¥-r '3: 6^71 5 ^ ^ < Ph m W H en A LADY'S LIFE or THB ROCKY MOUNTAINS By ISABELLA L. BIRD, AUTHOR OF * SIX MONTHS IN THE SANCWICa I8LAND0,' ETC. WKl WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. SEVENTH EDITION. NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 37 AND 29 West 23d Street 3 \ J • • - . . . ','«'".* .':.•"' ••*.*•; !'•••'• r ■* •• •*•••• •*,* '• ••• .*• ; • • : : . • • ••.•:• ° •. • . • *. • • : • Press of G. P. Putnam's Sons Mew York TO MY SISTEB, TO WHOM THESE LETTERS WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEH, THEY ARE NOW AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATEU NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. For the benefit of other lady trayellers, I wish to exphiin that my " Hawaiian riding dress " is the "American Lady's Mountain Dress," a half- fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles^ and full Turk- ish trousers gathered into frills falling over the boots, — a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough travelling, as in the Alps or any other part of the world. I. L. B. November 37, 1879. >fOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION. In censequence of the unobserved omission of a date to n?7 letters having been pointed out to me, I take this opportunity of stating that I travelled in Colo- rado 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 re- turned 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 foot- prints of elk and bighorn may be sought for in vain on the dewy slopes of Estes Park. I. L. B. January 10, 1880. TABLE OF CONTENTS. LETTER I. Lake Tahoe — Morning in San Francisco — Dust — A Pacific mafl train — Digger Indians — Cape Horn — A mountain hotel — A pioneer — A Truckee livery stable — A mountain stream — Find- ing a bear— Tahoe .... Pages 1-16 IL A lady's "get-up" — Grizzly bears — The "Gem of the Sierras" — A tragic tale — A carnival of colour , . 17-24 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 . 25-39 IV. A plague of flies — A melancholy charioteer — Tlie Foot Hills — A mountain boarding-house — A dull life — " Being agreeable " — Climate of Colorado — Soroche and snakes . 40-48 A dateless day — " Those hands of 5'ours " — A Puritan — Persevering ahiftlessness — The house-mothtT — Family worship — A grim Sunday — A "thick-skulled Englishman" — A morning call — Another atmosiihcre — The Gri'iit Lone Laild — "111 found" — A log ctiinp — Bad footing for horses — Accidents — Disappoint- ment ...... 40-72 i CONTENTS. VI. A broTico mare — An accident— Wonderland — A sad story— Th« 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 . . . Pages 73-98 VII. Personality of Long's Peak— " Mountain Jim "—Lake of the Liliea —A silent forest— The camping ground—" Ring "—A lady's Oower — Dawn and sunrise — A glorious view — Links of diamonds— The ascent of the Peak— The " Dog's Lift "-Suffer- ing from thirst— The descent— The bivouac . 97-118 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 waggon " — A musical evening . 119-142 IX. ' Please ma'ams." — A desperado — A cattle hunt — The muster— A mad cow — A snow-storm — Snowed up — Birdie — The Plains A prairie schooner— Denver— A find— Plum Creek — " Being agreeable" — Snowbound — The grey mare . 143-166 A white world — Bad travelling — A millionaire's home Pleasant Park — Perrj''s Park — Stock raising — A cattle king The Arkansas Divide — Birdie's sagacity — Luxury — Monument Pirk — Deference to prejudice — A death scene — The Manito CONTENTS. XI A loose shoe — The Ute Pass — Bergen's Park — A settler's home ^Hayden's Divide — Sharp criticism — Speaking the truth Pages 167-192 XI. Tarryall Creek — The Red Range — Excelsior — Unfortunate pedlara Snow and heat — A bison calf — Deep drifts — South Park — The Great Divide— Comanche Bill — Difficulties — Hall's Gulch — A Lord Dundreary — Ridiculous fears . . 193-207 XIL 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 ..... 208-223 XIIL rho 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 sur- prise — A night arrival — Making the best of it — Scanty fare ..... . 224-238 XIV. A dismal ride — A desperado's tale — "Lostt Lost I Lost I" — "Winter glories— Solitude — Hard times — Intense cold — A pack of wolves— The beaver dams — Ghastly scenes — Venison steaks — Our evenings ..... 239-252 XV. A whisky slave — The pleasures of monotony — The mountain lion — "Another mouth to feed" — A tiresome boy — An outcast— xu CONTENTS. Thanksgiving Day— The new-comer — A literary humbug- Milking a dry cow — Trout-fishing — A snow-storm — A desper- ado's den .... Pages 253-270 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" . . 271-284 XVII. Woman's Mission— The last morning- Crossing the St. Vrain— Miller — The St. Vrain again — Crossing theprairie—" 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 . . 285-296 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Estes Park . . . Bad footing for horses . Grand Crater . Lava beds, Long's Peak My home in the Rocky Mountains The Great Divide An Indian Camp . • Frontispiece. To face page 67 •I M >l „ 101 „ 107 „ 120 „ 203 ,. 316 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 colour ; and a pine-hung lake wliich 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 1700 feet deep. It lies at a height of 6000 feet, and the snow-crowned summits which wall it in are from 8000 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 V. 2 A lady's life in LETTEKl, 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 vine- yards, 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 fulness. 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 squashea of gigantic size lie almost unheeded on the ground ; fat cattle, gorged almost to repletion, shade them- Belves under the oaks; superb "red" horses shine, LKTTEE I. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 3 not with grooming, but with condition ; and thriving fiEirms every^'here 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° m the shade, and the fine white dust was stifling. In the late afternoon we began the ascent of the Sierras, whose saw-like points had been in sight for many miles. The dusty fertility was all left beliind, the country became rocky and gravelly, and deeply scored by streams bearing the muddy wash of the mountain gold-mines down to the muddier Sacra- mento. 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 six P.M. the last traces of cultivation and the last hardwood trees were left beliind. At Colfax, a station at a heiirht of 2400 feet, I cot 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 poliahed brass-work, comfortable glass houses, and 4 A lady's life in LETTEai. well-stuffed seats for the engine-drivers. The engines and tenders were succeeded by a baggage-car, a mail- car, and Wells, Fargo, and Co.'s express-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 aU the othera, making altogether a train alyout 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, with- out any aptitude for even aboriginal civilisation, 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 fiat 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 combina- tion of coarse woollen cloth and hide, the moccasina being xmornamented. They were all hideous and LKTTERl. TiiE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 5 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 civilisation. The light of the sinking sun from that time glori- fied the Sierras, and as the dew fell, aromatic odours made the still air sweet. On a single track, some- times carried on a narrow ledge excavated from the mountain side by men lowered from the top in baskets, overhanging ravines from 2000 to 3000 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 2500 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 6 A lady's life in letter I. 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° to 29°, and we had ascended 6987 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 travelled 258 miles. Truckee, the centre 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. Tiie 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 LETTER I. THE llOCKY MOUNTAINS. 7 the mconliglit, 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 pass- engers. 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 tliat great height, and when an "irrepressible nigger," who seemed to represent the hotel establishment, deposited me and my carpet- bag in a room which answered for " the parlour," 1 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 mascuhne. It was then 11.30 p.m., and I had not liad a meal since 6 8 A lady's life m letter l 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 civilised for Mm, " but nothing," he added, " was likely to change much in Truckee." I was after- wards told that the usual regular hours of sleep are not observed there. The accommodation is too limited for the population of 2000,^ which is masculine mainly, and is liable to frequent temporary additions, and beds are occupied continuously, though by different * Nelson's Gtdde to the Central Pacific Railroad, LETTEBI. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 9 occupants, tlirougliout the greater part of the tweuty- 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. This morning Truckee wore a totally different aspect. The crowds of the night before had dis- appeared. 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. Pub- lic worship has died out at present ; work is discon- tinued on Sunday, but tlie day is given up to pleasure. Putting a minimum of indispensables into a bag, and slipping on my Hawaiian riding-dress over a silk skirt, and a dust-cloak over all, I stealthily crossed tlie plaza to the livery-stable, the largest building in Truclcee, where twelve fine horses were stabled in stalls on eacli side of a broad drive. My friend of the evening before showed me his " rig," three velvet- covered side-saddles almost without horns. Some 10 A lady's life in leiter I ladies, lie said, used the horn of the Mexican saddle, but none " in this part " rode cavalier fashion. I felt abashed. 1 could not ride any distance in the con- ventional mode, and was just going to give up this splendid " ravage," when the man said, " Eide 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 orna- mental 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. Once on horseback my embarrassment disap- peared, 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 Eailroad, 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 traQers hang, LETTEE I, THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 11 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 removes all lassitude, and gives one spirit enough for any- thing. 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, un- clouded, sunny blue. At this altitude of 6000 feet one must learn to be content with varieties of coni- feroe, 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 ^ which, though not so large as the "VVellingtonia 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 tldrd of their height, their diameter from seven to fifteen feet, their shape that of a larcli, but with the needles long and dark, and cones a foot long. Pines cleft the sky ; they ' Pinna Lamherliana. 12 A lady's life in letter I were massed wherever level ground occurred; they stood over the Truckee at right angles, or lay acrosa 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 tliis 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. The track is a soft, natural, waggon 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 of it, I tried his heavy " lope " with much amusement. I met nobody, and passed nothing on the road but a freight waggon, drawn by twenty-two oxen, guided by three fine- looking young 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 worsliip. The forest was thick, and had an undergrowth of dwarf spruce and brambles, but LET! ER I. TUE EOCKY MOUNTAIXS. x3 as the liorse 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 imagina- tion had magnified a wild boar, but it was a bear. The horss snorted and plunged violently, as if he would go down to the river, and then turned, stOl 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 tlQ I was close to him, then turned round and cantered away. After walking about a mile in deej) dust, I picked up first the saddle- blanket and next my bag, and soon came upon tlie horse, standing facing me, and shaking all over. I thought I sliould catch liim then, but when I went up to him he turned round, threw up his heels seve- ral 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 14 A lady's life in letter I. wooden stirrups thumping liis 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 dis- tance by me to see that I was " all right." He said that the woods in the neighbourhood 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 trouble- some. 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 LETTER I. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. ] 5 "living light," exquisite chipmonks ran across the track, but only a dusty blue lupin here and there reminded me of earth's fairer cliildren. 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 loveli- ness 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 snow-shoes. 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, chipmonks, martens, minks, skunks, foxes, squirrels, and snakes. On its margin I found an irregular wooden inn, with a lumber- waggon at the door, on which was the carcass of a large grizzly bear, shot behind the house this morn- ing. I had intended to ride ten miles farther, but, finding that the trail in some places was a " blind ' one, and being beivitched by the beauty and serenity 16 A lady's life in letter i. of Tahoe, I have remained here sketching, revelling in the view from the verandah, and strolling in the forest. At tliis 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 stUl 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 wliich 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 colour, 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. T T T> 1. h. i>» LETTEBn. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS 17 LETTER IL A Lady's *' Get-np "— Cxrizzly Bears— Tlie "Gem of the Sierras" — A Tragic Tale — A Carnival of Colour. Chetenne, "Wyoming, September 7. As night came on the cold intensified, and the stove in the parlour attracted every one. A San Francisco lady, much " got up " in paint, emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, ^nd diamonds, rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descrip- tions 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 countrywomen 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 tlie neighbourhood and its wild beasts, especially bears. The forest is full of them, but they seem never to attack people unless when 18 lady's life in LETTER It wounded, or much aggravated by dogs, or a she- bear 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. Wlien I mounted my horse after break- fast the sun was high and the air so keen and intoxi- cating that, giving the animal his head, I galloped up and down lull, 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- coloured 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 "grizzlie" yesterday. Tlien 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 LETTER II. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 19 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 recjion. These men might hare 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 centre of Truckee, and skulked througli a collection of Cliinamen's shanties to the stable, where a pro- digious 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 enjoy- ing 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 liad 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 Hke a fly on him. The road at first lay through a valley without 20 A lady's life in lkttkk ii. a ri">''er, but some swampislmess nourished some rank swamp-grass, the first green grass I have seen in America ; and the pines, with tlieir red stems, looked beautiful rising out of it. I hurried along, and came upon the Donner Lake quite suddenly, to be com- pletely 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.^ 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 6000 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 Eaiboad, which shuts out from travellers 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. ' Visitors can now be accomniodatecl at a tolerable mountain lioteL LETTER II. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 21 In tlie morning they found themselves surrounded by an expanse of snoTv, 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 succour the three who had been' left behind. In the early spring, when the snow was hard enough for travelling, 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, tak'ing the German with them, whose story was that Mr. Donner died in the fall, and that the cattle escaped, leaving tliem but little food, and that when this was exliaiisted Mrs. Donner died. The story never gained any credence, and the 22 A lady's life in letter il 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. 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 pro- montories, 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 odours floated on the air, and stiD 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. East- wards 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 LETTER il THE ROCKY JIOUNTAINS. 23 cobalt. Before long a carnival of colour began which I can only describe as delirious, intoxicating, a Imrdly 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 ethereal- ised away and became clear and pure as an amethyst, while all the waving ranges and the broken pine- clothed ridges below etherealised 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 realised that night had come with its ecriness, and putting my great horse into a 24 A lady's life in LETfERa 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. LBTTfifi UL TEE fiOCKY MOUiJTAIiJS. 26 LETTER m. k Temple of Morpheus— Utah — A " God-forgotten " Town — A di»- tressed Couple — Dog Villages — A Temperance Colony — A Colorado Inn — The Bug pest — Fort Collins. Cheyenne, Wtominq, 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 Cali- fornia 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 centre passage, rich rep curtains, green and crimson, striped with gold, hung from sUver bars running near the roof, and traded on the soft Axminster caqjet. The temperature was carefully kept at 70°. It waa 29 outside. Silence and freedom from jolting were lO 26 A lady's life in letter III. 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 pineSj 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 travelled 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, pur- pling like all else in the cool distance, was all that linked one with eastern or western civilisation. The next morning, when the steward unceremo- niously turned us out of our berths soon after sun- rise, we were running down upon the Great Salt Lake, bounded by the white Wahsatch ranges LETTER III. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 27 Along its shores, by means of irrigation, Mormon industry lias 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 liideous. 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"^ to break the mono- tony. The wheel marks of the trail to Utah often ran parallel with the track, and bones of oxen were bleach- ing in the sun, the remains of those " whose carcasses fell in the wilderness" on the long and droutliy journey. The daybreak of to-day (Sunday) found us shivering at Fort Laramie, a frontier post dismally situated at a height of 7000 feet. Another 1000 feet over gravelly levels brought us to Sherman, the highest ' The mountains which bound tho "Valley of the Babbling Waters," Utah, allord Btriking examples of these "knobs" oi "buttes." 28 A lady's life in lettek iil level reached by this railroad. From this point east- ward the streams fall into the Atlantic. The ascent of these apparently level plateaus is called " crossing the Eocky 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 roll- ing 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 tlie door of the hotel in this detestable place. The surrounding plains are endless and verdure- less. 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 settle- ment. Cheyenne is described as " a God-forsaken, God-forgotten place." That it forgets God is written on its face. Its owes its existence to the railroad, and has diminished in population, but is a depot for a large amount of the necessaries of life wliich are distributed through the scantily settled-districts within distances of 300 miles by "freight waggons," each drawn by four or six horses or mules, or double that uumler of oxen. At times over 100 waggons, with LrriER III. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 29 double that number of teamsters, are in Cheyenne at once. A short time ago it was a perfect pandemo- nium, mainly inhabited by rowdies and desperadoes, the scum of advancing civilisation; and murders, stabbings, shootings, 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 fmd the state of matters intolerable, organise themselves into a Vigilance Committee. " Judge Lynch," with a few feet of rope, appears on the scene, the majority crystallises round the sup- porters 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 ruflians were disposed of in this way here in a single fortnight. Cheyenne is now as safe as Hilo, and the inter\'al between the most desperate lawlessness and the time when United States law, with its corruption and feebleness, comes upon the scene is one of com- parative security and good order. Piety is not the forte of Cheyenne. The roads resound with atrocious profanity, and the rowdyism of tlie saloons and bar- rooms is repressed, not extirpated. 30 A lady's life in letter III The population, once 6000, is now about 4000 It is an ill-arranged set of frame houses and shanties;* and rubbish heaps, and offal of deer and antelope, produce the foulest smeUs 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' promis- cwjusly 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 slou(3hing bar-room-looking characters, and looks a place of low, mean lives. Below the hotel windows 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 travelling amble, then a party of Indians in paint and feathers, but civilised 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 horse- men, in peaked hats, blue-hooded coats, and high boots, heavily armed with revolvers and repeating rifles, and riding smaU wiry horses. A solitary wag- ^ 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 dig- gings it is increasing in population and importance. — July 1879- LETTER III. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 31 gon, with a white tilt, drawn by eight oxen, is pro- babl}' bearing an emigrant and his fortunes to Colo- rado. On one of the dreary spaces of the settlement six white-tilted waggons, each with twelve oxen, aie ntanding on their way to a distant part. Everything suggests a beyond. 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 an- other equally valuable one of " authentication '* and recommendation from Mr. Bowles, of the Sprinajield Repuhlican, 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, T wonder, in this region of hard greed? Uan it not be bought by dollars here, like every other commodity, votes included ? Last night I made the acquaintance of a sliadowy gentleman from Wiscon- sin, far gone in consumption, with a spirited wife and young baby. He had been ordered to the Plains as a hist resource, but was much worse. Early this morning lie crawled to my door, scarcely able to speak from deljility and bleeding from the lungs, begging me to go to his wife, who, the doctor said. 32 A lady's life in letter hi. 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 medi- cine. The lady was blue, and in great pain from cramp, and the poor unweaned infant was roaring for the nourishment wliich 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 EigoUot'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 LETTER in. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 33 covered thinly witli 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 these villages, which are com- posed of raised circular orifices, about eighteen inches in diameter, with sloping passages leading down- wards for five or sLx feet. Hundreds of these bur- rows 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 D 34 A lady's life in letter III, o> 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 imagina- tion. Still, it was truly grand, although it was sixty miles off, and we were looking at it from a platform 5000 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 fiv^e 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 distri- butes its waters on reasonable termxS, have already a population of 3000, and are the most prosperous and rising colony in Colorado, being altogetlxer free from LETTER III. THE ROCKV MOUNTAINS. 35 either laziness or crime. Their rich fields are arti- ficially 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 con- sumption 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 opened for the sale of drink near their frontier, pouring the wliisky 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 revebies. 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, 36 A lady's LIFE IN letter Jil, Its cliief 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 hroncos, 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 house- wives 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 Eocky Mountains looked magnificent. I tried the pony again, but found he would not do LErrERiii. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 37 for a long journey ; and as my Vermont acquaintance offered me a seat in liis waggon to Fort Collins, 25 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 Eiver 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 waggons with white tilts. Except where the prairie dogs have honeycombed the ground, you can drive almost anywhere, and the passage of a few waggons 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 travelled hour after hour with nothing to see except some dog towns, with their quaint little eentinels ; but the view in front was glorious. The 38 A lady's life in letter iil Alps, from the Lom'bard plains, are the finest moun- tain 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 apologising to me for being without their coats, as if coats would not be an enor- mity 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 waggon 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 5000 head of Texan cattle travelling from Southern Texas to Iowa. They had been nine months on the way ! They "were under the charge of twenty mounted ;«i,geie8. LETTER III. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 39 vacheros, heavily armed, and a liglit waggon accom- panied them, full of extra rifles and ammunition, not unnecessary, for the Indians are raiding in all direc- tions, maddened by the reckless and useless slaughter of the buffalo, which is their cliief 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 waggon, 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 wliat ? The mountains look hardly nearer than from Greeley ; one only realises their vicinity by the loss of their higher peaks. This house is freer from bugs tlian the one at Greeley, but fuU of flies. These new settlements are altogether revolting, entirely utili- tarian, given up to talk of dollars as well as to making tliem, with coarse speech, coarse food, coarse every- tliing, nothing wherewith to satisfy tlie higher crav- ings 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. 4U A LADY S LIFE IN LETTER IT. LETTER IV. A Plagus of Flies — A melanclioly Charioteer — TLe Foot Hills — A Mountain BoarJing-House — A dull Life — " Being Agreeable"— ^ Climate of Colorado — Soroclie and Snakes. Canyon, September IS. I WAS actually so dull and tired tliat I deliberately slept away the afternoon in order to forget the heat and flies. Tliirty men in working clothes, silent and sad-loolving, 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 board- ing-house, as I know them in America, was rather formidable in the present state of my wardrobe, and LETTER IV. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 41 I decided on bringing my carpet-bag, as well as my pack, lest I sliould 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 cheerfid. 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 in- dentation 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 imme- diately. Skeletons and bones of animals were often to be seen. A range of low, grassy hills, called tho 42 A LADY'S LIFE IN LETTER IV. 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 widest 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, wliich 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 colour, 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 sombre, when, after driving for nine hours, and travelling 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 LETTER IV. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 43 to a sort of tripartite valley, with a majestic crooked canyon 2000 feet deep opening upon it. A rushing stream roared through it, and the Eocky 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 out- sides 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, par- tially 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 waggon 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 giim smile deepening the melancholy of liis 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 44 A lady's life in letter iv; 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 diffi- culties 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 notliing ever happens" When the buggy disappeared, I felt as if I had cut the bridge behind me. I sat down and knitted for some LETTER IV. THE EOCKY FOUNTAINS. 45 time — my usual resource under discouraging circum- stances. I really did not know how I should get on. There was no tahle, 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 sometlaing to do, and took no notice of me. I went back, and then an awkward girl of sixteen, with uncombed hair, and a painful repulsive- ness of face and air, sat on a log for half an hour and stared at me. I tried to draw her into tallv, but she twirled her fingers and replied snappishly in mono- syllables. Could I by any effort "make myself agreeable?" I wondered. The day went on. I put on my Hawaiian dress, rolhng 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 liave 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 labour, I sleep well At dusk 46 A lady's life in letter iv. 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 enou*,h. 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 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 dis- gust. My mirror is the polished inside of my watch- case. 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, wiiting to you, and the various odds and ends which arise when one has to do all for oneself At twelve and BIX some food is put on the box by the door, and at dusk we make up our beds. A distressed emigrant LETTER IV. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 47 woman lias just given birtli 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 no better shelter than a waggon tilt or a blanket on sticks laid across four poles. The climate of Colorado is considered the finest in North America, and consumptives, asthmatics, dys- peptics, and sufferers from nervous diseases, are here in hundreds and thousands, either trying the " camp cure " for three or four months, or settling here per- manently. People can safely sleep out of doors for six months of the year. The plains are from 4000 to 6000 feet high, and some of the settled " parks," or mountain valleys, are from 8000 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 sunmier nor so cold in winter as tliat of the States, and when the days are hot, the niglits are cool. Snow rarely lies on the lower ranges, and horses and cattle don't require to be either ted or housed during the winter. Of course the rarefied air quickens respiiation. All this is from liearsay.^ I am not under favourable circum- * The curative effect of the climate of Colorado can hardly bo 48 A lady's life in lettee IV. stances, either for mind or body, and at present I feel a singular lassitude and difficulty in taking exercise^ but tliis is said to be the milder form of the affection 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 found 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, sting- ing, humming, buzzing, striking, rasping, devouring ! exaggerated. In travelling extensively througli tlie Territory afterwards I found that nine out of every ten settlers were cured invalids. Statistics and medical works on the climate of the State (as it now is) represent Colorado as the most remarkable sanatorium in the world. L L. K utTTER V. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 49 LETTEE Y. 8k. Dateless Day — "Those liands of yours" — A Puritan — Persever- ing Shiftlessness — The House-Mother — Family Worship — A Grim Sunday — A " Thick-skulled Englishman " — A Morning Call — Another Atmosphere — The Great Lone Land — "111 Found" — A Log Camp^Bad Footing for Horses — Accidents- Disappointment. Canton, September. The absence of a date shows my predicament. They have no newspaper ; / 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 mono- tony 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 theirs 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 fraternising was, however, snubbed. A few days ago, having finished 60 A lady's life in le-itei: V, 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 liands 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 improvising 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 mv favourite couplet, — " Beware of desperate steps ; the darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away." LETIEKV. THE ROCKY JIOUNTAIXS. 51 But oh ! what a hard, naiTow 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 con- sumption, 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 tliink 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 Eeformed Presbyterians (" Psalm-singers "), but exaggerates anything of bigotry and intolerance which may characterise them, and rejoices in truly merciless fashion over the excision of the philanthropic ]\Ir. Stuart, of Pliiladelphia, for worshipping with congre- gations wliich sing hymns. His great boast is that his ancestors were Scottish Covenanters. He con- siders 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 wliich I make to the progress of Victoria as a personal insult. He trusts to live to see the downfall of the British mon- 52 A lady's life in LETTEn V. arcliy and the disintegration of the empire. He is very fond of talking, and asks me a great deal abont my travels, but if I speak favourably of the climate or resoiirces 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 primi- tive 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 waggon 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 labour till the evening;" and if they do not ' late take rest," they truly " eat the bread of careful- ness." It is hardly surprising that nine years of perseveruig shiftlessness should have resulted in LETTER V. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 53 nothing iDut the aHlity to procure the bare necessaries of life. Of ]\Irs. 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 sldftlessness. She always speaks of me as " this " or " that woman." The family consists of a grown-up son, a shiftless, melancholy-looking youth, who pos- sibly pines for a wider life ; a girl of sixteen, a sour, repellent-looking creature, with as much manners as a pig ; and three hard, unchildlike 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 apologising 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 ot nearly 54 A lady's life in letter v. 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 broncho 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, love- less, 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 LETTER V. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 55 of the tone of the imprecatory psalms, he has high authority in his favour ; 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°. 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 56 A lady's life in letter v. had left, and soon fell asleep. "VVlien 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. 1 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 k 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 o^vn 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, un- LETTER V. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 57 beautified, 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.-^ An English physician is settled about half a mile from here over a hill. He is spoken off 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 liim also of holding \iews 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 8un-bonnet, and had her dress tied up as w^hen wash- ing. It was not till I reached the gate that I remem- bered that I was in my Hawaiian riding-dress, and that I still wore the spurs with which I had been trj'ing a horse in the morning ! The house was in a * I have not cm-tailed this description of the roughness of a Colorado settler's life, for, with the exceptions of the disrepair and the Puritinisni, it is a type of the hard, uiiornamented existence with which I came almost universally in contact during my sub- •eciucnt residence in the Territory. 58 A lady's life in lettjskv grass valley wliicli opened from the tremendous canyon through which the river had cut its way. The Poot 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, wliich bore a delightful resemblance to a Swiss chalet. It stood in a vegetable garden fertilised by an irrigat- ing 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 refresliing 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 con- cealed 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 "Vir- ginia creeper, and white muslin curtains, and above all two shelves of admirably-chosen bocks, gave the room almost an air of elegance. Why do I write lETTERV. THE ROCKY ]\IOUNTAIXS. 59 almost ? It was an oasis. It was barely three weeks since I had left " the communion of educated mei:," 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 cabia. 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 extemporised 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 spqke 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 teU Chalmers that it v.'as he and such as he, there or anywhere, 60 A lady's life in letteev. with narrow hearts, bitter tongues, and harsh judg- ments, who were the true " Mrs. Grundys," dwarfing individuality, checking lawful freedom of speech, and making men " offenders for a word," but I forebore. How 1 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 famdy 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 naan " 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 Eegion, Rocky Mountains, Septemher. 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 com- pelled to live here in soHtude one might truly say of the bears, deer, and elk which abound, " Their tame- ness 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 LETTEiiV. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 61 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 occu- pies for a few weeks for the purpose of elk-hunting, but all the region is unsurveyed, and mostly unex- plored. 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 apjsly to me, I should now write, with bitter emphasis, " tliat man " and " that woman " have gone in search of them. The scenery up here is glorious, combining sub- limity 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 62 A lady's life in letteev. Bceneiy 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 lustre, as glorious a mountain as the sun tinges red in either hemisphere — the splintered, pinnacled, lonely, ghastly, impos- ing, double-peaked summit of Long's Peak, the Mont Blanc of Northern Colorado,-^ This is a view to which nothinir needs to be O added. This is truly the " lodge in some vast wil- derness" for which one often sighs when in the midst 1 Gray's Peak and Pike's Peak have their partisans, but after geeing them all under favourable aspects. Long's Peak stands in my memory as it does in that vast congeries of mountains, alone in imperial grandeur. LETTER V. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 63 of " a bustle at once sordid and trivial." In spite of Dr. Jolmson, these " monstrous protuberances " do "inflame the imagination and elevate the under- standing." This scenery satisfies my soul. Now, the Eocky Mountains realise — nay, exceed — the dream of my cliildhood. 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 7500 feet, which can be reached by going down to tlie plains and then strilcing up the St. Vrain Canyon, but tliis is a distance of 55 miles, and as Chalmers was confident that he could take me over the mountains, a distance, as he supposed, of about 20 mQes, we left at mid-day yesterday, with the fervent hope, on my part, that I might not return. i\Irs. 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 tliat two thicldy-quilted cotton " spreads " liad been disposed of under my saddle, making it broad, higli, and uncomfortable. Any human being must have laughed to see an expedi- tion start 80 grotesquely " ill found." I had a very 54 A lady's life in lettee V 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 a 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 Eosinante from mane to tail. Mrs. C. wore an old print skirt, an old short-gown, a print apron, and a sun-bonnet, with the 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. "VYith 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 hair had all been shaven off, except a tuft for a tassel at the end. Two flour baga which leaked were tied on beliind the saddle, two LETTER V. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 65 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. "VVe 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 IMagellan. 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 Eange, 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 V 66 A lady's life in letteev. had been arranged by a landscape gardener. Tar 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 out- line of the Snowy Eange. 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-coloured 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 be- fore us as a landmark in purple glory ; and still at tETTERV. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 67 his feet lay a hollow filled wdth deep blue atmosphere, where I knew that Estes Park must lie, and still "between us and it lay never-lessening miles of inac- cessibility, and the sun was ever westering, and the shadows ever lengthening, and Chalmers, who had started confident, bumptious, blatant, was ever be- coming 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 expedi- tion, 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. T'.en Mrs C.'s. horse and the mule fell on the top rf »ach other, and on recovering them- 68 A lady's life IN" LETTEBV selves bit each other savagely. The ra\dne became a wild gulch, the dry bed of some awM 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 mucli 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 wander- ing was only recalled to the right one by my perti- nacious assertions acting on liis weak brain. 1 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, "vdth violent gusts of wind, and the shelter of the camp, dark and cold as it was, was desirable. We r.A II \ I II) 1 l.\(, I I il; III i|; r (Pa^e 68) LETTER V. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 69 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 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 despera- tion, said, " He's the most ignorant, careless, good-for- nothing man I ever saw," upon which I dwelt upon his being weU-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 feU. 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 fuUy a pint of cherrystones in it, and have spent an hcuy in getting the kernels; and lo ! now, at half- past nine, I see the culprit and his wife coming back witli the animals ! 1. L. 13. 70 A lady's life in letter V, Lower Canton, September SI. 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 trad. Chalmers tried gulch after gulch again, his self- assertion giving way a little after each failure ; some- times going east when we should have gone west, always being brought up by a precipice or other im- possibility. 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. Yainly 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 tliicket 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 delibe- rately turned his back on Estes Park. He then con- fessed that he was lost, and that he could not find the way back. His wife sat down on the gi'ound and cried bitterly. We ate some dry bread, and then I LETTER V, THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 71 said I had had much experience in travelling, and would take the control of the party, which was agreed to, and we began the long descent. Soon after hia 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 paik. There a fire was built, and we had some bread and bacon ; and then a search for water occu- pied nearly two hours, and resulted in the finding of a mud-hole, trodden and defiled by hundreds of feet of elk, bears, cats, deer, and other beasts, and contain- ing 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 ]\Irs. 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 72 A lady's life in leiterv. with the "bitter cold, that I walked for the last hour or two ; and Chalmers, as if to cover his failure, in- dulged in loud, incessant talk, abusing all other reli- gionists, 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 thoiight of Long's Peak in its glorious solitude, and resolved that, come what might, I would reach Estea Park. I. L ? UETTKHVI. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 73 LETTER VL A brono) Mare — An Accident — Wonderland — ^A Sad Story — ^Tlw 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, Septemher 25. Tins is another world. My entrance upon it was sig- nalised in this fashion. Chalmers offered me a hronco mare for a reasonable sum, and though she was a sliifty, half-broken young thing, I came over here on her to try her, when, just as I was £^oing 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 wliile 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 74 A lady's life in letter VI. 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 qliffs 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 ghmpses 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 colouring in crimson and violet; such an orange, green, and vermilion sky ; such scarlet and emerald clouds ; such an extraordinary dryness and purity of atmo- sphere, and then the glorious afterglow which seems to blend earth and heaven ! For colour, the Eocky Moun- tains 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.^ He and 1 The story is ended now. A few months after my visit Mrs. H. died a few days after her confinement, and was bnried on the bleak hill-side, leaving her husband with five children under six yeara old, and Dr. H. is a prosperous man on one of the sunniest islands of th: Pacific, with the devoted Swiss friend as his second wife. LKTTiiK \i. THE KOCKY MOUi^'TAINS. 75 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 "un- rivalled chmate, boundless resources," etc., and, fas- cinated 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. ]\Irs. Hughes is one of the most charming, cultured, and lovable women I have ever seen, and their marriaije 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, 3very- thing, 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. Th )y have 76 A lady's life in letter VI, one horse, no waggon, 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 addi- tion to the house without help. He has cropped the land himself, and has learned the difficult art of milk- ing 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 malce 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 with- in the house. But the atmosphere of struggles and LETTER VI. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 77 difficulties has already told on these infants. They consider their mother in all things, going "withoul 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, ye withal the most childlike and innocent of children. One of the most painful things in the "VVesten States and Territories is the extinction of chdclhood I have never seen any children, only debased imita- tions of men and women, cankered by greed and self- ishness, and asserting and gaining complete inde- pendence of their parents at ten years old. The atmo- sphere in whicli 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 tVjr his children. Experience has been dearly bought in all ways, and this instance of failure might be a useful warning to professional men without agricul- tural experience not to come and try to make a living by farming in Colorado. My time here has passed very delightfully in spito of my regret and anxiety for tliis interesting family 78 A lady's life in letter VI. 1 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 favourite 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 Eocky Moun- tams, 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 3ondole 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 LETTER VI. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 79 it is now 5 p.m. I plotted that the devoted Swiss giil should go to the nearest settlement with two of the children for the day in a neighbour's waggon, 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 gi-eat 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 paOs, I began upon the tins and pans, the clean- ing 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 pump- kin for the cattle, two of the former weighing 140 lbs. I j)ulled nearly a quarter of an acre of maize, but it was a scanty crop, and the husks were poorly filled. I mucli prefer field work to the scouring of greasy pans and to tlie wash-tub, and both to 'iither sewing or writing. This is not Arcadia. " Smartness," wJiich con- 80 A lady's life in letter VI. sists in over-reacliing your neighbour 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 worsliip 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 occu- pations, 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 indiffer- ence 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 moun- tains. Snow has fallen on the higher ranges, and my hopes of getting to Estes Park are down at zero. tBTTEEVl. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 81 LoxGMOUNT, September 25. Yesterday -was perfect. Tlie 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 hrilliant) sun, and a sirocco like a Vic- torian hot wind. Neuralgia, inflamed eyes, and a sense of extreme prostration followed, and my ac- climatised hosts were somewhat similarly affected. The sparkle, the crystalline atmosphere, and the glory of colour of yesterday, had all vanished. We had borrowed a waggon, 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 im- G 82 A lady's life in letter VI. peiiect slip.de 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-coloured 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 " Irri- gating Ditch No. 2." Then comes a road made up of many converging waggon tracks, which stiffen into a wide straggling street, in which glaring frame- hoi:^es and a few shops stand opposite to each other. A two-storey house, one of the whitest and most glaring, and without a verandah 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, tiQ a glorious sunset over the Rocky Eange, some ten mUes off, compelled us to gc LEiTERTl. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 83 out and enjoy it. Then follo'vred 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 failed, 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 tliat solitude will be impossible. We have been strolling in tlie street ever since it grew dark to get the little air which is moving. 84 A LADYS LIFE IN letter vi. EsTES Park ! ! ! September S8. 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, cheerful- ness, health, enjoyment, novelty, freedom, etc. etc. I have just dropped into the very place I have been seek- ing, 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 slvunk'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 Llan- beris, 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 advised me to go to Colorado Springs, and only one mentioned thia LETTER VI. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 85 place, and till I reached Longmount I never saw any one T^ho 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 tra- velling there is nothing like dissecting people's state- ments, which are usually coloured by their estimate of the powers or likings of the person spoken to, making all reasonable inquiries, and then pertinaciously but quietly carrpng out one's own plans. This is per- fection, 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 tire sunrise over the plains, and the wonderful red of the Eocky ]\Iountains, 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, whicli liad preceded me here. The young men who were to escort me "seemed very innocent," he said, but I have not 86 A lady's life in tETTER VI. arrived at his meaning yet. When the horse ap- peared 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 beliind the I^Iexican 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 alonGf with one to Hanalei, and another to Mauna Kea, Hawaii. I felt better (^uite 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 allcwed me to mount on either side. In addition LETTER VI. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 87 to the charm of hh movements he has the cat-like 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 fii-m 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 innu- merable. 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 88 A lady's life in lettebvl "innocent" young men had been there before ; indeed, it would require some talent to master the intricacies of that de^'ious 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 golden tremulousness, wild grape-vines trailed their lemon- coloured foliage along the ground, and the Virginia creeper hung its crimson sprays here and there, lighting up green and gold into glory. Sometimes from under the cool and bowery shade of the coloured 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, vermihon, greens of all tints, blue, yellow, orange, violet, deep crimson, colouring that no artist would dare to represent, and of which, in sober prose, I scarcely dare tell. Long's wonderful peaks, w^hich 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 Ms works, and plunged into the Eocky Mountains. There were wonderful ascents then tip which I LETTEEVL THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 89 led my horse : mid fantastic views opening up con- tinually, 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 9000 feet brought us to a passage seven feet wide through a wall of rock, with an abrupt descent of 2000 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 knife-like, built up entirely of great brick-shaped masses of bright- red rock, some of them as large as the Eoyal Insti- tution, 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 poisQji oak, parks so beautifully arranged by nature that L momentarily expected to come upon some stately mansion, but that afternoon crested blue jays and chipmonks 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 90 A lady's life in letter VI. and growl the Eocky 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 wliich patches of aspen gleamed like gold; valleys where the yellow cottonwood 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 threaten- ing attitude and growled. The mud roof was covered with lynx, beaver, and other furs laid out to dry, UETTEBVI. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 91 Deaver 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. Eoused 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- s^nt much the worse for wear (almost falling to pieces, ill 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 moccasitis made of horse hide. The marvel was how his clothes hung together, and on liim. 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 moustache and imperial. Tawny hair, in thin uncared-for curls, fell from under liis hunter's cap and over his collar. One eye was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the face repulsive, whQe the other might have been modelled in marble. " Desperado " was written in large letters all over him. I almost repented of 92 A lady's life in letter vt having sought his acquaintance. His first impulse was to swear at the dog, but on seeing a lady he con- tented himself with kicking him, and coming up to me he raised his cap, showing as he did so a magnifi- cently-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 apologising 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."^ This 1 Of tliis 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. Ilis life, without doubt, was deeply stained with crimes and vices, and his reputation for ruffianism was a deserved LETTEEVL THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 93 man, known through the Territories and beyond them as " Eocky 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 liis 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 himseK 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 gentle- man ; but when he's had liquor he's the most awful ruffian in Colorado." one. But in my intercourse with him I saw more of his nobloT instincts than of the daikf-r jiarts of his character, wliich, un- fortunately for himself and others, showed itself in its worst colours at the time of his tragic end. It was not until after 1 left Colorado, not indeed until after his death, that I heaid of the worst points of his character. 94 A lady's life in letter vl From the ridge on which this gulch terminates, at a height of 9000 feet, we saw at last Estes Park, lying 1500 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 moun- tains of fantastic shape and monstrous size, with Long's Peak rising above them aU in unapproachable grandeur, while the Snowy Ptange, 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^ * A corral is a fenced enclosm-e for cattle. This word, with hronco, ramh, and a few others, are adaptations from the Spanish, T-ETTERVi, THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 95 a long slied>.^in front of wliich 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 " ]\Iountain Jim, dressed up as a woman ! " I recognised in him a countryman, and he introduced himself as Griffith Evans, a Welshman from the slate quarries near Llanberis. AVhen 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 rocldng-chairs, a carpet-covered backwoods couch ; and sldns, 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 ; Ijut, to my joy, he told me lie could give me a cabin to myself, two minutes' and are used as extensively throuphout California and the TorritoriM «8 is the Spanish or Mexican saddle. 9G A lady's life in letteb ri. walk from his own. So in this glorious ui)per 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 7500 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. L L B LSTTERVil. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 97 LETTEE YII. " Personality' of Long's Peak — "Mountain Jim" — Lake of the Lilies — A silent Forest — Tlie Camping Ground — "Ring " — A Lady's Bower — Dawn and Sunrise — A glorious View — Links of Dia- monds — 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 disincHned to write it, especially as no sort of description within my powers could enable another to realise the glorious sublimity, the majestic solitude, and the unspeakable awfulness and fascination of the scenes in which I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wed- nesday. Long's Peak, 14,700 feet high, blocks up one end of Estes Park, and dwarfs all the surrounding moun- tains. 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 eye. Erom it come all storms of snow and wind, and the forked lightnings play round its liead like a glory. It ifl u 98 A lady's life in letter VII. one of tlie noblest of mountains, but in one's imagi- nation it grows to be mucli more than a mountain It becomes invested with a personality. In ita caverns and abysses one comes to fancy that it gene- rates and chains the strong winds, to let them loose in its fury. The thunder becomes its voice, and the lio;htnin2;s do it homage. Other summits blush under the morning kiss of the sun, and turn pale the next moment ; but it detains the first sunhght 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 speU-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 up- heaval 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 ]\Ionday, 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 be- fore leaving, Evans said that the weather was looking LETTER VII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS, 99 more settled, and if I did not get farther than the timber line it would be worth going. Soon after he left, "j\Iountain 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. ]\Iy 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 waist- coats over it ; an old smashed wideawake, from under which his tawny, neglected ringlets hung ; and witli 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 100 A lady's life in letter til down ; Lis 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 hand- gallop, and then throwing his mare on her haunches, pulled up alongside of me, and with a grace of man- ner whi(;\h soon made me forget his appearance, entereuvinto 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 etherealising, 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 cotton-wood and LETTER VII. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 101 aspen flaunting iq 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 majrical its beauty was, as it slept in silence, while f^ne the dark pines were mirrored motionless in its pal gold, and here the great white lily cups and dark green leaves rested on amethyst-coloured 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 idealised in the late sunlight, their baked, brown expanse transfigured into the likeness of a sunset sea rolling infinitely in wavea of misty gold. 102 A lady's life in letter vii. We rode upwards through the gloom on a steep trail blazed through the forest, all my intellect con- centrated 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 breatliless, and requiring to stop every few yards, though their riders, except myself, were afuot. 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 water- fall, 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 Serce 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 GRAND CRATKK, NKAR I.ONG^i I'l AK. (I'liK* loa) LETTER VII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 103 spires towards heaven. Hereafter, when I call up memories of the glorious, the view from tliis 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 be- hind, but nearly 3000 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 sno^v^ that, owing to its position, is eternal. Soon the after- glow 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 " w^hich accompanies this letter is by a cou- rageous 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 3000 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 gi-eat lire, and before long we were all sitting round it at Bupper. It didn't matter much that we had to drink our tea out of the battered meat-tins in which it waa 104 A lady's life in letter vii. 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 " Eing," 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 expres- sion, 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. "Pang'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, " Eing, go to that lady, and don't leave her again to-night." "Eing" 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. LETTER vii. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 105 The long shadows of the pines Iciy upon the frosted grass, an aurora leaped fitfully, and the moon- light, though intensely bright, was pale beside the red, leaping flames of our pine logs and their red glow on our gear, ourselves, and Eing'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 melo- dies in a singular falsetto, and all together sang " The Star-spangled Banner " and " The Eed, 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° below the freezing point. "Jim," after a last look at the horses, made a huge fire, and stretched himself out besicle it, but " Eing " lay at my back to keep me warm. I could not sleep, but the night passed rapidly. I was anxious about the Eiscent, for gusts of ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. Then wild animals howled, and " Eing" was perturbed in spirit about them. Then lOG A lady's life in letter VII, 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 Eocky Ilange, 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-coloured. 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 moun- tain 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 gliastly peaks gleamed like rubies, the earth and heavens were new -created. Surely " tbo LETTER VII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 107 Most High dwelletli not in temples made with hands !" For a full hour those Plains simulated the ocean, down to whose limitless expanse of purple, cliffs, 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 atmo- sphere 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 over- shoes, probably left by the Hayden explor- ing expedition, wliich just lasted for the day. As we were leaping from rock to rock, " Jim " said, " I was tliinking in the night about your travelling alone, and wondering where you carried your Derringer, for I could see no signs of it." On my telling him that I travelled unarmed, he could hardly believe it, and adjured me to get a revolver at once. On arriving at the " Notch " (a htcral gate of rock), we found ourselves absolutely on the knife- like ridge or backbone of Long's Peak, only a few feet wide, covered with colossal boulders and frag- 108 A lady's life in letter vil ments, and on tlie other side shelving in one precipi- tous, snow-patched sweep of 3000 feet to a pictur- esque 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-coloured 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 unsuUied 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 LAVA BKDS, LONGS PF.AK. (Fnge xoi\ iETTEBVii. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 109 ridge of tlie Divide, whose briglit waters seek both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There, far below, links of diamonds showed where the Grand Pdver 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. ISTature, 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 humiUated 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 110 A lady's life in letter vil terror. I was roped to " Jim," but it was of no use my feet were paralysed and slipped on tlie 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 \y 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 4000 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 half-way had not " Jim," nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience and skill, and withal a deter- mination that I should ascend the Peak, which never failed. After descending about 2000 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 con- stantly giving way, rendering the footing very inse- cure. That part to me was two hours of painfiil and unwilling submission to the inevitable ; of trembling, slipping, strainiag, of smooth ice appearing when it LETTER vn. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. Ill 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 exhaustin, toil in the rarefied air, with throbbing hearts anu 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 chff in some places that it is neces- sary 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 chiub, one shp, and a breathing, thinking, human being would he 3000 feet below, a shapeless, bloody heap ! "Piing" refused to traverse the Ledge, and remained at the " Lift " howling piteously. Prom thence the view is more niiignificent even 1L2 A lady's life in letter VII. than that from the " Notch." At the foot of the precipice below us lay a lovely lake, wood embo- somed, from or near which the bright St. Vrain and other streams take their rise. I thought how their clear ccld 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, ex- tended 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, snov/ 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 cotton-woods to the distant Platte, and between us and them lay glories of mountain, LETTER VII. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 113 canyon, and lake, sleeping in depths of blue and purple most ravishing to the eye. As we crept from the lodge 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." ^ 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 projec- tions on the granite. To get a toe in these cracks, or here and there on a scarcely ob\dous 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 aU 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 * Let no practical monntaineer be allured by my description into the ascent of Long's Peak. Tmly terrible as it was to me, to a member of the Alpine Club it would not be a feat worth perform- ing. I 114 A lady's life in letter vil the lungs, and the intense dryness of the day and the rarefaction of the air, at a height of nearly 15,000 feet, made respiration very painful. There is always water on the Peak, hut 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 vx^ater, and the gasping for hreath made our mouths and tongues so dry that articulation was difficult, and the speech of all unnatural. From the summit w^ere seen in unrivalled com- bination 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 Eocky Eange, 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 zepbyrs 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 witliin 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 urrTERVii. THE EOCKY MOUXTAINS. 115 might steady my feet against his powerful shoTilders. I was no longer giddy, and faced the precipice of 3500 feet without a shiver. Kepassmg the Ledge and Lift, we accomplished the descent through 1500 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 2000 feet, and then a tremendous ascent to the " Notch." I had various falls, and once hung by my frock, wliich 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 tremen- dous. For the last 200 feet the boulders were of enormous size, and the steepness fearful. Sometimes 1 drew myself up on hands and knees, sometimes crawled; sometimes "Jim" pulled me up by my arras or a lariat, and sometimes I stood on his shoul- ders, or he made steps for me of his feet and hands, but at six we stood on the Notch in the splendour ot the sinking sun, all colour deepening, aU peaks glori- fying, all sliadows purpling, all peril past. "Jim " had parted with his hrusquerie when we parted from the students, and was gentle and con- 116 A lady's life in letter vit Biderate beyond anything, though I knew that he must be grievously disappointed, both in my courage and strength. Water was an object of earnest de- sire. 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 practised eye, but we found only a foot of " glare ice." At last, in a deep hole, he suc- ceeded 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, " Xow, gentlemen, I want a good night's rest, and we rihan'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 arbour, wrapped mjself In a roll of blankets, and was soon asleep. When I woke, the moon was high shining through the silvery LETTER VII. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 117 branches, wliitening the bald Peak above, and glit- tering 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 lilankets with their feet towards the fire. " Pdng " 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 Plougli and Pole Star, with their steady light; the glittering Pleiades, looking larger than I ever saw tliem, and " Orion's studded belt " shining gloriously. Once only some wild animals prowled near the camp, when " Ping," 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 ]\Ir. Xugent, as I always scrupulously called him, told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow whicli had led him to embark on a lawless and desperate life. His 118 A lady's life in letter VIL 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 mountaineer- ing in any part of the world. Yesterday snow fell on the summit, and it will be inaccessible for eight months to come. i. L. x>. IXTTEK Ylll. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINa. 119 LETTER Vin. 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 Waggon " — A musical evening. EsTES Park, Colorado Territory, October S. 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 travellers to express tlie feeling of the new settlers in these Terri- tories. Tliis is not my experience in my cheery mountain home. How tlie rafters ring as I write with songs and mirth, wliile 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 tlie wind raves and howls and plays among the creaking pine branches and 120 A LADVs life in letter VIII. Bnaps 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, "^Vliat is Estes Park?" This name, with the quiet IMidland Counties' sound, sug- gests " park paHngs " 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 after- glow, its blazing noons, its hurricanes sharp and furi- ous, 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 faUow-deer under our English oaks; its graceful "black-tails," swift of foot; its superb big-horns, whose noble leader is to be seen now and then with his classic head against the blue sky on the cop of a colossal rock; its sneaking mountain lion with his hideous nocturnal caterwaulings, the gi'eat * grizzly," the beautiful skunk, the wary beaver, who is always making lakes, damming and turning s^'.reams, cutting down young cotton-woods, and setting an example of thrift and industry ; the wolf, greedy and LBTTEEViii, THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. X21 cowardly ; the coyote and the lynx, and all the lessei fry of mmk, marten, cat, hare, fox, squirrel, and chip- monk, 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 ques- tion,^ " "What is Estes Park ? " Among the striking peculiarities of these mountains are hundreds of high- lying valleys, large and small, at heights varying from 6000 to 11,000 feet. The most important are North Park, held by hostile Indians ; Middle Park, famous for hot springs and trout ; South Park, rich in minerals; and San Luis Park. South Park is 10,000 feet high, a great rolling prairie 70 miles long, well grassed and watered, but nearly closed by snow in winter. But Parksinnumerable are scattered throughout the moun- tains, most of them unnamed, and others nicknamed by the Imnters 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 slop- ing lawnlike to bright swift streams full of red- * Nor should I sit this time, had not Heniy Kingsley, Lord Dunraven, and ''Tlio Field," divulged the charms and whereabout* of thfso "liappy hunting grounds," with the certain result of directing » stream of tourists into the solitary, beast -haunted paradise. l22 A lady's life in lettebviil waistcoated 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 feedmg-grounds of in- numerable wild animals, and some, like one three miles off, seem chosen for the process of antler-cast- ing, the grass being covered for at least a square mile with the magnificent branching horns of the e\k. Estes Park combines the beauties of all. Dismiss all thoughts of the INIidland Counties. For park palings there are mountains, forest skirted, 9000, 11,000, 14,000 feet liigh ; 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' nev^i 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. LETTEEVIII. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 123 everywhere making music tlirough tlie 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 feehug for the pictur- esque, that I am almost angry with Nature for her close imitation of art. But in another hundred yards Nature, glorious, unapproachable, inimitable, is her- self 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 iu the dark primiEval 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 7500 feet high ; and thoiigli tlie sun is hot during the day, the mer- cury 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 124 A lady's life in letteeviii. snowed up, and a number of cattle and horses are wintered out of doors on its sun-cured, saccharine grasses, of wliich the gramma grass is the most valu- able. The soil here, as elsewhere in the neighbour- hood, is nearly everywhere coarse, grey, granitic dust, produced probably by the disintegration of the sur- rounding mountains. It does not hold water, and is never wet in any weather. There are no thaws here. The snow mysteriously disappears by rapid evapora- tion. 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, colum- bine, 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, mak- m" the most of their brief lives in the sunshuie. Of LErrEBViii. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 125 fems, after many a long liimt, I have only found the Cystoptcris fragilis and the Bleclinum 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 dis- satisfied with the uniformity of the foliage ; indeed, foliage can hardly be written of, as the trees properly so called at this height are exclusively Conifcrce, and bear needles instead of leaves. In places there are patches of spindly aspens, wliicli 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 colouring is blackish- green, and though they are effective singly or in groups, they are sombre and almost funereal when densely massed, as here, along the mountain sides. The tim- ber line is at a height of about 11,000 feet, and is singularly weU 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 colour 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 126 A lady's life in LETTEB vim and the winter cold. The universal tree here is the Pinus ponder osa, but it never attains any very con- siderable size, and there is notliing to compare with the red-woods of the Sierra Nevada, far less with the sequoias of Cahfornia. 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, 9000 feet high, called the Devil's Gate. Evans takes a lumber waggon with four horses over the mountains, and a Colorado engineer would have no difficulty in making a waggon road. In several of the gulches over which the track hangs there are the remains of waggons 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 towards 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 dis- posed to encourage such visitors. When Evans, who LETTER viiL THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 127 is a very successful hunter, came here, he came od foot, and for some time after settling here he carried the flour and necessaries required hy 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 cliimney in which pine logs are always burning. At one end there is a door into a smaU 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 througli the chinks and covers the floors, but sweeping it out at intervals is both fun and exercise. There are no heaps or rubbish-places out- Bide. 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 clumney, and that 128 A lady's life in letter VIII, again into a small room witli 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 sun- rises 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 waggon, a room for the hired man, and shelters for horses and wealdy 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, "no- body'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 SjTie," and " John Brown," wliat would the chorus be i.F.TTER vm. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 129 vrithoiit 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 " GrilT" 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 1000 head of cattle, many of wliich 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. K 130 A lady's life in lettebtiil 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 chantje 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 tliis 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 cele- brated African traveller, who, because he rides on an English saddle, and clings to some other insular LETTER vin. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 131 peculiarities, is called " The Earl ; " a miner prospect- ing 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 lining 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 tmth, 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, unselfish- ness, greed, selfishness, and self-sacrifice can be studied hourly, and there is always the unpleasantly exciting risk of an open quarrel with the neighbouring des- perado, 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 got little help from Evans, either as to elk or locations, and go away disgusted and un- successful. Two Englislimen of refinement and culture camped out here prospecting a few weeks 132 A lady's life in letter VIII. ago, and then, contrary to advice, crossed the moun- tains into Xorth Park, where gold is said to abound, and it is believed that they have fallen victims to the bloodthirsty Indians of that 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 inte- rests 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, rumours of a big- horn 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 Pla^'ijs with letters, " Mountain Jim's " latest mood or esca- pade, and the merits of his dog " Pang " 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 LETTER VIII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 133 this "temple not made with hands," in wliich one may worsliip 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 dis- tinctly 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 ■V5rolf — and owls apparently innumerable hooted in- cessantly. The pole-star, exactly opposite my cabin door, burned like a lamp. The frost was sharp. Evans oj tined 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 ])urposes of ingress, the sounds abruptly ceased, and I full 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 134 A lady's life in lETTERViri. 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 render- ing 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 sharp- ening his claws on the under side of my floor, as the grizzlies sharpen theirs upon the trees. The odour 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 neighbourhood. 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 odour can be smelt a mile off". If clothes are touched by the fluid they must be de- stroyed. 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 LETTER VIII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 135 Been nisliing from the dairy and was shot. " Plunk," the bifT dof^. 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 odour from the spot where it fell. I hope that my skunk will enjoy a quiet spirit so long as we are near neighbours. 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 da^vn, when objects are not discernible, it lies there absolutely still, a purplish lead-colour. Then suddenly into its mirror flash inverted peaks, at first a bright orange, then chang- ing into red, making the 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 atmo- sphere of the Park, and the hoar-frost sparkles and the crested blue jays step forth daintily on the jew- elled grass. Tlie 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 colour gained new meanings, I was almost 13G A LADY S LIFE IN LETTER Vlll. false to Hawaii; I couldn't go on wi'iting 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 colour one by one, then fading into sudden ghastliness, the awe-iftspiring 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 colour; 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 ]\Ir. Dew}'-, 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 LETTER viii. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 137 hunters and prospectors lie on the floor smoking, and rifles Ctie cleaned, buUels cast, fishing-flies made, fisliing-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 eveiy 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 demo- cratic 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 liim. Edwards is sombre, except when he lies on the floor in the even- ing, and tells stories of his march through Georgia with Slierman. I gave Evans a lOO-doUar 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 impa- tience. I ride or walk three or four miles out on the Longraount 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 138 A lady's life in LETTEBVIIt us turn out en masse. " "Wait for the waggon " ha3 become a nearly maddening joke^ October 9. The letter and newspaper fever has seized on every one. We have sent at last to Longmount. This evening I rode out on the Longmount trail towards dusk, escorted by "Mountain Jim," and in the distance we saw a waggon 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 waggon 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 uews. 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 cheques, or to allow their customers to draw a dollar, and would not even give greenbacks for my English gold ! Neither Mr. Buchan nor Evans could get a cent. Business is suspended, and everybody, however rich, is for the LETTEB VIIL THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 139 time being poor. The Indians liave taken to the " wai path," and are burning ranches and killing cattle : There is a regular "scare" among the settlers, and wa16 A lady's life in letter xil •whisky. An attempt has recently been made tc 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 atmo- sphere. 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 moun- tains 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 suVjlimer than when I first saw it from Greeley, all spiritualised in the wonderful atmosphere. I went direct to Evans's house, where I found a hearty wel- come, as they had been anxious about my safety, and Evans almost at once arrived from Estes Park witb three elk, one grizzly, and one bighorn in his waggon 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 unTER XII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 217 the unwelcome news that the goodly fellowship waa broken up. The Dewys and Mr. Waller were in Den- ver, and the house was dismantled, Mr. and Mrs. Ed- wards 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 congre- gation was mainly composed of women, who fluttered their fans in a truly distracting way. Except for the churchgoing there were few perceptible signs of Sun- day 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 80 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 IS. Pleasant as Denver was, with the De\v}'s and 80 many kind friends there, it was too mucli of the " wearing world " either for my health or taste, and 218 A lady's life in letter xil I left for my sLxteen miles' ride to this place at four on Monday afternoon with the sun still hot. Passing by a bare, desolate-looldng cemetery, I asked a sad-locking woman who was leaning on the gate if she couki direct me to Golden City. 1 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, Eocky j\Iountain travelling, like Eocky Mountain scenery, must seem very monotonous ; but not so to me, to whom the pure, dry mountain air LETTER XII. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 219 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 monopolised by a narrow-gauge railroad, and is in- accessible 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 9000 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 apologised for the very exquisite little bed- room 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, l;ut that there are spells 220 A lady's life in letter xil 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 Saviour'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, steep-grade railway, which runs up the canyon for the convenience of the rich mining dis- tricts 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 stacje-lines wliich 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 LEll-ERXll. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 221 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, chasnied, weather-stained, with the most brilliant colouring, 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 inaccessibility, 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 pass- engers without any luggage sat on the seat behind tlie driver, so that the huge thing bounced and swung upon the straps on whicli it was hung so as to recall the worst liorrors 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 tlie presence of women, but they "liave clianged all that." Every one I saw up there seemed in a bad temper. I suspect that 222 A lady's life in letter xil all their " smart tricks " in mining shares had gone wrong. The road pursued the canyon to Idaho Springs, a fashionable mountain resort m 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 1000 took us into George- town, 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 circum- scribed 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 pre- vent 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 LETTEEXii. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 223 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 verandahs, 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'll the English lady travelling in the mountains, ahe can have a horse, but not any one else." L L.R 224 A lady's LIf E m L£TT£E ZIU. LETTER Xm. The Blight of Mining — Green Lake — Golden City — BenigMed— Vertigo — Boulder Canyon — Financial straits — A hard Eide — The last Cent — A Bachelor's Home — Mountain Jim — A Sur- prise — 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 apprehen- sion. The evening shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2000 feet to climb, or give up Green Lake. I shall forget many things, but never the awfulness and hugeness of that 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 5000 feet high. That is the region of enormous mineral wealth in LETTER xiir. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 225 silver. There are the " Terrible " and other mine^ whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in the Times, sometimes at cent per cent pre- mium, 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, fiU the dis- trict 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 beauti- fies, mining destroys and devastates; turning the earth inside out, making it liideous, and blighting every green tiling, 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 tlje few finds wliich have been made along those hiU-sidea. 226 A lady's life in LETTER XIII. All the ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of desolation, where nature had made every- thing 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 tlie icy solitudes — sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep, pure and powdery, then a very difticidt ascent through a pine forest, where it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in deep snow-drifts. 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 cliill 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 thou- sands of men delving in dark holes in the gloom of the twilight below. " eartli, so full of dreary noises ' O men, witli wailing in your voices, delved gold, the wailer's heap, strife and curse that o'er it fall, God strikes a silence through you all. He giveth His beloved sleep." LETTBBXIIL THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 227 It was something to reach that height and see the far-off glory of the sunset, and by it to be re- minded that neither God nor His ^n had yet de- serted 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 gray. 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 wdth ice to their verge. It was tlie 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, tlie baiitra'^e-car acain received us, but this time the conductor, remarking that he supposed I was just travelling to see the country, gave me his chair and put it on the plat- 228 A lady's life in letter XIII. form, so that I had an excellent ^dew 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 ad- venture I met with is almost too silly to tell. When I left Golden City it was a brilliant summer after- noon, 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 after- glow, seen to perfection on the open plain, was won- derful. 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-travelled one, steering all the time by the north star. His directions did brins: 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 stura LETTER xiii. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 229 overhead. The prame 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 and rooting up of earth, seemed to be disputing the right of way, and the pony was afraid to pass. AVhile 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 mid- night, 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 gi'cat height above the horizon there is a shaded baud 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 sub- lime gash in the mountains was Bear Canyon, quite 230 A lady's life in letter XIII 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 agee," 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 moun- tains, with their stretches of pines and their deep indigo shadows. Boulder is a hideous collection ot 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 Can- yon, which is much extolled, but I was greatly dis- appointed with everything except its superb waggon- 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 LETTER XIII. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 231 my host here can hardly believe that she has tra- velled over 500 miles. I am feeling " the pinch of poverty" rather severely. When I have paid my biU here I shall have exactly twenty-six cents left. Evans was quite unable to pay the hundred dollars which he owes me, and, to save themselves, the Denver banks, though they remain open, have sus- pended 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, tioUtis volcns, 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 bass. 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, wliich seems more indescribable than ever ; but you will wish to know how I have sped, and I wish you to know my present singular circum- stances. IlcftLongmountateightonSaturday morning, rather heavily loaded, for in addition to my own lug- gage I was asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy 232 • A lady's life in letter xiii, with newspapers. Edwards, with his wife and family- were still believed to be here. A hea\y snowstorm was expected, and all the sky — that vast dome which spans the plains — was overcast ; but over the moun- tains 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. Yrain, the sad blue became bril- liant, and the sun warm and scintillating. Ah, how beautiful and incomparable the ride up here is, in- finitely more beautiful than the much- vaunted parts I have seen elsewhere. There is, first, this beautiful hill-girdled valley of fair savannahs, 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 foothills to the gates of rock at a height of 9000 feet ; then the wildest and most won- derful scenery for twenty miles, in which you cross thirteen ranges from 9000 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 Eocky 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 tEiTEE XIII. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 233 of severe travel. When I liad ridden fifteen miles 1 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 cleanHness without its severity — is a pattern to all women, while the clear eyes and manly self-respect wliich 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 dmner 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 realised 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 4000 feet high. It was eerie, aa darkness came on, to wind in and out in the puie- 234 A lady's life in letter XIII. shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the bottom of these tremendous chasms Wolves howlsd 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 dark- ness came on. Finally the last huge range was con- quered, 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 ^y through the chinks, and all was silent. So I rode tediously down M'Ginn's Gulch, wliich 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 any one, though he struck a light to show me the valuable furs with which one of the horses LETTER Xlll THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 235 was loaded. The desperado was heartily glad to see me, and sending the man and fur-laden horse on to Ms 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 througli Longmount ; the cabin was dismantled, the stores w^ere 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, w'hich seemed to make matters darker. I did not care in tlie least about myself, I could rough it, and enjoy doing so, but I was veiy sorry for the young men, who, I knew, would be much embarrassed by the sudden appear- ance of a lady for an indefinite time. But the diffi- culty 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 236 A lady's life in lettehxiu had gone, I boldly confessed my impecunious circum- stances, and told them that I must stay there till things clianged, 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 tbe 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 difficul- ties 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 slieets, towels, nor table-cloths. 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 tlie 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 LEITERXIIL THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 237 hurricane, and I dared not stir outside the cabin. The parlour 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 parlour, wash the breakfast-things, and a number of etceteras. My room is easily " done," but the parlour 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 buf- falo's taQ, 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 " parlour " 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 tliirty 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 tlie hist bread into a bread-and-butter pudding, which we all enjoyed. To- day I found part of a leg of beef hanging in the waggon-shed, and we were elated witli the prospect of fresh meat, but on cutting into it we found it gveea 238 A lady's life in letter XIII. and uneatable. Had it not been for some tea which was bestowed upon me at the inn at Longmount we shoidd have had none. In this superb air and phy- sically 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 brilhant 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 tendei feet. LETTEBXiv. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 239 LETTER XIY. A dismal Eide — A Desperado's Tale — * ' Lost ! Lost ! Lost ! " — Winter Glories — Solitude — Hard Times — Intense Cold — A Pack of Wolves — The Beaver Dams — Ghostly 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 ]\Ir. Nugent came in looking very black, and asked me to ride with him to see the beaver dams on the Black Canyon. No more whist- ling or singing, or talking to Ids beautiful mare, or sparkling repartee. His mood was ao dark as the sky over! lead, which was black with an impending snowstorm. He was quite silent, struck his horse often, started off on a furious gallop, and then throw- ing his mare on her haunches close to me, said, " You'ie the first man or woman who's treated me like a Imnian lieing for many a year." So he said in this dark mood, but Mr. and ^Mrs. Dewy, who took a very det'j) interest in liis welfare, always treated him as a riitional, intJ'lb'gcnt gentleman, iiiid in his better moments he spoke of them with Llic \varn:est a])pre- ciatiou. " If you want to know," he continued, \J 240 A lady's life in letter XIV. " 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, im- perfectly educated, and tyrannising 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 ser- vice 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 ser- vice of the United States Government, and became one of the famous Indian Scouts of the Plains, dis- tinguishing 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 ser- vice, till he became a character known through all LETTER siv. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 241 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 idolised 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, vary- ing 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. Tliere, again, something was dropped out, but I suspect, and not without reason, that he joined one or more of those gangs of " border rulfians " which for so long raided through Kansas, perpetrating such massacres and outrages as tliat of the ^larais du Cygne. His fame for violence and ruffianism pre- ceded him into Colorado, where his knowledge of and love of tlie 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 l^esides, but 3nvy and vindictiveness are raging within liim. lie & 242 A lady's life in letter XIV 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 yon 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 angels.* 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 vou 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 LETTER XIV. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 243 that afternoon. A less ungovernable nature would never Lave 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 lie 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 i " The storm was very severe, and the landmarks being blotted out, I lost my way in the snow, and when I reached tlie 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. Tlie snow cleared off late, and intense frost set in. My room is nearly tlie 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 today. I took a most beautiful ride to Black Canyon to look for the horses. Every day some new beauty, or effect 244: -- -- ^"":rirc;r«:enrrnd «. .ou„uin that the weather « m o ^ 4,,(,re 13 tops ahove the P>- ^".Ch the heart can nothing o£ ^e»'^ - f "^7 ;: ,ealth-givi„g. with "'* ""' " "trl'd absolute dryness. But there pure air. pure water, au ^.^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^. is something very ««1«™' ^ h„e never .helming, in the .^ f^'^ i Uved ou „periencedauyth^l-;- ^^^„^,„,,eout the slopes of Hualalai. ^^^^^^ hunting I know not w^jere. - a J ^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^'^^^reiId'°vl-:t;andthereisWya stmgmg, tempest aii communica- ^"^^"Irl^r^^TS'rntl!: stupendous grow in height till they heeome nnp s* Ld the hridgeless rivers g™;"^jft cashing and if all my «fe is to ^e spe^ her ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ '^''%:1 wfdia no: JeaMast till 9 30, then manual labour, v ^^^^ ^.^^ ^^^_ X :Sr:*isMnthepassage^o.w^^^^^^^^^^^ „.de and haked a bateh ot ™" f \ ^,,„ed ,,eet biscuits, cleaned -"^ "'^^ ,, lidding Bome clothes, and gave things generauy LEITERXIV. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 245 ap." 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 clotlies, 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-hand- kerchief and one pair of stockings, such a mass of dams 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 laugli, 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 dry- ness of the air- which renders it possible to live in such clotliing. We have arranged the work 246 A lady's life in letter xit. 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 knowledtre of the whereabouts of the stock in the event of a severe snowstorm 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 waggon 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 LKTTER XIV. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 247 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 valle}'s 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 Snow}' Eange, walked in very pale and hag- gard-looking, and coughing severely. He offered to show me the trail up one of the grandest of the can- yons, and I could not refuse to go. The Fall river has had its source completely altered by the opera- tions 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 tliis 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 fulled them ready for their use. They always work at night and in concert. Their long, sharp teeth are used f(j;r gnawing down the trees, but tlieir mason-work is done entirely with their (iat, trowel-like tails. In its natural state the fur is very dura>)le, and is as full of long black haii-s as that of the sable, but as sold, all these hairs have been plucked out of it. The canyon was glori- 248 A lady's life in letter XIV. ous, all ! glorious beyond any other, but it was a dis- mal 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 him on my return he said he hardly thought he should be back from the Snowy Eange 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 glori(!S 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 fcrd, but when we reached comparatively level gi-assy ground I had a gallop of nearly two miles, which I enjoyed thoroughly, her great swinging stride being so easy a^ 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 LKFTER XIV. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 249 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 car- nival again last niglit, 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. Xugent returning to liis 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 wliich was snuffing at the sheaf oats, and had a splendid gallop on tlie Longmount trail with the two great Inmting 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 sun§et. Life was all dead ; tlie dragon-flies no llriger darted in the sunshine, the cotton-woods had slied their last amber leaves, the crimson trailers of the wild vines were bare, the stream itself bad 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 250 A LADY S LIFE IN LETTER xiv, 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 lawns of the Park were deserted of living things, 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 tliey have been here five weeks, and they are anxious to be away camping out for the hunting, on which they depend. Tliere are two calves dying, and we don't know what to do for them ; and if a very severe snowstorm comes on, we can't bring in and feed eight hundred head of cattle. Saturday. The snow began to fall early tliis 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 LETTEBXiv. THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 251 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 tantalising 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 sup- phes 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 economise 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, brouglit in four otlier 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 n huge fire. The men smoke 252 A lady's life in letter XIV 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 block- ing 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. 1. L. B. ilTEK XV. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 253 LETTER XY. 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 Des. perado's din. EsTES Park, Sunday. A TRAPPER passing last niglit Lrouglit us the news that Mr. Kugent 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 cir- cumstances of his ruined life. It is piteous that a man like liini, in the prime of life, should be destitute of home and love, and Uve a life of darkness in a den with no cumitanions but guilty memories, and a dog which many people think is the nobler animal of the two. I urged liini to give up the whisky which at present is his ruin, and his answer had the ring of a sad truth in it : "I caimot, it binds me hand and foot — I cannot give up the only pleasure 1 have." His 254' A lady's life in lettee XV. ideas of right are the queerest possible. He says that he believes in God, but what he knows or be- lieves 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 sunliglit, 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 tur- quoise 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 prin- ciple, " 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. LEiTERXV. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 255 We had a good deal of sacred music to-day, to make it as like Sunday as possible. The "faint melan- choly " 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 de- scended just to the mountain-tops and were reflected on the pure surface of the snow ! Tbe door of this room looks due north, and as I w^ite the Pole Star blazes, and a cold crescent moon hangs over the ghast- liness 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 No- vember. 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 difticulty which ever arises is that the men do not like rnc to do anything that they think hard or un- suitable, such as saddling a horse or bringing in water. The days go very fast ; it was 3.30 to-day before I knew that it was 1. It is a calm life witliout 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 256 A lady's life in letter XV, 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 in- terest 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, how- ever, 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 wn-ERXT. THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 257 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 magnifi- cent 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 waggon and team, and that the waggon 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 theolo- gical 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." So we had to settle what to do with him. We discussed tlie food question gravely, as it presented a real dilliculty. We put B 258 A lady's life in letter xv. 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 labour, 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 a