was served--dirty, greasy, disgusting.  A
+celebrated hunter, Bob Craik, came in to supper with a young man
+in tow, whom, in spite of his rough hunter's or miner's dress, I
+at once recognized as an English gentleman.  It was their
+camp-fire which I had seen on the hill side.  This gentleman was
+lording it in true caricature fashion, with a Lord Dundreary
+drawl and a general execration of everything; while I sat in the
+chimney corner, speculating on the reason why many of the upper
+class of my countrymen--"High Toners," as they are called out
+here--make themselves so ludicrously absurd.  They neither know
+how to hold their tongues or to carry their personal pretensions. 
+An American is nationally assumptive, an Englishman personally
+so.  He took no notice of me till something passed which showed
+him I was English, when his manner at once changed into courtesy,
+and his drawl was shortened by a half.  He took pains to let me
+know that he was an officer in the Guards, of good family, on
+four months' leave, which he was spending in slaying buffalo and
+elk, and also that he had a profound contempt for everything
+American.  I cannot think why Englishmen put on these broad,
+mouthing tones, and give so many personal details.  They retired
+to their camp, and the landlord having passed into the sodden,
+sleepy stage of drunkenness, his wife asked if I should be afraid
+to sleep in the large canvas-sided, unceiled, doorless shed, as
+they could not move the sick miner.  So, I slept there on a
+shake-down, with the stars winking overhead through the roof, and
+the mercury showing 30 degrees of frost.
+     
+I never told you that I once gave an unwary promise that I would
+not travel alone in Colorado unarmed, and that in consequence I
+left Estes Park with a Sharp's revolver loaded with ball
+cartridge in my pocket, which has been the plague of my life. 
+Its bright ominous barrel peeped out in quiet Denver shops,
+children pulled it out to play with, or when my riding dress hung
+up with it in the pocket, pulled the whole from the peg to the
+floor; and I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which I
+could feel it right to make any use of it, or in which it could
+do me any possible good.  Last night, however, I took it out,
+cleaned and oiled it, and laid it under my pillow, resolving to
+keep awake all night. I slept as soon as I lay down, and never
+woke till the bright morning sun shone through the roof, making
+me ridicule my own fears and abjure pistols for ever.
+                                              I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter XII
+
+Deer Valley--Lynch law--Vigilance committees--The silver
+spruce--Taste and abstinence--The whisky fiend--Smartness--
+Turkey creek Canyon--The Indian problem--Public
+rascality--Friendly meetings--The way to the Golden City--A
+rising settlement--Clear Creek Canyon--Staging--Swearing--A
+mountain town.
+
+DEER VALLEY, November.
+
+To-night I am in a beautiful place like a Dutch farm--large,
+warm, bright, clean, with abundance of clean food, and a clean,
+cold little bedroom to myself.  But it is very hard to write, for
+two free-tongued, noisy Irish women, who keep a miners'
+boarding-house in South Park, and are going to winter quarters in
+a freight wagon, are telling the most fearful stories of
+violence, vigilance committees, Lynch law, and "stringing," that
+I ever heard.  It turns one's blood cold only to think that where
+I travel in perfect security, only a short time ago men were
+being shot like skunks.  At the mining towns up above this nobody
+is thought anything of who has not killed a man--i.e. in a
+certain set.  These women had a boarder, only fifteen, who
+thought he could not be anything till he had shot somebody, and
+they gave an absurd account of the lad dodging about with a
+revolver, and not getting up courage enough to insult any one,
+till at last he hid himself in the stable and shot the first
+Chinaman who entered.  Things up there are just in that initial
+state which desperadoes love.  A man accidentally shoves another
+in a saloon, or says a rough word at meals, and the challenge,
+"first finger on the trigger," warrants either in shooting the
+other at any subsequent time without the formality of a duel. 
+Nearly all the shooting affrays arise from the most trivial
+causes in saloons and bar-rooms.  The deeper quarrels, arising
+from jealousy or revenge, are few, and are usually about some
+woman not worth fighting for.  At Alma and Fairplay vigilance
+committees have been lately formed, and when men act outrageously
+and make themselves generally obnoxious they receive a letter
+with a drawing of a tree, a man hanging from it, and a coffin
+below, on which is written "Forewarned."  They "git" in a few
+hours.
+     
+When I said I spent last night at Hall's Gulch there was quite a
+chorus of exclamations.  My host there, they all said, would be
+"strung" before long.  Did I know that a man was "strung" there
+yesterday?  Had I not seen him hanging?  He was on the big tree
+by the house, they said.  Certainly, had I known what a ghastly
+burden that tree bore, I would have encountered the ice and gloom
+of the gulch rather than have slept there.  They then told me a
+horrid tale of crime and violence.  This man had even shocked the
+morals of the Alma crowd, and had a notice served on him by the
+vigilants, which had the desired effect, and he migrated to
+Hall's Gulch.  As the tale runs, the Hall's Gulch miners were
+resolved either not to have a groggery or to limit the number of
+such places, and when this ruffian set one up he was
+"forewarned."  It seems, however, to have been merely a pretext
+for getting rid of him, for it was hardly a crime of which even
+Lynch law could take cognizance.  He was overpowered by numbers,
+and, with circumstances of great horror, was tried and strung on
+that tree within an hour.[19] 
+
+[19] Public opinion approved this execution, regarding it
+as a fitting retribution for a series of crimes.
+
+    
+I left the place this morning at ten, and have had a very
+pleasant day, for the hills shut out the hot sun.  I only rode
+twenty-two miles, for the difficulty of riding on ice was great,
+and there is no blacksmith within thirty-five miles of Hall's
+Gulch.  I met two freighters just after I left, who gave me the
+unwelcome news that there were thirty-miles of ice between that
+and Denver.  "You'll have a tough trip," they said.  The road
+runs up and down hill, walled in along with a rushing river by
+high mountains.  The scenery is very grand, but I hate being shut
+into these deep gorges, and always expect to see some startling
+object moving among the trees.  I met no one the whole day after
+passing the teams except two men with a "pack-jack," Birdie hates
+jacks, and rears and shies as soon as she sees one.  It was a bad
+road, one shelving sheet of ice, and awfully lonely, and between
+the peril of the mare breaking her leg on the ice and that of
+being crushed by windfalls of timber, I had to look out all day. 
+Towards sunset I came to a cabin where they "keep travelers," but
+the woman looked so vinegar faced that I preferred to ride four
+miles farther, up a beautiful road winding along a sunny gulch
+filled with silver spruce, bluer and more silvery than any I have
+yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which the view in all
+the ecstasy of sunset color was perfectly glorious.  It was
+enjoyment also in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which I
+had been immured all day.  There is a train of twelve freight
+wagons here, each wagon with six horses, but the teamsters carry
+their own camping blankets and sleep either in their wagons or
+on the floor, so the house is not crowded.
+     
+It is a pleasant two-story log house, not only chinked but lined
+with planed timber.  Each room has a great open chimney with logs
+burning in it; there are pretty engravings on the walls, and
+baskets full of creepers hanging from the ceiling.  This is the
+first settler's house I have been in in which the ornamental has
+had any place.  There is a door to each room, the oak chairs
+are bright with rubbing, and the floor, though unplaned, is so
+clean that one might eat off it.  The table is clean and
+abundant, and the mother and daughter, though they do all the
+work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh
+heartily.  The ranchman neither allows drink to be brought into
+the house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he
+"keeps travelers."  The freighters come in to supper quite well
+washed, and though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine
+o'clock there was not a sound.  This freighting business is most
+profitable.  I think that the charge is three cents per pound
+from Denver to South Park, and there much of the freight is
+transferred to "pack-jacks" and carried up to the mines.  A
+railroad, however, is contemplated.  I breakfasted with the
+family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting down
+to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh table-cloth
+and hot food.  The buckets are all polished oak, with polished
+brass bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make
+them; and, more wonderful still, the girls black their boots. 
+Blacking usually is an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept
+in houses.  My boots have only been blacked once during the last
+two months.
+
+
+DENVER, November 9.
+
+I could not make out whether the superiority of the Deer Valley
+settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster I met in
+the evening said it "made him more of a man to spend a night in
+such a house."  In Colorado whisky is significant of all evil and
+violence and is the cause of most of the shooting affrays in the
+mining camps.  There are few moderate drinkers; it is seldom
+taken except to excess.  The great local question in the
+Territory, and just now the great electoral issue, is drink or no
+drink, and some of the papers are openly advocating a prohibitive
+liquor law.  Some of the districts, such as Greeley, in which
+liquor is prohibited, are without crime, and in several of the
+stock-raising and agricultural regions through which I have
+traveled where it is practically excluded the doors are never
+locked, and the miners leave their silver bricks in their wagons
+unprotected at night.  People say that on coming from the Eastern
+States they hardly realize at first the security in which they
+live.  There is no danger and no fear.  But the truth of the
+proverbial saying, "There is no God west of the Missouri" is
+everywhere manifest.  The "almighty dollar" is the true divinity,
+and its worship is universal.  "Smartness" is the quality thought
+most of.  The boy who "gets on" by cheating at his lessons is
+praised for being a "smart boy," and his satisfied parents
+foretell that he will make a "smart man."  A man who overreaches
+his neighbor, but who does it so cleverly that the law cannot
+take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a "smart man," and
+stories of this species of smartness are told admiringly round
+every stove.  Smartness is but the initial stage of swindling,
+and the clever swindler who evades or defines the weak and often
+corruptly administered laws of the States excites unmeasured
+admiration among the masses.[20]
+
+[20] May, 1878.--I am copying this letter in the city of San
+Francisco, and regretfully add a strong emphasis to what I have
+written above.  The best and most thoughtful among Americans
+would endorse these remarks with shame and pain.--I. L. B.
+
+     
+I left Deer Valley at ten the next morning on a glorious day,
+with rich atmospheric coloring, had to spend three hours sitting
+on a barrel in a forge after I had ridden twelve miles, waiting
+while twenty-four oxen were shod, and then rode on twenty-three
+miles through streams and canyons of great beauty till I reached
+a grocery store, where I had to share a room with a large family
+and three teamsters; and being almost suffocated by the curtain
+partition, got up at four, before any one was stirring, saddled
+Birdie, and rode away in the darkness, leaving my money on the
+table!  It was a short eighteen miles' ride to Denver down the
+Turkey Creek Canyon, which contains some magnificent scenery, and
+then the road ascends and hangs on the ledge of a precipice 600
+feet in depth, such a narrow road that on meeting a wagon I had
+to dismount for fear of hurting my feet with the wheels.  From
+thence there was a wonderful view through the rolling Foot Hills
+and over the gray-brown plains to Denver.  Not a tree or shrub
+was to be seen, everything was rioting in summer heat and
+drought, while behind lay the last grand canyon of the mountains,
+dark with pines and cool with snow.  I left the track and took a
+short cut over the prairie to Denver, passing through an
+encampment of the Ute Indians about 500 strong, a disorderly and
+dirty huddle of lodges, ponies, men, squaws, children, skins,
+bones, and raw meat.
+
+The Americans will never solve the Indian problem till the Indian
+is extinct.  They have treated them after a fashion which has
+intensified their treachery and "devilry" as enemies, and as
+friends reduces them to a degraded pauperism, devoid of the very
+first elements of civilization.  The only difference between the
+savage and the civilized Indian is that the latter carries
+firearms and gets drunk on whisky.  The Indian Agency has been a
+sink of fraud and corruption; it is said that barely thirty per
+cent of the allowance ever reaches those for whom it is voted;
+and the complaints of shoddy blankets, damaged flour, and
+worthless firearms are universal.  "To get rid of the Injuns" is
+the phrase used everywhere.  Even their "reservations" do not
+escape seizure practically; for if gold "breaks out" on them they
+are "rushed," and their possessors are either compelled to accept
+land farther west or are shot off and driven off.  One of the
+surest agents in their destruction is vitriolized whisky.  An
+attempt has recently been made to cleanse the Augean stable of
+the Indian Department, but it has met with signal failure, the
+usual result in America of every effort to purify the official
+atmosphere.  Americans specially love superlatives.  The phrases
+"biggest in the world," "finest in the world," are on all lips. 
+Unless President Hayes is a strong man they will soon come to
+boast that their government is composed of the "biggest
+scoundrels" in the world.
+     
+As I rode into Denver and away from the mountains the view became
+glorious, as range above range crowned with snow came into sight. 
+I was sure that three glistening peaks seventy miles north were
+the peerless shapeliness of Long's Peak, the king of the Rocky
+Mountains, and the "mountain fever" returned so severely that I
+grudged every hour spent on the dry, hot plains.  The Range
+looked lovelier and sublimer than when I first saw it from
+Greeley, all spiritualized in the wonderful atmosphere.  I went
+direct to Evans's house, where I found a hearty welcome, as they
+had been anxious about my safety, and Evans almost at once
+arrived from Estes Park with three elk, one grizzly, and one
+bighorn in his wagon.  Regarding a place and life one likes (in
+spite of all lessons) one is sure to think, "To-morrow shall be
+as this day, and much more abundant"; and all through my tour I
+had thought of returning to Estes Park and finding everything
+just as it was.  Evans brought the unwelcome news that the goodly
+fellowship was broken up.  The Dewys and Mr. Waller were in
+Denver, and the house was dismantled, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards alone
+remaining, who were, however, expecting me back.  Saturday,
+though like a blazing summer day, was wonderful in its beauty,
+and after sunset the afterglow was richer and redder than I have
+ever seen it, but the heavy crimson betokened severe heat, which
+came on yesterday, and was hardly bearable.
+     
+I attended service twice at the Episcopal church, where the
+service was beautifully read and sung; but in a city in which men
+preponderate the congregation was mainly composed of women, who
+fluttered their fans in a truly distracting way.  Except for the
+church-going there were few perceptible signs of Sunday in
+Denver, which was full of rowdies from the mountain mining camps. 
+You can hardly imagine the delight of joining in those grand old
+prayers after so long a deprivation.  The "Te Deum" sounded
+heavenly in its magnificence; but the heat was so tremendous that
+it was hard to "warstle" through the day.  They say that they
+have similar outbreaks of solar fury all through the winter.
+
+
+GOLDEN CITY, November 13.
+    
+Pleasant as Denver was, with the Dewys and so many kind friends
+there, it was too much of the "wearying world" either for my
+health or taste, and I left for my sixteen miles' ride to this
+place at four on Monday afternoon with the sun still hot.  
+Passing by a bare, desolate-looking cemetery, I asked a
+sad-looking woman who was leaning on the gate if she could direct
+me to Golden City.  I repeated the question twice before I got an
+answer, and then, though easily to be accounted for, it was wide
+of the mark.  In most doleful tones she said, "Oh, go to the
+minister; I might tell you, may be, but it's too great a
+responsibility; go to the ministers, they can tell you!"  And she
+returned to her tears for some one whose spirit she was doubtless
+thinking of as in the Golden City of our hopes.  That sixteen
+miles seemed like one mile, after sunset, in the rapturous
+freshness of the Colorado air, and Birdie, after her two days'
+rest and with a lightened load, galloped across the prairie as if
+she enjoyed it.  I did not reach this gorge till late, and it was
+an hour after dark before I groped my way into this dark,
+unlighted mining town, where, however, we were most fortunate
+both as to stable and accommodation for myself.
+
+
+BOULDER, November 16.
+
+I fear you will grow tired of the details of these journal
+letters.  To a person sitting quietly at home, Rocky Mountain
+traveling, like Rocky Mountain scenery, must seem very
+monotonous; but not so to me, to whom the pure, dry mountain air
+is the elixir of life.  At Golden City I parted for a time from
+my faithful pony, as Clear Creek Canyon, which leads from it to
+Idaho, is entirely monopolized by a narrow-gauge railroad, and is
+inaccessible for horses or mules.  To be without a horse in these
+mountains is to be reduced to complete helplessness.  My great
+wish was to see Green Lake, situated near the timber line above
+Georgetown (said to be the highest town in the United States), at
+a height of 9,000 feet.  A single day took me from the heat of
+summer into the intense cold of winter.
+     
+Golden City by daylight showed its meanness and belied its name. 
+It is ungraded, with here and there a piece of wooden sidewalk,
+supported on posts, up to which you ascend by planks.  Brick,
+pine, and log houses are huddled together, every other house is a
+saloon, and hardly a woman is to be seen.  My landlady apologized
+for the very exquisite little bedroom which she gave me by saying
+"it was not quite as she would like it, but she had never had a
+lady in her house before."  The young "lady" who waited at
+breakfast said, "I've been thinking about you, and I'm certain
+sure you're an authoress."  The day, as usual, was glorious. 
+Think of November half through and scarcely even a cloud in the
+sky, except the vermilion cloudlets which accompany the sun at
+his rising and setting!  They say that winter never "sets in"
+there in the Foot Hills, but that there are spells of cold,
+alternating with bright, hot weather, and that the snow never
+lies on the ground so as to interfere with the feed of cattle. 
+Golden City rang with oaths and curses, especially at the depot. 
+Americans are given over to the most atrocious swearing, and the
+blasphemous use of our Savior's name is peculiarly revolting.
+     
+Golden City stands at the mouth of Toughcuss, otherwise Clear
+Creek Canyon, which many people think the grandest scenery in the
+mountains, as it twists and turns marvellously, and its
+stupendous sides are nearly perpendicular, while farther progress
+is to all appearance continually blocked by great masses of rock
+and piles of snow-covered mountains.  Unfortunately, its sides
+have been almost entirely denuded of timber, mining operations
+consuming any quantity of it.  The narrow-gauge, steel-grade
+railroad, which runs up the canyon for the convenience of the
+rich mining districts of Georgetown, Black Hawk, and Central
+City, is a curiosity of engineering.  The track has partly been
+blasted out of the sides of the canyon, and has partly been
+"built" by making a bed of stones in the creek itself, and laying
+the track across them.  I have never seen such churlishness and
+incivility as in the officials of that railroad and the state
+lines which connect with it, or met with such preposterous
+charges.  They have handsome little cars on the route, but though
+the passengers paid full fare, they put us into a baggage car
+because the season was over, and in order to see anything I was
+obliged to sit on the floor at the door.  The singular grandeur
+cannot be described.  It is a mere gash cut by the torrent,
+twisted, walled, chasmed, weather stained with the most brilliant
+coloring, generally dark with shadow, but its utter desolation
+occasionally revealed by a beam of intense sunshine.  A few
+stunted pines and cedars, spared because of their inaccessiblity,
+hung here and there out of the rifts.  Sometimes the walls of the
+abyss seemed to meet overhead, and then widening out, the rocks
+assumed fantastic forms, all grandeur, sublimity, and almost
+terror.  After two hours of this, the track came to an end, and
+the canyon widened sufficiently for a road, all stones, holes,
+and sidings.  There a great "Concord coach" waited for us,
+intended for twenty passengers, and a mountain of luggage in
+addition, and the four passengers without any luggage sat on the
+seat behind the driver, so that the huge thing bounced and swung
+upon the straps on which it was hung so as to recall the worst
+horrors of New Zealand staging.  The driver never spoke without
+an oath, and though two ladies were passengers, cursed his
+splendid horses the whole time.  Formerly, even the most profane
+men intermitted their profanity in the presence of women, but
+they "have changed all that."  Every one I saw up there seemed in
+a bad temper.  I suspect that all their "smart tricks" in mining
+shares had gone wrong.
+     
+The road pursued the canyon to Idaho Springs, a fashionable
+mountain resort in the summer, but deserted now, where we took a
+superb team of six horses, with which we attained a height of
+10,000 feet, and then a descent of 1,000 took us into Georgetown,
+crowded into as remarkable a gorge as was ever selected for the
+site of a town, the canyon beyond APPARENTLY terminating in
+precipitous and inaccessible mountains, sprinkled with pines up
+to the timber line, and thinly covered with snow.  The area on
+which it is possible to build is so circumcised and steep, and
+the unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and there,
+and the water rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded
+me slightly of a Swiss town.  All the smaller houses are shored
+up with young pines on one side, to prevent them from being blown
+away by the fierce gusts which sweep the canyon.  It is the only
+town I have seen in America to which the epithet picturesque
+could be applied.  But truly, seated in that deep hollow in the
+cold and darkness, it is in a terrible situation, with the alpine
+heights towering round it.  I arrived at three, but its sun had
+set, and it lay in deep shadow.  In fact, twilight seemed coming
+on, and as I had been unable to get my circular notes cashed at
+Denver, I had no money to stay over the next day, and much feared
+that I should lose Green Lake, the goal of my journey.  We drove
+through the narrow, piled-up, irregular street, crowded with
+miners standing in groups, or drinking and gaming under the
+verandas, to a good hotel declivitously situated, where I at once
+inquired if I could get to Green Lake.  The landlord said he
+thought not; the snow was very deep, and no one had been up for
+five weeks, but for my satisfaction he would send to a stable and
+inquire.  The amusing answer came back, "If it's the English lady
+traveling in the mountains, she can have a horse, but not any one
+else."
+
+
+Letter XIII
+
+The blight of mining--Green Lake--Golden
+City--Benighted--Vertigo--Boulder Canyon--Financial straits--A
+hard ride--The last cent--A bachelor's home--"Mountain Jim"--A
+surprise--A night arrival--Making the best of it--Scanty fare.
+
+BOULDER, November.
+
+The answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was
+given to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in
+and asked my name and if I were the lady who had crossed from
+Link's to South Park by Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast.  In
+five minutes the horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned
+side-saddle, and I started at once for the upper regions.  It was
+an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension.  The evening
+shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2,000 feet to
+climb, or give up Green Lake.  I shall forget many things, but
+never the awfulness and hugeness of the scenery.  I went up a
+steep track by Clear Creek, then a succession of frozen
+waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen
+sides looked 5,000 feet high.  That is the region of enormous
+mineral wealth in silver.  There are the "Terrible" and other
+mines whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in
+the Times, sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to
+25 discount.
+     
+These mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their
+stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have
+been established near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub,
+and smoke by night and day; but I had turned altogether aside
+from them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was
+grubbing for himself, and confiding to none his finds or
+disappointments.  Agriculture restores and beautifies, mining
+destroys and devastates, turning the earth inside out, making it
+hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually blights
+man's heart and soul.  There was mining everywhere along that
+grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its
+digging, burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the
+seemingly inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log
+supported, in which solitary and patient men were selling their
+lives for treasure.  Down by the stream, all among the icicles,
+men were sluicing and washing, and everywhere along the heights
+were the scars of hardly-passable trails, too steep even for
+pack-jacks, leading to the holes, and down which the miner packs
+the ore on his back.  Many a heart has been broken for the few
+finds which have been made along those hill sides.  All the
+ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of desolation,
+where nature had made everything grand and fair.  But even from
+all this I turned.  The last miner I saw gave me explicit
+directions, and I left the track and struck upwards into the icy
+solitudes--sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep,
+pure and powdery, then a very difficult ascent through a pine
+forest, where it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in
+deep snowdrifts.  But the goal was reached, and none too soon.
+     
+At a height of nearly 12,000 feet I halted on a steep declivity,
+and below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, with
+mountains red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was
+Green Lake, looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two
+feet thick.  From the gloom and chill below I had come up into
+the pure air and sunset light, and the glory of the unprofaned
+works of God.  It brought to my mind the verse, "The darkness is
+past, and the true light now shineth"; and, as if in commentary
+upon it, were the hundreds and thousands of men delving in dark
+holes in the gloom of the twilight below.
+
+          O earth, so full of dreary noises!
+          O men, with wailing in your voices,
+          O delved gold, the wailer's heap,
+          God strikes a silence through you all,
+          He giveth His beloved sleep.
+
+     
+It was something to reach that height and see the far off glory
+of the sunset, and by it to be reminded that neither God nor His
+sun had yet deserted the world. But the sun was fast going down,
+and even as I gazed upon the wonderful vision the glory vanished,
+and the peaks became sad and grey.  It was strange to be the only
+human being at that glacial altitude, and to descend again
+through a foot of untrodden snow and over sloping sheets of ice
+into the darkness, and to see the hill sides like a firmament of
+stars, each showing the place where a solitary man in his hole
+was delving for silver.  The view, as long as I could see it, was
+quite awful.  It looked as if one could not reach Georgetown
+without tumbling down a precipice.  Precipices there were in
+plenty along the road, skirted with ice to their verge.  It was
+the only ride which required nerve that I have taken in Colorado,
+and it was long after dark when I returned from my exploit.
+     
+I left Georgetown at eight the next morning on the Idaho stage,
+in glorious cold.  In this dry air it is quite warm if there are
+only a few degrees of frost.  The sun does not rise in Georgetown
+till eleven now; I doubt if it rises there at all in the winter! 
+After four hours' fearful bouncing, the baggage car again
+received us, but this time the conductor, remarking that he
+supposed I was just traveling to see the country, gave me his
+chair and put it on the platform, so that I had an excellent view
+of that truly sublime canyon.  For economy I dined in a
+restaurant in Golden City, and at three remounted my trusty
+Birdie, intending to arrive here that night.  The adventure I met
+with is almost too silly to tell.
+     
+When I left Golden City it was a brilliant summer afternoon, and
+not too hot.  They could not give any directions at the stable,
+and told me to go out on the Denver track till I met some one who
+could direct me, which started me off wrong from the first. 
+After riding about two miles I met a man who told me I was all
+wrong, and directed me across the prairie till I met another, who
+gave me so many directions that I forgot them, and was
+irretrievably lost.  The afterglow, seen to perfection on the
+open plain, was wonderful.  Just as it grew dark I rode after a
+teamster who said I was then four miles farther from Boulder than
+when I left Golden, and directed me to a house seven miles off. 
+I suppose he thought I should know, for he told me to cross the
+prairie till I came to a place where three tracks are seen, and
+there to take the best-traveled one, steering all the time by the
+north star.  His directions did bring me to tracks, but it was
+then so dark that I could see nothing, and soon became so dark
+that I could not even see Birdie's ears, and was lost and
+benighted.  I rode on, hour after hour, in the darkness and
+solitude, the prairie all round and a firmament of frosty stars
+overhead.  The prairie wolf howled now and then, and occasionally
+the lowing of cattle gave me hope of human proximity.  But there
+was nothing but the lone wild plain.  You can hardly imagine the
+longing to see a light, to hear a voice, the intensely eerie
+feeling of being alone in that vast solitude.  It was freezing
+very sharply and was very cold, and I was making up my mind to
+steer all night for the pole-star, much fearing that I should be
+brought up by one of the affluents of the Platte, or that Birdie
+would tire, when I heard the undertoned bellowing of a bull,
+which, from the snorting rooting up of earth, seemed to be
+disputing the right of way, and the pony was afraid to pass. 
+While she was scuffling about, I heard a dog bark and a man
+swear; then I saw a light, and in another minute found myself at
+a large house, where I knew the people, only eleven miles from
+Denver!  It was nearly midnight, and light, warmth, and a good
+bed were truly welcome.
+     
+You can form no idea of what the glory on the Plains is just
+before sunrise.  Like the afterglow, for a great height above the
+horizon there is a shaded band of the most intense and glowing
+orange, while the mountains which reflect the yet unrisen sun
+have the purple light of amethysts.  I left early, but soon lost
+the track and was lost; but knowing that a sublime gash in the
+mountains was Bear Canyon, quite near Boulder, I struck across
+the prairie for it, and then found the Boulder track.  "The
+best-laid schemes of men and mice gang aft agley," and my
+exploits came to an untimely end to-day.  On arriving here,
+instead of going into the mountains, I was obliged to go to bed
+in consequence of vertigo, headache, and faintness, produced by
+the intense heat of the sun.  In all that weary land there was no
+"shadow of a great rock" under which to rest.  The gravelly,
+baked soil reflected the fiery sun, and it was nearly maddening
+to look up at the cool blue of the mountains, with their
+stretches of pines and their deep indigo shadows.  Boulder is a
+hideous collection of frame
+houses on the burning plain, but it aspires to be a "city" in
+virtue of being a "distributing point" for the settlements up the
+Boulder Canyon, and of the discovery of a coal seam.
+
+
+LONGMOUNT, November.
+
+I got up very early this morning, and on a hired horse went nine
+miles up the Boulder Canyon, which is much extolled, but I was
+greatly disappointed with everything except its superb wagon
+road, and much disgusted with the laziness of the horse.  A ride
+of fifteen miles across the prairie brought me here early in the
+afternoon, but of the budget of letters which I expected there is
+not one.  Birdie looks in such capital condition that my host
+here can hardly believe that she has traveled over 500 miles.  I
+am feeling "the pinch of poverty" rather severely.  When I have
+paid my bill here I shall have exactly twenty-six cents left. 
+Evans was quite unable to pay the hundred dollars which he owed
+me, and, to save themselves, the Denver banks, though they remain
+open, have suspended payment, and would not
+cash my circular notes.  The financial straits are very serious,
+and the unreasoning panic which has set in makes them worse.  The
+present state of matters is--nobody has any money, so nothing is
+worth anything.  The result to me is that, nolens volens, I must
+go up to  Estes Park, where I can live without ready money, and
+remain there till things change for the better.  It does not seem
+a very hard fate!  Long's Peak rises in purple gloom, and I long
+for the cool air and unfettered life of the solitary blue hollow
+at its base.
+
+
+ESTES PARK, November 20.
+     
+Would that three notes of admiration were all I need give to my
+grand, solitary, uplifted, sublime, remote, beast-haunted lair,
+which seems more indescribable than ever; but you will wish to
+know how I have sped, and I wish you to know my present singular
+circumstances.  I left Longmount at eight on Saturday morning,
+rather heavily loaded, for in addition to my own luggage I was
+asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy with newspapers. 
+Edwards, with his wife and family, were still believed to be
+here.  A heavy snow-storm was expected, and all the sky--that
+vast dome which spans the Plains--was overcast; but over the
+mountains it was a deep, still, sad blue, into which snowy peaks
+rose sunlighted.  It was a lonely, mournful-looking morning, but
+when I reached the beautiful canyon of the St. Vrain, the sad
+blue became brilliant, and the sun warm and scintillating.  Ah,
+how beautiful and incomparable the ride up here is, infinitely
+more beautiful than the much-vaunted parts I have seen elsewhere.
+
+There is, first, this beautiful hill-girdled valley of fair
+savannas, through which the bright St. Vrain curves in and out
+amidst a tangle of cotton-wood and withered clematis and Virginia
+creeper, which two months ago made the valley gay with their
+scarlet and gold.  Then the canyon, with its
+fantastically-stained walls; then the long ascent through
+sweeping foot hills to the gates of rock at a height of 9,000
+feet; then the wildest and most wonderful scenery for twenty
+miles, in which you cross thirteen ranges from 9,000 to 11,000
+feet high, pass through countless canyons and gulches, cross
+thirteen dark fords, and finally descend, through M'Ginn's Gulch,
+upon this, the gem of the Rocky Mountains.  It was a weird ride. 
+I got on very slowly.  The road is a hard one for any horse,
+specially for a heavily-loaded one, and at the end of several
+weeks of severe travel.  When I had ridden fifteen miles I
+stopped at the ranch where people usually get food, but it was
+empty, and the next was also deserted.  So I was compelled to go
+to the last house, where two young men are "baching."
+     
+There I had to decide between getting a meal for myself or a feed
+for the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty,
+trusted me "till next time."  His house, for order and neatness,
+and a sort of sprightliness of cleanliness--the comfort of
+cleanliness without its severity--is a pattern to all women,
+while the clear eyes and manly self-respect which the habit of
+total abstinence gives in this country are a pattern to all men.
+He cooked me a splendid dinner, with good tea.  After dinner I
+opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an accumulation of
+letters from you; but I sat much too long there, forgetting that
+I had twenty miles to ride, which could hardly be done in less
+than six hours.  It was then brilliant.  I had not realized the
+magnificence of that ride when I took it before, but the pony was
+tired, and I could not hurry her, and the distance seemed
+interminable, as after every range I crossed another range.  Then
+came a region of deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, only a few
+feet wide, and many fords, and from their cold depths I saw the
+last sunlight fade from the brows of precipices 4,000 feet high. 
+It was eerie, as darkness came on, to wind in and out in the
+pine-shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the
+bottom of these tremendous chasms.  Wolves howled in all
+directions.  This is said to denote the approach of a storm. 
+During this twenty-mile ride I met a hunter with an elk packed on
+his horse, and he told me not only that the Edwardses were at the
+cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain for two
+weeks longer, no matter how uncongenial.  The ride did seem
+endless after darkness came on.  Finally the last huge range was
+conquered, the last deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which
+craved for human companionship, I rode up to "Mountain Jim's"
+den, but no light shone through the chinks, and all was silent. 
+So I rode tediously down M'Ginn's Gulch, which was full of
+crackings and other strange mountain noises, and was pitch dark,
+though the stars were bright overhead.
+     
+Soon I heard the welcome sound of a barking dog.  I supposed it
+to denote strange hunters, but calling "Ring" at a venture, the
+noble dog's large paws and grand head were in a moment on my
+saddle, and he greeted me with all those inarticulate but
+perfectly comprehensible noises with which dogs welcome their
+human friends.  Of the two men on horses who accompanied him, one
+was his master, as I knew by the musical voice and grace of
+manner, but it was too dark to see anyone, though he struck a
+light to show me the valuable furs with which one of the horses
+was loaded.  The desperado was heartily glad to see me, and
+sending the man and fur-laden horse on to his cabin, he turned
+with me to Evans's; and as the cold was very severe, and Birdie
+was very tired, we dismounted and walked the remaining three
+miles.  All my visions of a comfortable reception and good meal
+after my long ride vanished with his first words.  The Edwardses
+had left for the winter on the previous morning, but had not
+passed through Longmount; the cabin was dismantled, the stores
+were low, and two young men, Mr. Kavan, a miner, and Mr. Buchan,
+whom I was slightly acquainted with before, were "baching" there
+to look after the stock until Evans, who was daily expected,
+returned.  The other settler and his wife had left the park, so
+there was not a woman within twenty-five miles.  A fierce wind
+had arisen, and the cold was awful, which seemed to make matters
+darker.  I did not care in the least about myself.  I could rough
+it, and enjoy doing so, but I was very sorry for the young men,
+who, I knew, would be much embarrassed by the sudden appearance
+of a lady for an indefinite time.  But the difficulty had to be
+faced, and I walked in and took them by surprise as they were
+sitting smoking by the fire in the living room, which was
+dismantled, unswept, and wretched looking.
+     
+The young men did not show any annoyance, but exerted themselves
+to prepare a meal, and courteously made Jim share it.  After he
+had gone, I boldly confessed my impecunious circumstances, and
+told them that I must stay there till things changed, that I
+hoped not to inconvenience them in any way, and that by dividing
+the work among us they would be free to be out hunting.  So we
+agreed to make the best of it.  (Our arrangements, which we
+supposed would last only two or three days, extended over nearly
+a month.  Nothing could exceed the courtesy and good feeling
+which these young men showed.  It was a very pleasant time on the
+whole and when we separated they told me that though they were
+much "taken aback" at first, they felt at last that we could get
+on in the same way for a year, in which I cordially agreed.)
+Sundry practical difficulties had to be faced and overcome.  
+There was one of the common spring mattresses of the country in
+the little room which opened from the living room, but nothing
+upon it.  This was remedied by making a large bag and filling it
+with hay.  Then there were neither sheets, towels, nor
+table-clothes.  This was irremediable, and I never missed the
+first or last.  Candles were another loss, and we had only one
+paraffin lamp.  I slept all night in spite of a gale which blew
+all Sunday and into Monday afternoon, threatening to lift the
+cabin from the ground, and actually removing part of the roof
+from the little room between the kitchen and living room, in
+which we used to dine.  Sunday was brilliant, but nearly a
+hurricane, and I dared not stir outside the cabin.  The parlor
+was two inches deep in the mud from the roof.  We nominally
+divide the cooking.  Mr. Kavan makes the best bread I ever ate;
+they bring in wood and water, and wash the supper things, and I
+"do" my room and the parlor, wash the breakfast things, and
+number of etceteras.  My room is easily "done," but the parlor
+is a never-ending business.  I have swept shovelfuls of mud out
+of it three times to-day.  There is nothing to dust it with but a
+buffalo's tail, and every now and then a gust descends the open
+chimney and drives the wood ashes all over the room.  However, I
+have found an old shawl which answers for a table-cloth, and have
+made our "parlor" look a little more habitable.  Jim came in
+yesterday in a silent mood, and sat looking vacantly into the
+fire.  The young men said that this mood was the usual precursor
+of an "ugly fit."
+     
+Food is a great difficulty.  Of thirty milch cows only one is
+left, and she does not give milk enough for us to drink.  The
+only meat is some pickled pork, very salt and hard, which I
+cannot eat, and the hens lay less than one egg a day.  Yesterday
+morning I made some rolls, and made the last bread into a
+bread-and-butter pudding, which we all enjoyed.  To-day I found
+part of a leg of beef hanging in the wagon shed, and we were
+elated with the prospect of fresh meat, but on cutting into it we
+found it green and uneatable.  Had it not been for some tea which
+was bestowed upon me at the inn at Longmount we should have had
+none.  In this superb air and physically active life I can eat
+everything but pickled pork.  We breakfast about nine, dine at
+two, and have supper at seven, but our MENU never varies.
+
+To-day I have been all alone in the park, as the men left to hunt
+elk after breakfast, after bringing in wood and water.  The sky
+is brilliant and the light intense, or else the solitude would be
+oppressive.  I keep two horses in the corral so as to be able to
+explore, but except Birdie, who is turned out, none of the
+animals are worth much now from want of shoes, and tender feet.
+
+
+Letter XIV
+
+A dismal ride--A desperado's tale--"Lost! Lost! Lost!"--Winter
+glories--Solitude--Hard times--Intense cold--A pack of
+wolves--The beaver dams--Ghastly scenes--Venison steaks--Our
+evenings.
+
+ESTES PARK.
+
+I must attempt to put down the trifling events of each day just
+as they occur.  The second time that I was left alone Mr. Nugent
+came in looking very black, and asked me to ride with him to see
+the beaver dams on the Black Canyon.  No more whistling or
+singing, or talking to his beautiful mare, or sparkling repartee.
+
+His mood was as dark as the sky overhead, which was black with
+an impending snowstorm.  He was quite silent, struck his horse
+often, started off on a furious gallop, and then throwing his
+mare on her haunches close to me, said, "You're the first man or
+woman who's treated me like a human being for many a year."  So
+he said in this dark mood, but Mr. and Mrs. Dewy, who took a very
+deep interest in his welfare, always treated him as a rational,
+intelligent gentleman, and in his better moments he spoke of them
+with the warmest appreciation.  "If you want to know," he
+continued, "how nearly a man can become a devil, I'll tell you
+now."  There was no choice, and we rode up the canyon, and I
+listened to one of the darkest tales of ruin I have ever heard or
+read.
+     
+Its early features were very simple.  His father was a British
+officer quartered at Montreal, of a good old Irish family.  From
+his account he was an ungovernable boy, imperfectly educated, and
+tyrannizing over a loving but weak mother.  When seventeen years
+old he saw a young girl at church whose appearance he described
+as being of angelic beauty, and fell in love with her with all
+the intensity of an uncontrolled nature.  He saw her three times,
+but scarcely spoke to her.  On his mother opposing his wish and
+treating it as a boyish folly, he took to drink "to spite her,"
+and almost as soon as he was eighteen, maddened by the girl's
+death, he ran away from home, entered the service of the Hudson's
+Bay Company, and remained in it for several years, only leaving
+it because he found even that lawless life too strict for him. 
+Then, being as I suppose about twenty-seven, he entered the
+service of the United States Government, and became one of the
+famous Indian scouts of the Plains, distinguishing himself by
+some of the most daring deeds on record, and some of the
+bloodiest crimes.  Some of these tales I have heard before, but
+never so terribly told.  Years must have passed in that service,
+till he became a character known through all the West, and much
+dreaded for his readiness to take offence, and his equal
+readiness with his revolver.  Vain, even in his dark mood, he
+told me that he was idolized by women, and that in his worst
+hours he was always chivalrous to good women.  He described
+himself as riding through camps in his scout's dress with a red
+scarf round his waist, and sixteen golden curls, eighteen inches
+long, hanging over his shoulders.  The handsome, even superbly
+handsome, side of his face was towards me as he spoke.  As a
+scout and as an armed escort of emigrant parties he was evidently
+implicated in all the blood and broil of a lawless region and
+period, and went from bad to worse, varying his life by drunken
+sprees, which brought nothing but violence and loss.
+     
+The narrative seemed to lack some link, for I next found him on a
+homestead in Missouri, from whence he came to Colorado a few
+years ago.  There, again, something was dropped out, but I
+suspect, and not without reason, that he joined one or more of
+those gangs of "border ruffians" which for so long raided through
+Kansas, perpetrating such massacres and outrages as that of the
+Marais du Cygne.  His fame for violence and ruffianism preceded
+him into Colorado, where his knowledge of and love of the
+mountains have earned him the sobriquet he now bears.  He has a
+squatter's claim and forty head of cattle, and is a successful
+trapper besides, but envy and vindictiveness are raging within
+him.  He gets money, goes to Denver, and spends large sums in the
+maddest dissipation, making himself a terror, and going beyond
+even such desperadoes as "Texas Jack" and "Wild Bill"; and when
+the money is done returns to his mountain den, full of hatred and
+self-scorn, till the next time.  Of course I cannot give details.
+
+The story took three hours to tell, and was crowded with terrific
+illustrations of a desperado's career, told with a rush of wild
+eloquence that was truly thrilling.
+     
+When the snow, which for some time had been falling, compelled
+him to break off and guide me to a sheltered place from which I
+could make my own way back again, he stopped his horse and said,
+"Now you see a man who has made a devil of himself!  Lost!  Lost!
+Lost!  I believe in God.  I've given Him no choice but to put me
+with 'the devil and his angel.'  I'm afraid to die. You've
+stirred the better nature in me too late.  I can't change.  If
+ever a man were a slave, I am.  Don't speak to me of repentance
+and reformation.  I can't reform. Your voice reminded me of
+-----."  Then in feverish tones, "How dare you ride with me?  You
+won't speak to me again, will you?"  He made me promise to keep
+one or two things secret whether he were living or dead, and I
+promised, for I had no choice; but they come between me and the
+sunshine sometimes, and I wake at night to think of them.  I wish
+I had been spared the regret and excitement of that afternoon.  A
+less ungovernable nature would never have spoken as he did, nor
+told me what he did; but his proud, fierce soul all poured itself
+out then, with hatred and self-loathing, blood on his hands and
+murder in his heart, though even then he could not be altogether
+other than a gentleman, or altogether divest himself of
+fascination, even when so tempestuously revealing the darkest
+points of his character.  My soul dissolved in pity for his dark,
+lost, self-ruined life, as he left me and turned away in the
+blinding storm to the Snowy Range, where he said he was going to
+camp out for a fortnight; a man of great abilities, real genius,
+singular gifts, and with all the chances in life which other men
+have had.  How far more terrible than the "Actum est: periisti"
+of Cowper is his exclamation, "Lost!  Lost!  Lost!"
+     
+The storm was very severe, and the landmarks being blotted out, I
+lost my way in the snow, and when I reached the cabin after dark
+I found it still empty, for the two hunters, on returning,
+finding that I had gone out, had gone in search of me.  The snow
+cleared off late, and intense frost set in.  My room is nearly
+the open air, being built of unchinked logs, and, as in the open
+air, one requires to sleep with the head buried in blankets, or
+the eyelids and breath freeze.  The sunshine has been brilliant
+to-day.  I took a most beautiful ride to Black Canyon to look for
+the horses.  Every day some new beauty, or effect of snow and
+light, is to be seen.  Nothing that I have seen in Colorado
+compares with Estes Park; and now that the weather is
+magnificent, and the mountain tops above the pine woods are pure
+white, there is nothing of beauty or grandeur for which the heart
+can wish that is not here; and it is health giving, with pure
+air, pure water, and absolute dryness.  But there is something
+very solemn, at times almost overwhelming, in the winter
+solitude.  I have never experienced anything like it even when I
+lived on the slopes of Hualalai.  When the men are out hunting
+I know not where, or at night, when storms sweep down from Long's
+Peak, and the air is full of stinging, tempest-driven snow, and
+there is barely a probability of any one coming, or of my
+communication with the world at all, then the stupendous mountain
+ranges which lie between us and the Plains grow in height till
+they become impassable barriers, and the bridgeless rivers grow
+in depth, and I wonder if all my life is to be spent here in
+washing and sweeping and baking.
+     
+To-day has been one of manual labor.  We did not breakfast till
+9:30, then the men went out, and I never sat down till two.  I
+cleaned the living room and the kitchen, swept a path through the
+rubbish in the passage room, washed up, made and baked a batch of
+rolls and four pounds of sweet biscuits, cleaned some tins and
+pans, washed some clothes, and gave things generally a "redding
+up."  There is a little thick buttermilk, fully six weeks old, at
+the bottom of a churn, which I use for raising the rolls; but Mr.
+Kavan, who makes "lovely" bread, puts some flour and water to
+turn sour near the stove, and this succeeds admirably.
+     
+I also made a most unsatisfactory investigation into the state of
+my apparel.  I came to Colorado now nearly three months ago, with
+a small carpet-bag containing clothes, none of them new; and
+these, by legitimate wear, the depredations of calves, and the
+necessity of tearing some of them up for dish-cloths, are reduced
+to a single change!  I have a solitary pocket handkerchief and
+one pair of stockings, such a mass of darns that hardly a trace
+of the original wool remains.  Owing to my inability to get money
+in Denver I am almost without shoes, have nothing but a pair of
+slippers and some "arctics."  For outer garments--well, I have a
+trained black silk dress, with a black silk polonaise! and
+nothing else but my old flannel riding suit, which is quite
+threadbare, and requires such frequent mending that I am
+sometimes obliged to "dress" for supper, and patch and darn it
+during the evening.  You will laugh, but it is singular that one
+can face the bitter winds with the mercury at zero and below it,
+in exactly the same clothing which I wore in the tropics!  It is
+only the extreme dryness of the air which renders it possible to
+live in such clothing.  We have arranged the work better.  Mr.
+Buchan was doing too much, and it was hard for him, as he is very
+delicate.  You will wonder how three people here in the
+wilderness can have much to do.  There are the horses which we
+keep in the corral to feed on sheaf oats and take to water twice
+a day, the fowls and dogs to feed, the cow to milk, the bread to
+make, and to keep a general knowledge of the whereabouts of the
+stock in the event of a severe snow-storm coming on.  Then there
+is all the wood to cut, as there is no wood pile, and we burn a
+great deal, and besides the cooking, washing, and mending, which
+each one does, the men must hunt and fish for their living.  Then
+two sick cows have had to be attended to.
+     
+We were with one when it died yesterday.  It suffered terribly,
+and looked at us with the pathetically pleading eyes of a
+creature "made subject to vanity."  The disposal of its carcass
+was a difficulty.  The wagon horses were in Denver, and when we
+tried to get the others to pull the dead beast away, they only
+kicked and plunged, so we managed to get it outside the shed,
+and according to Mr. Kavan's prediction, a pack of wolves came
+down, and before daylight nothing was left but the bones.  They
+were so close to the cabin that their noise was most disturbing,
+and on looking out several times I could see them all in a heap
+wrangling and tumbling over each other.  They are much larger
+than the prairie wolf, but equally cowardly, I believe.  This
+morning was black with clouds, and a snowstorm was threatened,
+and about 700 cattle and a number of horses came in long files
+from the valleys and canyons where they maraud, their instinct
+teaching them to seek the open and the protection of man.
+     
+I was alone in the cabin this afternoon when Mr. Nugent, whom we
+believed to be on the Snowy Range, walked in very pale and
+haggard looking, and coughing severely.  He offered to show me
+the trail up one of the grandest of the canyons, and I could not
+refuse to go.  The Fall River has had its source completely
+altered by the operations of the beavers.  Their engineering
+skill is wonderful.  In one place they have made a lake by
+damming up the stream; in another their works have created an
+island, and they have made several falls.  Their storehouses, of
+course, are carefully concealed.  By this time they are about
+full for the winter.  We saw quantities of young cotton-wood and
+aspen trees, with stems about as thick as my arm, lying where
+these industrious creatures have felled them ready for their use.
+They always work at night and in concert.  Their long, sharp
+teeth are used for gnawing down the trees, but their mason-work
+is done entirely with their flat, trowel-like tails.  In its
+natural state the fur is very durable, and is as full of long
+black hairs as that of the sable, but as sold, all these hairs
+have been plucked out of it.
+     
+The canyon was glorious, ah! glorious beyond any other, but it
+was a dismal and depressing ride.  The dead past buried its dead.
+
+Not an allusion was made to the conversation previously.  "Jim's"
+manner was courteous, but freezing, and when I left home on my
+return he said he hardly thought he should be back from the
+Snowy Range before I left.  Essentially an actor, was he, I
+wonder, posing on the previous day in the attitude of desperate
+remorse, to impose on my credulity or frighten me; or was it a
+genuine and unpremeditated outburst of passionate regret for the
+life which he had thrown away?  I cannot tell, but I think it was
+the last.  As I cautiously rode back, the sunset glories were
+reddening the mountain tops, and the park lay in violet gloom. 
+It was wonderfully magnificent, but oh, so solemn, so lonely!  I
+rode a very large, well-bred mare, with three shoes loose and one
+off, and she fell with me twice and was very clumsy in crossing
+the Thompson, which was partly ice and partly a deep ford, but
+when we reached comparatively level grassy ground I had a gallop
+of nearly two miles which I enjoyed thoroughly, her great
+swinging stride being so easy and exhilarating after Birdie's
+short action.
+
+
+Friday.
+
+This is a piteous day, quite black, freezing hard, and with a
+fierce north-east wind.  The absence of sunshine here, where it
+is nearly perpetual, has a very depressing effect, and all the
+scenery appears in its grimness of black and gray.  We have lost
+three horses, including Birdie, and have nothing to entice them
+with, and not an animal to go and drive them in with.  I put my
+great mare in the corral myself, and Mr. Kavan put his in
+afterwards and secured the bars, but the wolves were holding a
+carnival again last night, and we think that the horses were
+scared and stampeded, as otherwise they would not have leaped the
+fence.  The men are losing their whole day in looking for them. 
+On their return they said that they had seen Mr. Nugent returning
+to his cabin by the other side and the lower ford of the
+Thompson, and that he had "an awfully ugly fit on him," so that
+they were glad that he did not come near us.  The evening is
+setting in sublime in its blackness.  Late in the afternoon I
+caught a horse which was snuffing at the sheaf oats, and had a
+splendid gallop on the Longmount trail with the two great hunting
+dogs.  In returning, in the grimness of the coming storm, I had
+that view of the park which I saw first in the glories of an
+autumn sunset.  Life was all dead; the dragon-flies no longer
+darted in the sunshine, the cotton-woods had shed their last
+amber leaves, the crimson trailers of the wild vines were bare,
+the stream itself had ceased its tinkle and was numb in fetters
+of ice, a few withered flower stalks only told of the brief
+bright glory of the summer.  The park never had looked so utterly
+walled in; it was fearful in its loneliness, the ghastliest of
+white peaks lay sharply outlined against the black snow clouds,
+the bright river was ice bound, the pines were all black, the
+world was absolutely shut out.  How can you expect me to write
+letters from such a place, from a life "in which nothing
+happens"?  It really is strange that neither Evans nor Edwards
+come back.  The young men are grumbling, for they were asked to
+stay here for five days, and they have been here five weeks, and
+they are anxious to be away camping out for the hunting, on which
+they depend.  There are two calves dying, and we don't know what
+to do for them; and if a very severe snow-storm comes on, we
+can't bring in and feed eight hundred head of cattle.
+
+
+Saturday.
+
+The snow began to fall early this morning, and as it is
+unaccompanied by wind we have the novel spectacle of a smooth
+white world; still it does not look like anything serious.  We
+have been gradually growing later at night and later in the
+morning.  To-day we did not breakfast till ten.  We have been
+becoming so disgusted with the pickled pork, that we were glad to
+find it just at an end yesterday, even though we were left
+without meat for which in this climate the system craves.  You
+can fancy my surprise, on going into the kitchen, to find a dish
+of smoking steaks of venison on the table.  We ate like famished
+people, and enjoyed our meal thoroughly.  Just before I came the
+young men had shot an elk, which they intended to sell in Denver,
+and the grand carcass, with great branching antlers, hung outside
+the shed.  Often while vainly trying to swallow some pickled pork
+I had looked across to the tantalizing animal, but it was not to
+be thought of.  However, this morning, as the young men felt the
+pinch of hunger even more than I did, and the prospects of
+packing it to Denver became worse, they decided on cutting into
+one side, so we shall luxuriate in venison while it lasts.  We
+think that Edwards will surely be up to-night, but unless he
+brings supplies our case is looking serious.  The flour is
+running low, there is only coffee for one week, and I have only a
+scanty three ounces of tea left.  The baking powder is nearly at
+an end.  We have agreed to economize by breakfasting very late,
+and having two meals a day instead of three.  The young men
+went out hunting as usual, and I went out and found Birdie, and
+on her brought in four other horses, but the snow balled so badly
+that I went out and walked across the river on a very passable
+ice bridge, and got some new views of the unique grandeur of this
+place.
+     
+Our evenings are social and pleasant.  We finish supper about
+eight, and make up a huge fire.  The men smoke while I write to
+you.  Then we draw near the fire and I take my endless mending,
+and we talk or read aloud.  Both are very intelligent, and Mr.
+Buchan has very extended information and a good deal of insight
+into character.  Of course our circumstances, the likelihood of
+release, the prospects of snow blocking us in and of our supplies
+holding out, the sick calves, "Jim's" mood, the possible
+intentions of a man whose footprints we have found and traced for
+three miles, are all topics that often recur, and few of which
+can be worn threadbare.
+
+
+Letter XV
+
+A whisky slave--The pleasures of monotony--The mountain
+lion--"Another mouth to feed"--A tiresome boy--An outcast--
+Thanksgiving Day--The newcomer--A literary humbug--Milking a dry
+cow--Trout-fishing--A snow-storm--A desperado's den.
+
+ESTES PARK, Sunday.
+
+A trapper passing last night brought us the news that Mr. Nugent
+is ill; so, after washing up the things after our late breakfast,
+I rode to his cabin, but I met him in the gulch coming down to
+see us.  He said he had caught cold on the Range, and was
+suffering from an old arrow wound in the lung.  We had a long
+conversation without adverting to the former one, and he told me
+some of the present circumstances of his ruined life.  It is
+piteous that a man like him, in the prime of life, should be
+destitute of home and love, and live a life of darkness in a den
+with no companions but guilty memories, and a dog which many
+people think is the nobler animal of the two.  I urged him to
+give up the whisky which at present is his ruin, and his answer
+had the ring of a sad truth in it: "I cannot, it binds me hand
+and foot--I cannot give up the only pleasure I have."  His ideas
+of right are the queerest possible.  He says that he believes in
+God, but what he knows or believes of God's law I know not.  To
+resent insult with your revolver, to revenge yourself on those
+who have injured you, to be true to a comrade and share your last
+crust with him, to be chivalrous to good women, to be generous
+and hospitable, and at the last to die game--these are the
+articles of his creed, and I suppose they are received by men of
+his stamp.  He hates Evans with a bitter hatred, and Evans
+returns it, having undergone much provocation from Jim in his
+moods of lawlessness and violence, and being not a little envious
+of the fascination which his manners and conversation have for
+the strangers who come up here.
+     
+On returning down the gulch the view was grander than I have ever
+seen it, the gulch in dark shadow, the park below lying in
+intense sunlight, with all the majestic canyons which sweep down
+upon it in depths of infinite blue gloom, and above, the pearly
+peaks, dazzling in purity and glorious in form, cleft the
+turquoise blue of the sky.  How shall I ever leave this "land
+which is very far off"?  How CAN I ever leave it? is the real
+question.  We are going on the principle, "Let us eat and drink,
+for to-morrow we die," and the stores are melting away.  The two
+meals are not an economical plan, for we are so much more hungry
+that we eat more than when we had three.  We had a good deal of
+sacred music to-day, to make it as like Sunday as possible.  The
+"faint melancholy" of this winter loneliness is very fascinating.
+
+How glorious the amber fires of the winter dawns are, and how
+gloriously to-night the crimson clouds descended just to the
+mountain tops and were reflected on the pure surface of the snow!
+
+The door of this room looks due north, and as I write the Pole
+Star blazes, and a cold crescent moon hangs over the ghastliness
+of Long's Peak.
+
+
+ESTES PARK, COLORADO, November.
+
+We have lost count of time, and can only agree on the fact that
+the date is somewhere near the end of November.  Our life has
+settled down into serenity, and our singular and enforced
+partnership is very pleasant.  We might be three men living
+together, but for the unvarying courtesy and consideration which
+they show to me.  Our work goes on like clockwork; the only
+difficulty which ever arises is that the men do not like me to do
+anything that they think hard or unsuitable, such as saddling a
+horse or bringing in water.  The days go very fast; it was 3:30
+today before I knew that it was 1.  It is a calm life without
+worries.  The men are so easy to live with; they never fuss, or
+grumble, or sigh, or make a trouble of anything.  It would amuse
+you to come into our wretched little kitchen before our
+disgracefully late breakfast, and find Mr. Kavan busy at the
+stove frying venison, myself washing the supper dishes, and Mr.
+Buchan drying them, or both the men busy at the stove while I
+sweep the floor.  Our food is a great object of interest to us,
+and we are ravenously hungry now that we have only two meals a
+day.  About sundown each goes forth to his "chores"--Mr. K. to
+chop wood, Mr. B. to haul water, I to wash the milk pans and
+water the horses.  On Saturday the men shot a deer, and on going
+for it to-day they found nothing but the hind legs, and following
+a track which they expected would lead them to a beast's hole,
+they came quite carelessly upon a large mountain lion, which,
+however, took itself out of their reach before they were
+sufficiently recovered from their surprise to fire at it.  These
+lions, which are really a species of puma, are bloodthirsty as
+well as cowardly.  Lately one got into a sheepfold in the canyon
+of the St. Vrain, and killed thirty sheep, sucking the blood from
+their throats.
+
+
+November ?
+
+This has been a day of minor events, as well as a busy one.  I
+was so busy that I never sat down from 10:30 till 1:30.  I had
+washed my one change of raiment, and though I never iron my
+clothes, I like to bleach them till they are as white as snow,
+and they were whitening on the line when some furious gusts
+came down from Long's Peak, against which I could not stand, and
+when I did get out all my clothes were blown into strips from an
+inch to four inches in width, literally destroyed!  One learns
+how very little is necessary either for comfort or happiness.  I
+made a four-pound spiced ginger cake, baked some bread, mended
+my riding dress, cleaned up generally, wrote some letters with
+the hope that some day they might be posted and took a
+magnificent walk, reaching the cabin again in the melancholy
+glory which now immediately precedes the darkness.
+     
+We were all busy getting our supper ready when the dogs began to
+bark furiously, and we heard the noise of horses.  "Evans at
+last!" we exclaimed, but we were wrong.  Mr. Kavan went out, and
+returned saying that it was a young man who had come up with
+Evans's wagon and team, and that the wagon had gone over into
+a gulch seven miles from here.  Mr. Kavan looked very grave. 
+"It's another mouth to feed," he said.  They asked no questions,
+and brought the lad in, a slangy, assured fellow of twenty, who,
+having fallen into delicate health at a theological college, had
+been sent up here by Evans to work for his board.  The men were
+too courteous to ask him what he was doing up here, but I boldly
+asked him where he lived, and to our dismay he replied, "I've
+come to live here."  We discussed the food question gravely, as
+it presented a real difficulty.  We put him into a bed-closet
+opening from the kitchen, and decided to see what he was fit for
+before giving him work.  We were very much amazed, in truth, at
+his coming here.  He is evidently a shallow, arrogant youth.
+     
+We have decided that to-day is November 26th; to-morrow is
+Thanksgiving Day, and we are planning a feast, though Mr. K. said
+to me again this morning, with a doleful face, "You see there's
+another mouth to feed."  This "mouth" has come up to try the
+panacea of manual labor, but he is town bred, and I see that he
+will do nothing.  He is writing poetry, and while I was busy
+to-day began to read it aloud to me, asking for my criticism.  He
+is just at the age when everything literary has a fascination,
+and every literary person is a hero, specially Dr. Holland.  Last
+night was fearful from the lifting of the cabin and the breaking
+of the mud from the roof.  We sat with fine gravel driving in our
+faces, and this morning I carried four shovelfuls of mud out of
+my room.  After breakfast, Mr. Kavan, Mr. Lyman, and I, with the
+two wagon horses, rode the seven miles to the scene of
+yesterday's disaster in a perfect gale of wind.  I felt like a
+servant going out for a day's "pleasuring," hurrying "through my
+dishes," and leaving my room in disorder.  The wagon lay half-way
+down the side of a ravine, kept from destruction by having caught
+on some trees.
+     
+It was too cold to hang about while the men hauled it up and
+fixed it, so I went slowly back, encountering Mr. Nugent in a
+most bitter mood--almost in an "ugly fit" --hating everybody, and
+contrasting his own generosity and reckless kindness with the
+selfishness and carefully-weighed kindnesses of others.  People
+do give him credit for having "as kind a heart as ever beat." 
+Lately a child in the other cabin was taken ill, and though there
+were idle men and horses at hand, it was only the "desperado" who
+rode sixty miles in "the shortest time ever made" to bring the
+doctor.  While we were talking he was sitting on a stone outside
+his den mending a saddle, shins, bones, and skulls lying about
+him, "Ring" watching him with jealous and idolatrous affection,
+the wind lifting his thin curls from as grand a head as was ever
+modeled--a ruin of a man.  Yet the sun which shines "on the evil
+and the good" was lighting up the gold of his hair.  May our
+Father which is in heaven yet show mercy to His outcast child!
+     
+Mr. Kavan soon overtook me, and we had an exciting race of two
+miles, getting home just before the wind fell and the snow began.
+     
+Thanksgiving Day.  The thing dreaded has come at last, a
+snow-storm, with a north-east wind.  It ceased about midnight,
+but not till it had covered my bed.  Then the mercury fell below
+zero, and everything froze.  I melted a tin of water for washing
+by the fire, but it was hard frozen before I could use it.  My
+hair, which was thoroughly wet with the thawed snow of yesterday,
+is hard frozen in plaits.  The milk and treacle are like rock,
+the eggs have to be kept on the coolest part of the stove to keep
+them fluid.  Two calves in the shed were frozen to death.  Half
+our floor is deep in snow, and it is so cold that we cannot open
+the door to shovel it out.  The snow began again at eight this
+morning, very fine and hard.  It blows in through the chinks and
+dusts this letter while I write.  Mr. Kavan keeps my ink bottle
+close to the fire, and hands it to me every time that I need to
+dip my pen.  We have a huge fire, but cannot raise the
+temperature above 20 degrees.  Ever since I returned the lake has
+been hard enough to bear a wagon, but to-day it is difficult to
+keep the water hole open by the constant use of the axe.  The
+snow may either melt or block us in.  Our only anxiety is about
+the supplies.  We have tea and coffee enough to last over
+to-morrow, the sugar is just done, and the flour is getting low. 
+It is really serious that we have "another mouth to feed," and
+the newcomer is a ravenous creature, eating more than the three
+of us.  It dismays me to see his hungry eyes gauging the supply
+at breakfast, and to see the loaf disappear.  He told me this
+morning that he could eat the whole of what was on the table.  He
+is mad after food, and I see that Mr. K. is starving himself to
+make it hold out.  Mr. Buchan is very far from well, and dreads
+the prospect of "half rations."  All this sounds laughable, but
+we shall not laugh if we have to look hunger in the face!  Now in
+the evening the snow clouds, which have blotted out all things,
+are lifting, and the winter scene is wonderful.  The mercury is 5
+degrees below zero, and the aurora is glorious.  In my unchinked
+room the mercury is 1 degrees below zero.  Mr. Buchan can hardly
+get his breath; the dryness is intense.  We spent the afternoon
+cooking the Thanksgiving dinner.  I made a wonderful pudding, for
+which I had saved eggs and cream for days, and dried and stoned
+cherries supplied the place of currants.  I made a bowl of
+custard for sauce, which the men said was "splendid"; also a
+rolled pudding, with molasses; and we had venison steak and
+potatoes, but for tea we were obliged to use the tea leaves of
+the morning again.  I should think that few people in America
+have enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinner more.  We had urged Mr.
+Nugent to join us, but he refused, almost savagely, which we
+regretted.  My four-pound cake made yesterday is all gone!  This
+wretched boy confesses that he was so hungry in the night that he
+got up and ate nearly half of it.  He is trying to cajole me into
+making another.
+
+
+November 29.
+
+Before the boy came I had mistaken some faded cayenne pepper for
+ginger, and had made a cake with it.  Last evening I put half of
+it into the cupboard and left the door open.  During the night we
+heard a commotion in the kitchen and much choking, coughing, and
+groaning, and at breakfast the boy was unable to swallow food
+with his usual ravenousness.  After breakfast he came to me
+whimpering, and asking for something soothing for his throat,
+admitting that he had seen the "gingerbread," and "felt so
+starved" in the night that he got up to eat it.
+     
+I tried to make him feel that it was "real mean" to eat so much
+and be so useless, and he said he would do anything to help me,
+but the men were so "down on him."  I never saw men so patient
+with a lad before.  He is a most vexing addition to our party,
+yet one cannot help laughing at him.  He is not honorable,
+though.  I dare not leave this letter lying on the table, as he
+would read it.  He writes for two Western periodicals (at least
+he says so), and he shows us long pieces of his published poetry.
+
+In one there are twenty lines copied (as Mr. Kavan has shown me)
+without alteration from Paradise Lost; in another there are two
+stanzas from Resignation, with only the alteration of "stray" for
+"dead"; and he has passed the whole of Bonar's Meeting-place off
+as his own.  Again, he lent me an essay by himself, called The
+Function of the Novelist, which is nothing but a mosaic of
+unacknowledged quotations.  The men tell me that he has "bragged"
+to them that on his way here he took shelter in Mr. Nugent's
+cabin, found out where he hides his key, opened his box, and read
+his letters and MSS.  He is a perfect plague with his ignorance
+and SELF-sufficiency.  The first day after he came while I was
+washing up the breakfast things he told me that he intended to do
+all the dirty work, so I left the knives and forks in the tub and
+asked him to wipe and lay them aside.  Two hours afterwards I
+found them untouched.  Again the men went out hunting, and he
+said he would chop the wood for several days' use, and after a
+few strokes, which were only successful in chipping off some
+shavings, he came in and strummed on the harmonium, leaving me
+without any wood with which to make the fire for supper.  He
+talked about his skill with the lasso, but could not even catch
+one of our quietest horses.  Worse than all, he does not know one
+cow from another.  Two days ago he lost our milch cow in driving
+her in to be milked, and Mr. Kavan lost hours of valuable time in
+hunting for her without success.  To-day he told us triumphantly
+that he had found her, and he was sent out to milk her.  After
+two hours he returned with a rueful face and a few drops of
+whitish fluid in the milk pail, saying that that was all he could
+get.  On Mr. K. going out, he found, instead of our "calico" cow,
+a brindled one that had been dry since the spring!  Our cow has
+gone off to the wild cattle, and we are looking very grim at
+Lyman, who says that he expected he should live on milk.  I told
+him to fill up the four-gallon kettle, and an hour afterwards
+found it red-hot on the stove.  Nothing can be kept from him
+unless it is hidden in my room.  He has eaten two pounds of dried
+cherries from the shelf, half of my second four-pound spice loaf
+before it was cold, licked up my custard sauce in the night, and
+privately devoured the pudding which was to be for supper.  He
+confesses to it all, and says, "I suppose you think me a cure." 
+Mr. K. says that the first thing he said to him this morning was,
+"Will Miss B. make us a nice pudding to-day?"  This is all
+harmless, but the plagiarism and want of honor are disgusting,
+and quite out of keeping with his profession of being a
+theological student.
+     
+This life is in some respects like being on board ship--there are
+no mails, and one knows nothing beyond one's little world, a very
+little one in this case.  We find each other true, and have
+learnt to esteem and trust each other.  I should, for instance,
+go out of this room leaving this book open on the table, knowing
+that the men would not read my letter.  They are discreet,
+reticent, observant, and on many subjects well informed, but they
+are of a type which has no antitype at home.  All women work in
+this region, so there is no fuss about my working, or saying,
+"Oh, you mustn't do that," or "Oh, let me do that."
+
+
+November 30.
+
+We sat up till eleven last night, so confident were we that
+Edwards would leave Denver the day after Thanksgiving and get up
+here.  This morning we came to the resolution that we must break
+up.  Tea, coffee, and sugar are done, the venison is turning
+sour, and the men have only one month left for the hunting on
+which their winter living depends.  I cannot leave the Territory
+till I get money, but I can go to Longmount for the mail and hear
+whether the panic is abating.  Yesterday I was alone all day, and
+after riding to the base of Long's Peak, made two roly-poly
+puddings for supper, having nothing else.  The men, however, came
+back perfectly loaded with trout, and we had a feast.  Epicures
+at home would have envied us.  Mr. Kavan kept the frying pan with
+boiling butter on the stove, butter enough thoroughly to cover
+the trout, rolled them in coarse corn meal, plunged them into the
+butter, turned them once, and took them out, thoroughly done,
+fizzing, and lemon colored.  For once young Lyman was satisfied,
+for the dish was replenished as often as it was emptied.  They
+caught 40 lbs., and have packed them in ice until they can be
+sent to Denver for sale.  The winter fishing is very rich.  In
+the hardest frost, men who fish not for sport, but gain, take
+their axes and camping blankets, and go up to the hard-frozen
+waters which lie in fifty places round the park, and choosing a
+likely spot, a little sheltered from the wind, hack a hole in the
+ice, and fastening a foot-link to a cotton-wood tree, bait the
+hook with maggots or bits of easily-gotten fresh meat.  Often the
+trout are caught as fast as the hook can be baited, and looking
+through the ice hole in the track of a sunbeam, you see a mass of
+tails, silver fins, bright eyes, and crimson spots, a perfect
+shoal of fish, and truly beautiful the crimson-spotted creatures
+look, lying still and dead on the blue ice under the sunshine. 
+Sometimes two men bring home 60 lbs. of trout as the result of
+one day's winter fishing.  It is a cold and silent sport,
+however.
+     
+How a cook at home would despise our scanty appliances, with
+which we turn out luxuries.  We have only a cooking-stove, which
+requires incessant feeding with wood, a kettle, a frying pan, a
+six-gallon brass pan, and a bottle for a rolling pin.  The cold
+has been very severe, but I do not suffer from it even in my
+insufficient clothing.  I take a piece of granite made very hot
+to bed, draw the blankets over my head and sleep eight hours,
+though the snow often covers me.  One day of snow, mist, and
+darkness was rather depressing, and yesterday a hurricane began
+about five in the morning, and the whole park was one swirl of
+drifting snow, like stinging wood smoke.  My bed and room were
+white, and the frost was so intense that water brought in a
+kettle hot from the fire froze as I poured it into the basin. 
+Then the snow ceased, and a fierce wind blew most of it out of
+the park, lifting it from the mountains in such clouds as to make
+Long's Peak look like a smoking volcano.  To-day the sky has
+resumed its delicious blue, and the park its unrivalled beauty. 
+I have cleaned all the windows, which, ever since I have been
+here, I supposed were of discolored glass, so opaque and dirty
+they were; and when the men came home from fishing they found a
+cheerful new world.  We had a great deal of sacred music and
+singing on Sunday.  Mr. Buchan asked me if I knew a tune called
+"America," and began the grand roll of our National Anthem to the
+words:
+
+          My country, 'tis of thee,
+          Sweet land of liberty, etc.
+
+
+December 1.
+
+I was to have started for Canyon to-day, but was awoke by snow as
+stinging as pinpoints beating on my hand.  We all got up early,
+but it did not improve until nearly noon.  In the afternoon Lyman
+and I rode to Mr. Nugent's cabin.  I wanted him to read and
+correct my letter to you, giving the account of our ascent of
+Long's Peak, but he said he could not, and insisted on our
+going in for which young Lyman was more anxious than I was, as
+Mr. Kavan had seen "Jim" in the morning, and departed from his
+usual reticence so far as to say,  "There's something wrong with
+that man; he'll either shoot himself or somebody else."  However,
+the "ugly fit" had passed off, and he was so very pleasant and
+courteous that we remained the whole afternoon.  Lyman's one
+thought was that he could make capital out of the interview, and
+write an account of the celebrated desperado for a Western paper.
+     
+The interior of the den was frightful, yet among his black and
+hideous surroundings the grace of his manner and the genius of
+his conversation were only more apparent.  I read my letter
+aloud--or rather "The Ascent of Long's Peak," which I have
+written for Out West--and was sincerely interested with the taste
+and acumen of his criticisms on the style.  He is a true child of
+nature; his eye brightened and his whole face became radiant, and
+at last tears rolled down his cheek when I read the account of
+the glory of the sunrise.  Then he read us a very able paper on
+Spiritualism which he was writing.  The den was dense with smoke,
+and very dark, littered with hay, old blankets, skins, bones,
+tins, logs, powder flasks, magazines, old books, old moccasins,
+horseshoes, and relics of all kinds.  He had no better seat to
+offer me than a log, but offered it with a graceful
+unconsciousness that it was anything less luxurious than an easy
+chair.  Two valuable rifles and a Sharp's revolver hung on the
+wall, and the sash and badge of a scout.  I could not help
+looking at "Jim" as he stood talking to me.  He goes mad with
+drink at times, swears fearfully, has an ungovernable temper.  He
+has formerly led a desperate life, and is at times even now
+undoubtedly a ruffian.  There is hardly a fireside in Colorado
+where fearful stories of him as an Indian fighter are not told;
+mothers frighten their naughty children by telling them that
+"Mountain Jim" will get them, and doubtless his faults are
+glaring, but he is undoubtedly fascinating, and enjoys a
+popularity or notoriety which no other person has.  He offered to
+be my guide to the Plains when I go away.  Lyman asked me if I
+should not be afraid of being murdered, but one could not be
+safer than with him I have often been told.
+     
+The cold was truly awful.  I had caught a chill in the morning
+from putting on my clothes before they were dry, and the warmth
+of the smoky den was most agreeable; but we had a fearful ride
+back in the dusk, a gale nearly blowing us off our horses,
+drifting snow nearly blinding us, and the mercury below zero.  I
+felt as if I were going to be laid up with a severe cold, but the
+men suggested a trapper's remedy--a tumbler of hot water, with a
+pinch of cayenne pepper in it--which proved a very rapid cure. 
+They kindly say that if the snow detains me here they also will
+remain.  They tell me that they were horrified when I arrived, as
+they thought that they could not make me comfortable, and that I
+had never been used to do anything for myself, and then we
+complimented each other all round.  To-morrow, weather
+permitting, I set off for a ride of 100 miles, and my next letter
+will be my last from the Rocky Mountains.
+                                        I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter XVI
+
+A harmonious home--Intense cold--A purple sun--A grim jest--A
+perilous ride--Frozen eyelids--Longmount--The pathless
+prairie--Hardships of emigrant life--A trapper's advice--The
+Little Thompson--Evans and "Jim."
+
+DR. HUGHES'S, LOWER CANYON, COLORADO, December 4.
+  
+Once again here, in refined and cultured society, with harmonious
+voices about me, and dear, sweet, loving children whose winning
+ways make this cabin a true English home.  "England, with all thy
+faults, I love thee still!"  I can truly say,
+
+          Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see.
+          My heart, untraveled, fondly turns to thee.
+
+If it swerved a little in the Sandwich Islands, it is true to the
+Pole now!  Surely one advantage of traveling is that, while it
+removes much prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it
+intensifies tenfold one's appreciation of the good at home, and,
+above all, of the quietness and purity of English domestic life. 
+These reflections are forced upon me by the sweet child-voices
+about me, and by the exquisite consideration and tenderness which
+are the atmosphere (some would call it the hothouse atmosphere)
+of this house.  But with the bare, hard life, and the bare, bleak
+mountains around, who could find fault with even a hothouse
+atmosphere, if it can nourish such a flower of Paradise as sacred
+human love?
+     
+The mercury is eleven degrees below zero, and I have to keep my
+ink on the stove to prevent it from freezing.  The cold is
+intense--a clear, brilliant, stimulating cold, so dry that even
+in my threadbare flannel riding dress I do not suffer from it.  I
+must now take up my narrative of the nothings which have all the
+interest of SOMETHINGS to me.  We all got up before daybreak on
+Tuesday, and breakfasted at seven.  I have not seen the dawn for
+some time, with its amber fires deepening into red, and the snow
+peaks flushing one by one, and it seemed a new miracle.  It was a
+west wind, and we all thought it promised well.  I took only two
+pounds of luggage, some raisins, the mailbag, and an additional
+blanket under my saddle.  I had not been up from the park at
+sunrise before, and it was quite glorious, the purple depths of
+M'Ginn's Gulch, from which at a height of 9,000 feet you look
+down on the sunlit park 1,500 feet below, lying in a red haze,
+with its pearly needle-shaped peaks, framed by mountain sides
+dark with pines--my glorious, solitary, unique mountain home! 
+The purple sun rose in front.  Had I known what made it purple I
+should certainly have gone no farther.  Then clouds, the morning
+mist as I supposed, lifted themselves up rose lighted, showing
+the sun's disc as purple as one of the jars in a chemist's
+window, and having permitted this glimpse of their king, came
+down again as a dense mist, the wind chopped round, and the mist
+began to freeze hard.  Soon Birdie and myself were a mass of
+acicular crystals; it was a true easterly fog.  I galloped on,
+hoping to get through it, unable to see a yard before me; but it
+thickened, and I was obliged to subside into a jog-trot.
+     
+As I rode on, about four miles from the cabin, a human figure,
+looking gigantic like the spectre of the Brocken, with long hair
+white as snow, appeared close to me, and at the same moment there
+was the flash of a pistol close to my ear, and I recognized
+"Mountain Jim" frozen from head to foot, looking a century old
+with his snowy hair.  It was "ugly" altogether certainly, a
+"desperado's" grim jest, and it was best to accept it as such,
+though I had just cause for displeasure.  He stormed and scolded,
+dragged me off the pony--for my hands and feet were numb with
+cold--took the bridle, and went off at a rapid stride, so that I
+had to run to keep them in sight in the darkness, for we were off
+the road in a thicket of scrub, looking like white branch coral,
+I knew not where.  Then we came suddenly on his cabin, and dear
+old "Ring," white like all else; and the "ruffian" insisted on my
+going in, and he made a good fire, and heated some coffee, raging
+all the time.  He said everything against my going forward,
+except that it was dangerous; all he said came true, and here I
+am safe!  Your letters, however, outweighed everything but
+danger, and I decided on going on, when he said, "I've seen many
+foolish people, but never one so foolish as you--you haven't a
+grain of sense.  Why, I, an old mountaineer, wouldn't go down to
+the Plains to-day."  I told him he could not, though he would
+like it very much, for that he had turned his horses loose; on
+which he laughed heartily, and more heartily still at the stories
+I told him of young Lyman, so that I have still a doubt how much
+of the dark moods I have lately seen was assumed.
+     
+He took me back to the track; and the interview which began with
+a pistol shot, ended quite pleasantly.  It was an eerie ride, one
+not to be forgotten, though there was no danger.  I could not
+recognize any localities.  Every tree was silvered, and the
+fir-tree tufts of needles looked like white chrysanthemums.  The
+snow lay a foot deep in the gulches, with its hard, smooth
+surface marked by the feet of innumerable birds and beasts.  Ice
+bridges had formed across all the streams, and I crossed them
+without knowing when.  Gulches looked fathomless abysses, with
+clouds boiling up out of them, and shaggy mountain summits, half
+seen for a moment through the eddies, as quickly vanished. 
+Everything looked vast and indefinite.  Then a huge creation,
+like one of Dore's phantom illustrations, with much breathing of
+wings, came sailing towards me in a temporary opening in the
+mist.  As with a strange rustle it passed close over my head, I
+saw, for the first time, the great mountain eagle, carrying a
+good-sized beast in his talons.  It was a noble vision.  Then
+there were ten miles of metamorphosed gulches--silent,
+awful--many ice bridges, then a frozen drizzle, and then the
+winds changed from east to north-east.  Birdie was covered with
+exquisite crystals, and her long mane and the long beard which
+covers her throat were pure white.  I saw that I must give up
+crossing the mountains to this place by an unknown trail; and I
+struck the old trail to the St. Vrain, which I had never traveled
+before, but which I knew to be more legible than the new one. 
+The fog grew darker and thicker, the day colder and windier, the
+drifts deeper; but Birdie, whose four cunning feet had carried me
+600 miles, and who in all difficulties proves her value, never
+flinched or made a false step, or gave me reason to be sorry that
+I had come on.
+
+I got down to the St. Vrain Canyon in good time, and stopped at a
+house thirteen miles from Longmount to get oats.  I was white
+from head to foot, and my clothes were frozen stiff.  The women
+gave me the usual invitation, "Put your feet in the oven"; and I
+got my clothes thawed and dried, and a delicious meal consisting
+of a basin of cream and bread.  They said it would be worse on
+the plains, for it was an easterly storm; but as I was so used to
+riding, I could get on, so we started at 2:30.  Not far off I met
+Edwards going up at last to Estes Park, and soon after the
+snow-storm began in earnest--or rather I entered the storm, which
+had been going on there for several hours.  By that time I had
+reached the prairie, only eight miles from Longmount, and pushed
+on.  It was simply fearful.  It was twilight from the thick snow,
+and I faced a furious east wind loaded with fine, hard-frozen
+crystals, which literally made my face bleed.  I could only see a
+very short distance anywhere; the drifts were often two feet
+deep, and only now and then, through the blinding whirl, I caught
+a glimpse of snow through which withered sunflowers did not
+protrude, and then I knew that I was on the track.  But reaching
+a wild place, I lost it, and still cantered on, trusting to the
+pony's sagacity.  It failed for once, for she took me on a lake
+and we fell through the ice into the water, 100 yards from land,
+and had a hard fight back again.  It grew worse and worse.  I had
+wrapped up my face, but the sharp, hard snow beat on my eyes--the
+only exposed part--bringing tears into them, which froze and
+closed up my eye-lids at once.  You cannot imagine what that was.
+
+I had to take off one glove to pick one eye open, for as to the
+other, the storm beat so savagely against it that I left it
+frozen, and drew over it the double piece of flannel which
+protected my face.  I could hardly keep the other open by picking
+the ice from it constantly with my numb fingers, in doing which I
+got the back of my hand slightly frostbitten.  It was truly awful
+at the time.  I often thought, "Suppose I am going south instead
+of east?  Suppose Birdie should fail?  Suppose it should grow
+quite dark?"  I was mountaineer enough to shake these fears off
+and keep up my spirits, but I knew how many had perished on the
+prairie in similar storms.  I calculated that if I did not reach
+Longmount in half an hour it would be quite dark, and that I
+should be so frozen or paralyzed with cold that I should fall
+off.
+     
+Not a quarter of an hour after I had wondered how long I could
+hold on I saw, to my surprise, close to me, half-smothered in
+snow, the scattered houses and blessed lights of Longmount, and
+welcome, indeed, its wide, dreary, lifeless, soundless road
+looked!  When I reached the hotel I was so benumbed that I could
+not get off, and the worthy host lifted me off and carried me in.
+
+Not expecting any travelers, they had no fire except in the
+bar-room, so they took me to the stove in their own room, gave me
+a hot drink and plenty of blankets and in half an hour I was all
+right and ready for a ferocious meal.  "If there's a traveler on
+the prairie to-night, God help him!" the host had said to his
+wife just before I came in.
+     
+I found Evans there, storm stayed, and that--to his great credit
+at the time--my money matters were all right.  After the sound
+and refreshing sleep which one gets in this splendid climate, I
+was ready for an early start, but, warned by yesterday's
+experience, waited till twelve to be sure of the weather.  The
+air was intensely clear, and the mercury SEVENTEEN DEGREES BELOW
+ZERO!  The snow sparkled and snapped under one's feet.  It was
+gloriously beautiful!  In this climate, if you only go out for a
+short time you do not feel cold even without a hat, or any
+additional wrappings.  I bought a cardigan for myself, however,
+and some thick socks, got some stout snow-shoes for Birdie's hind
+feet, had a pleasant talk with some English friends, did some
+commissions for the men in the park, and hung about waiting for a
+freight train to break the track, but eventually, inspirited by
+the good news from you, left Longmount alone, and for the last
+time.  I little thought that miserable, broiling day on which I
+arrived at it with Dr. and Mrs. Hughes, of the glories of which
+it was the gate, and of the "good times" I should have.  Now I am
+at home in it; every one in it and along the St. Vrain Canyon
+addresses me in a friendly way by name; and the newspapers, with
+their intolerable personality, have made me and my riding
+exploits so notorious, that travelers speak courteously to me
+when they meet me on the prairie, doubtless wishing to see what
+sort of monster I am!  I have met nothing but civility, both of
+manner and speech, except that distraught pistol shot.  It looked
+icily beautiful, the snow so pure and the sky such a bright,
+sharp blue!  The snow was so deep and level that after a few
+miles I left the track, and steering for Storm Peak, rode sixteen
+miles over the pathless prairie without seeing man, bird, or
+beast--a solitude awful even in the bright sunshine.  The cold,
+always great, became piteous.  I increased the frostbite of
+yesterday by exposing my hand in mending the stirrup; and when
+the sun sank in indescribable beauty behind the mountains, and
+color rioted in the sky, I got off and walked the last four
+miles, and stole in here in the colored twilight without any one
+seeing me.
+     
+The life of which I wrote before is scarcely less severe, though
+lightened by a hope of change, and this weather brings out some
+special severities.  The stove has to be in the living-room, the
+children cannot go out, and, good and delightful as they are, it
+is hard for them to be shut up all day with four adults.  It is
+more of a trouble than you would think for a lady in precarious
+health that before each meal, eggs, butter, milk, preserves, and
+pickles have to be unfrozen.  Unless they are kept on the stove,
+there is no part of the room in which they do not freeze.  It is
+uninteresting down here in the Foot Hills.  I long for the
+rushing winds, the piled-up peaks, the great pines, the wild
+night noises, the poetry and the prose of the free, jolly life of
+my unrivalled eyrie.  I can hardly realize that the river which
+lies ice bound outside this house is the same which flashes
+through Estes Park, and which I saw snow born on Long's Peak.
+
+Yesterday morning the mercury had disappeared, so it was 20
+degrees below zero at least.  I lay awake from cold all night,
+but such is the wonderful effect of the climate, that when I got
+up at half-past five to waken the household for my early start, I
+felt quite refreshed.  We breakfasted on buffalo beef, and I left
+at eight to ride forty-five miles before night, Dr. Hughes and a
+gentleman who was staying there convoying me the first fifteen
+miles.  I did like that ride, racing with the other riders,
+careering through the intoxicating air in that indescribable
+sunshine, the powdery snow spurned from the horses' feet like
+dust!  I was soon warm.  We stopped at a trapper's ranch to feed,
+and the old trapper amused me by seeming to think Estes Park
+almost inaccessible in winter.  The distance was greater than I
+had been told, and he said that I could not get there before
+eleven at night, and not at all if there was much drift.  I
+wanted the gentlemen to go on with me as far as the Devil's Gate,
+but they could not because their horses were tired; and when the
+trapper heard that he exclaimed, indignantly, "What! that woman
+going into the mountains alone?  She'll lose the track or be
+froze to death!"  But when I told him I had ridden the trail in
+the storm of Tuesday, and had ridden over 600 miles alone in the
+mountains, he treated me with great respect as a fellow
+mountaineer, and gave me some matches, saying, "You'll have to
+camp out anyhow; you'd better make a fire than be froze to
+death."  The idea of my spending the night in the forest alone,
+by a fire, struck me as most grotesque.
+     
+We did not start again till one, and the two gentlemen rode the
+first two miles with me.  On that track, the Little Thompson,
+there a full stream, has to be crossed eighteen times, and they
+had been hauling wood across it, breaking it, and it had broken
+and refrozen several times, making thick and thin places--indeed,
+there were crossings which even I thought bad, where the ice let
+us through, and it was hard for the horses to struggle upon it
+again; and one of the gentlemen who, though a most accomplished
+man, was not a horseman, was once or twice in the ludicrous
+position of hesitating on the bank with an anxious face, not
+daring to spur his horse upon the ice.  After they left me I had
+eight more crossings, and then a ride of six miles, before I
+reached the old trail; but though there were several drifts up to
+the saddle, and no one had broken a track, Birdie showed such a
+pluck, that instead of spending the night by a camp-fire, or not
+getting in till midnight, I reached Mr. Nugent's cabin, four
+miles from Estes Park, only an hour after dark, very cold, and
+with the pony so tired that she could hardly put one foot before
+another.  Indeed, I walked the last three miles.  I saw light
+through the chinks but, hearing an earnest conversation within,
+was just about to withdraw, when "Ring" barked, and on his master
+coming to the door I found that the solitary man was talking to
+his dog.  He was looking out for me, and had some coffee ready,
+and a large fire, which were very pleasant; and I was very glad
+to get the latest news from the park.  He said that Evans told
+him that it would be most difficult for any one of them to take
+me down to the Plains, but that he would go, which is a great
+relief.  According to the Scotch proverb, "Better a finger off
+than aye wagging," and as I cannot live here (for you would not
+like the life or climate), the sooner I leave the better.
+     
+The solitary ride to Evans's was very eerie.  It was very dark,
+and the noises were unintelligible.  Young Lyman rushed out to
+take my horse, and the light and warmth within were delightful,
+but there was a stiffness about the new regime.  Evans, though
+steeped in difficulties, was as hearty and generous as ever; but
+Edwards, who had assumed the management, is prudent, if not
+parsimonious, thinks we wasted the supplies recklessly, and the
+limitations as to milk, etc., are painfully apparent.  A young
+ex-Guardsman has come up with Evans, of whom the sanguine
+creature forms great expectations, to be disappointed doubtless. 
+In the afternoon of yesterday a gentleman came who I thought was
+another stranger, strikingly handsome, well dressed, and barely
+forty, with sixteen shining gold curls falling down his collar;
+he walked in, and it was only after a careful second look that I
+recognized in our visitor the redoubtable "desperado."  Evans
+courteously pressed him to stay and dine with us, and not only
+did he show the most singular conversational dexterity in talking
+with the stranger, who was a very well-informed man, and had seen
+a great deal of the world, but, though he lives and eats like a
+savage, his manners and way of eating were as refined as
+possible.  I notice that Evans is never quite himself or
+perfectly comfortable when he is there;  and on the part of the
+other there is a sort of stiffly-assumed cordiality, significant,
+I fear of lurking hatred on both sides.   I was in the kitchen
+after dinner making rolled puddings, young Lyman was eating up
+the relics as usual, "Jim" was singing one of Moore's melodies,
+the others being in the living-room, when Mr. Kavan and Mr.
+Buchan came from "up the creek" to wish me good-bye.  They said
+it was not half so much like home now, and recalled the "good
+time" we had had for three weeks.  Lyman having lost the ow, we
+have no milk.  No one makes bread; they dry the venison into 
+chips, and getting the meals at all seems a work of toil and
+difficulty, instead of the pleasure it used to be to us.  Evans,
+since tea, has told me all his troubles and worries.  He is a
+kind, generous, whole-hearted, unsuspicious man, a worse enemy to
+himself, I believe, than to any other; but I feel sadly that the
+future of a man who has not stronger principles than he has must
+be at the best very insecure.
+                                   I. L. B.
+
+
+Letter XVII 
+
+Woman's mission--The last morning--Crossing the St.
+Vrain--Miller--The St. Vrain again--Crossing the prairie--"Jim's"
+dream--"Keeping strangers"--The inn kitchen--A reputed
+child-eater--Notoriety--A quiet dance--"Jim's" resolve--The
+frost-fall--An unfortunate introduction. 
+
+CHEYENNE, WYOMING, December 12.
+
+The last evening came.  I did not wish to realize it, as I looked
+at the snow-peaks glistening in the moonlight.  No woman will be
+seen in the park till next May.  Young Lyman talked in a
+"hifalutin" style, but with some truth in it, of the influence of
+a woman's presence, how "low, mean, vulgar talk" had died out on
+my return, how they had "all pulled themselves up," and how Mr.
+Kavan and Mr. Buchan had said they would like always to be as
+quiet and gentlemanly as when a lady was with them.  "By May," he
+said, "we shall be little better than brutes, in our manners at
+least."  I have seen a great deal of the roughest class of men
+both on sea and land during the last two years, and the more
+important I think the "mission" of every quiet, refined,
+self-respecting woman--the more mistaken I think those who would
+forfeit it by noisy self-assertion, masculinity, or fastness.  In
+all this wild West the influence of woman is second only in its
+benefits to the influence of religion, and where the last
+unhappily does not exist the first continually exerts its
+restraining power.  The last morning came.  I cleaned up my room
+and sat at the window watching the red and gold of one of the
+most glorious of winter sunrises, and the slow lighting-up of one
+peak after another.  I have written that this scenery is not
+lovable, but I love it.
+     
+I left on Birdie at 11 o'clock, Evans riding with me as far as
+Mr. Nugent's.  He was telling me so many things, that at the top
+of the hill I forgot to turn round and take a last look at my
+colossal, resplendent, lonely, sunlit den, but it was needless,
+for I carry it away with me.  I should not have been able to
+leave if Mr. Nugent had not offered his services.  His chivalry
+to women is so well known, that Evans said I could be safer and
+better cared for with no one.  He added, "His heart is good and
+kind, as kind a heart as ever beat.  He's a great enemy of his
+own, but he's been living pretty quietly for the last four
+years."  At the door of his den I took leave of Birdie, who had
+been my faithful companion for more than 700 miles of traveling,
+and of Evans, who had been uniformly kind to me and just in all
+his dealings, even to paying to me at that moment the very last
+dollar he owed me.  May God bless him and his!  He was obliged to
+return before I could get off, and as he commended me to Mr.
+Nugent's care, the two men shook hands kindly.[21]
+
+[21]Some months later "Mountain Jim" fell by Evans's hand, shot
+from Evans's doorstep while riding past his cabin.  The story of
+the previous weeks is dark, sad, and evil.  Of the five differing
+versions which have been written to me of the act itself and its
+immediate causes, it is best to give none.  The tragedy is too
+painful to dwell upon.  "Jim" lived long enough to give his own
+statement, and to appeal to the judgment of God, but died in low
+delirium before the case reached a human tribunal.
+
+   
+Rich spoils of beavers' skins were lying on the cabin floor, and
+the trapper took the finest, a mouse-colored kitten beaver's
+skin, and presented it to me.  I hired his beautiful Arab mare,
+whose springy step and long easy stride was a relief after
+Birdie's short sturdy gait. We had a very pleasant ride, and I
+seldom had to walk.  We took neither of the trails, but cut right
+through the forest to a place where, through an opening in the
+Foot Hills, the Plains stretched to the horizon covered with
+snow, the surface of which, having melted and frozen, reflected
+as water would the pure blue of the sky, presenting a complete
+optical illusion.  It required my knowledge of fact to assure me
+that I was not looking at the ocean.  "Jim" shortened the way by
+repeating a great deal of poetry, and by earnest, reasonable
+conversation, so that I was quite surprised when it grew dark. 
+He told me that he never lay down to sleep without prayer--prayer
+chiefly that God would give him a happy death.  He had previously
+promised that he would not hurry or scold, but "fyking" had not
+been included in the arrangement, and when in the early darkness
+we reached the steep hill, at whose foot the rapid deep St. Vrain
+flows, he "fyked" unreasonably about me, the mare, and the
+crossing generally, and seemed to think I could not get through,
+for the ice had been cut with an axe, and we could not see
+whether "glaze" had formed since or not.
+
+I was to have slept at the house of a woman farther down the
+canyon, who never ceases talking, but Miller, the young man whose
+attractive house and admirable habits I have mentioned before,
+came out and said his house was "now fixed for ladies," so we
+stayed there, and I was "made as comfortable" as could be.  His
+house is a model.  He cleans everything as soon as it is used, so
+nothing is ever dirty, and his stove and cooking gear in their
+bright parts look like polished silver.  It was amusing to hear
+the two men talk like two women about various ways of making
+bread and biscuits, one even writing out a recipe for the other. 
+It was almost grievous that a solitary man should have the power
+of making a house so comfortable!  They heated a stone for my
+feet, warmed a blanket for me to sleep in, and put logs enough on
+the fire to burn all night, for the mercury was eleven below
+zero.  The stars were intensely bright, and a well-defined
+auroral arch, throwing off fantastic coruscations, lighted the
+whole northern sky.  Yet I was only in the Foot Hills, and Long's
+glorious Peak was not to be seen.  Miller had all his things
+"washed up" and his "pots and pans" cleaned in ten minutes after
+supper, and then had the whole evening in which to smoke and
+enjoy himself--a poor woman would probably have been "fussing
+round" till 10 o'clock about the same work.  Besides Ring there
+was another gigantic dog craving for notice, and two large cats,
+which, the whole evening, were on their master's knee.  Cold as
+the night was, the house was chinked, and the rooms felt quite
+warm.  I even missed the free currents of air which I had been
+used to!  This was my last evening in what may be called a
+mountainous region.
+     
+The next morning, as soon as the sun was well risen, we left for
+our journey of 30 miles, which had to be done nearly at a foot's
+pace, owing to one horse being encumbered with my luggage.  I did
+not wish to realize that it was my last ride, and my last
+association with any of the men of the mountains whom I had
+learned to trust, and in some respects to admire.  No more
+hunters' tales told while the pine knots crack and blaze; no more
+thrilling narratives of adventures with Indians and bears; and
+never again shall I hear that strange talk of Nature and her
+doings which is the speech of those who live with her and her
+alone.  Already the dismalness of a level land comes over me. 
+The canyon of the St. Vrain was in all its glory of color, but we
+had a remarkably ugly crossing of that brilliant river, which was
+frozen all over, except an unpleasant gap of about two feet in
+the middle.  Mr. Nugent had to drive the frightened horses
+through, while I, having crossed on some logs lower down, had to
+catch them on the other side as they plunged to shore trembling
+with fear.  Then we emerged on the vast expanse of the glittering
+Plains, and a sudden sweep of wind made the cold so intolerable
+that I had to go into a house to get warm.  This was the last
+house we saw till we reached our destination that night.  I never
+saw the mountain range look so beautiful--uplifted in every shade
+of transparent blue, till the sublimity of Long's Peak, and the
+lofty crest of Storm Peak, bore only unsullied snow against the
+sky.  Peaks gleamed in living light; canyons lay in depths of
+purple shade; 100 miles away Pike's Peak rose a lump of blue, and
+over all, through that glorious afternoon, a veil of blue
+spiritualized without dimming the outlines of that most glorious
+range, making it look like the dreamed-of mountains of "the land
+which is very far off," till at sunset it stood out sharp in
+glories of violet and opal, and the whole horizon up to a great
+height was suffused with the deep rose and pure orange of the
+afterglow.  It seemed all dream-like as we passed through the
+sunlit solitude, on the right the prairie waves lessening towards
+the far horizon, while on the left they broke in great snowy
+surges against the Rocky Mountains.  All that day we neither saw
+man, beast, nor bird.  "Jim" was silent mostly.  Like all true
+children of the mountains, he pined even when temporarily absent
+from them.
+     
+At sunset we reached a cluster of houses called Namaqua, where,
+to my dismay, I heard that there was to be a dance at the one
+little inn to which we were going at St. Louis.  I pictured to
+myself no privacy, no peace, no sleep, drinking, low sounds, and
+worse than all, "Jim" getting into a quarrel and using his
+pistols.  He was uncomfortable about it for another reason.  He
+said he had dreamt the night before that there was to be a dance,
+and that he had to shoot a man for making "an unpleasant remark."
+
+For the last three miles which we accomplished after sunset the
+cold was most severe, but nothing could exceed the beauty of the
+afterglow, and the strange look of the rolling plains of snow
+beneath it.  When we got to the queer little place where they
+"keep strangers" at St. Louis, they were very civil, and said
+that after supper we could have the kitchen to ourselves.  I
+found a large, prononcee, competent, bustling widow, hugely
+stout, able to manage all men and everything else, and a very
+florid sister like herself, top heavy with hair.  There were
+besides two naughty children in the kitchen, who cried
+incessantly, and kept opening and shutting the door.  There was
+no place to sit down but a wooden chair by the side of the
+kitchen stove, at which supper was being cooked for ten men.  The
+bustle and clatter were indescribable, and the landlady asked
+innumerable questions, and seemed to fill the whole room.  The
+only expedient for me for the night was to sleep on a shake-down
+in a very small room occupied by the two women and the children,
+and even this was not available till midnight, when the dance
+terminated; and there was no place in which to wash except a bowl
+in the kitchen.  I sat by the stove till supper, wearying of the
+noise and bustle after the quiet of Estes Park.
+     
+The landlady asked, with great eagerness, who the gentleman was
+who was with me, and said that the men outside were saying that
+they were sure that it was "Rocky Mountain Jim," but she was sure
+it was not.  When I told her that the men were right, she
+exclaimed,  "Do tell!  I want to know! that quiet, kind
+gentleman!" and she said she used to frighten her children when
+they were naughty by telling them that "he would get them, for he
+came down from the mountains every week, and took back a child
+with him to eat!"  She was as proud of having him in her house as
+if he had been the President, and I gained a reflected
+importance!  All the men in the settlement assembled in the front
+room, hoping he would go and smoke there, and when he remained in
+the kitchen they came round the window and into the doorway to
+look at him.  The children got on his knee, and, to my great
+relief, he kept them good and quiet, and let them play with his
+curls, to the great delight of the two women, who never took
+their eyes off him.  At last the bad-smelling supper was served,
+and ten silent men came in and gobbled it up, staring steadily at
+"Jim" as they gobbled.  Afterwards, there seemed no hope of
+quiet, so we went to the post-office, and while waiting for
+stamps were shown into the prettiest and most ladylike-looking
+room I have seen in the West, created by a pretty and
+refined-looking woman.  She made an opportunity for asking me if
+it were true that the gentleman with me was "Mountain Jim," and
+added that so very gentlemanly a person could not be guilty of
+the misdeeds attributed to him.
+     
+When we returned, the kitchen was much quieter.  It was cleared
+by eight, as the landlady promised; we had it to ourselves till
+twelve, and could scarcely hear the music.  It was a most
+respectable dance, a fortnightly gathering got up by the
+neighboring settlers, most of them young married people, and
+there was no drinking at all.  I wrote to you for some time,
+while Mr. Nugent copied for himself the poems "In the Glen" and
+the latter half of "The River without a Bridge," which he recited
+with deep feeling.  It was altogether very quiet and peaceful. 
+He repeated to me several poems of great merit which he had
+composed, and told me much more about his life.  I knew that no
+one else could or would speak to him as I could, and for the last
+time I urged upon him the necessity of a reformation in his life,
+beginning with the giving up of whisky, going so far as to tell
+him that I despised a man of his intellect for being a slave to
+such a vice.  "Too late! too late!" he always answered, "for such
+a change."  Ay, TOO LATE.  He shed tears quietly.  "It might have
+been once," he said.  Ay, MIGHT have been.  He has excellent
+sense for every one but himself, and, as I have seen him with a
+single exception, a gentleness, propriety, and considerateness of
+manner surprising in any man, but especially so in a man
+associating only with the rough men of the West.  As I looked at
+him, I felt a pity such as I never before felt for a human being.
+
+My thought at the moment was, Will not our Father in heaven, "who
+spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," be far
+more pitiful?  For the time a desire for self-respect, better
+aspirations, and even hope itself, entered his dark life; and he
+said, suddenly, that he had made up his mind to give up whisky
+and his reputation as a desperado.  But it is "too late."  A
+little before twelve the dance was over, and I got to the crowded
+little bedroom, which only allowed of one person standing in it
+at a time, to sleep soundly and dream of "ninety-and-nine just
+persons who need no repentance."  The landlady was quite taken up
+with her "distinguished guest."  "That kind, quiet gentleman,
+Mountain Jim!  Well, I never! he must be a very good man!"
+     
+Yesterday morning the mercury was 20 degrees below zero.  I think
+I never saw such a brilliant atmosphere.  That curious phenomenon
+called frost-fall was occurring, in which, whatever moisture may
+exist in the air, somehow aggregates into feathers and fern
+leaves, the loveliest of creations, only seen in rarefied air and
+intense cold.  One breath and they vanish.  The air was filled
+with diamond sparks quite intangible.  They seemed just glitter
+and no more.  It was still and cloudless, and the shapes of
+violet mountains were softened by a veil of the tenderest blue. 
+When the Greeley stage wagon came up, Mr. Fodder, whom I met at
+Lower Canyon, was on it.  He had expressed a great wish to go to
+Estes Park, and to hunt with "Mountain Jim," if it would be safe
+to do the latter.  He was now dressed in the extreme of English
+dandyism, and when I introduced them, he put out a small hand
+cased in a perfectly-fitting lemon-colored kid glove.[22]  As the
+trapper stood there in his grotesque rags and odds and ends of
+apparel, his gentlemanliness of deportment brought into relief
+the innate vulgarity of a rich parvenu.  Mr. Fodder rattled so
+amusingly as we drove away that I never realized that my Rocky
+Mountain life was at an end, not even when I saw "Mountain Jim,"
+with his golden hair yellow in the sunshine, slowly leading the
+beautiful mare over the snowy Plains back to Estes Park, equipped
+with the saddle on which I had ridden 800 miles!
+
+[22] This was a truly unfortunate introduction.  It was the first
+link in the chain of circumstances which brought about Mr.
+Nugent's untimely end, and it was at this person's instigation
+(when overcome by fear) that Evans fired the shot which proved
+fatal.
+
+A drive of several hours over the Plains brought us to Greeley,
+and a few hours later, in the far blue distance, the Rocky
+Mountains, and all that they enclose, went down below the prairie
+sea.
+
+I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+
+End Project Gutenberg Etext of A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
+
+
+
+
+
+
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