OF CALIFORNIA 
 S ANGELES
 
 6P7 1 5
 
 IN THE WYOMING SPRUCE WOODS.
 
 KNOCKING 
 
 ROUND THE ROCKIES 
 
 JiV 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST INGERSOLL 
 
 illustrated 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 
 1883 
 
 i^v^.-s
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 A II rights reserved.
 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In the Wyoming Spruce Woods Frontispiece 
 
 Head-piece .... 
 
 j 
 
 Departure from the Missouri 5 
 
 "Pike's Peak or Bust!" 5 
 
 Evening on the Plains 7 
 
 A Race to New Diggings 3 
 
 Tail- piece I7 
 
 Stuffing the War-bag If) 
 
 Submission to the Aparejo ni 
 
 First Stage.— Adjusting the Pack 26 
 
 Second Stage.— " Moderate Pulling" 27 
 
 Third Stage.— " Give it to Her!" 27 
 
 Tail-piece .... 
 
 3j 
 
 Home of the White-crowned Sparrow 3 s 
 
 In the Edge of Middle Park 4I 
 
 Tossing the Flapjack .„ 
 
 4j 
 
 A Camp-dinner .... 
 
 43 
 
 Our Hunter 
 
 Grand Lake 
 
 Tail-piece . , 
 The Dog-tents 
 
 60 
 66 
 
 A Good-night Whiff 6y 
 
 Panning-out Gold-gravel 7 - 
 
 Miner and Cradle _, 
 
 The Flume . . . 
 
 76 
 
 The Sluice and Pump 7 3 
 
 Hydraulic Mining g x 
 
 The Prospector and His Burro 84 
 
 Fort Garland and Sierra Blanca S7 
 
 Along the Cochetopa 33 
 
 Tail-piece 
 
 95 
 
 First Glimpse of the Indian Camp 06 
 
 Interior of a"Wicky-up" Lodge 99
 
 viii LIST <>1 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Tail-piece 106 
 
 Travelling Abovj mil Snow-line ioS 
 
 Looking from a Quartzite Rock no 
 
 Trail ro a High Mink in the Sierra San Juan in 
 
 Baker's Park and Suli \\ Mountain 114 
 
 Seen from an Assayer's Window 121 
 
 The Cargo and its Carriers 130 
 
 Shooting mil Bighorns 133 
 
 "A Strong Little Mule Named Molly" 137 
 
 Topographers ai Work 141 
 
 im Sweetwater Plains 145 
 
 The Fight 14S 
 
 The Result 149 
 
 Pronghorn Antelopes Killing a Rattlesnake 153 
 
 Tail-piece 155 
 
 A Canon in the MESA VERDE 165 
 
 Tail-hece 172 
 
 The Mule-deer 175 
 
 A Hunter's Blockade 179 
 
 A Tributary of the Green River 182 
 
 The Wind Rivers . 190 
 
 The Field-laboratory of an Ornithologist 193 
 
 In the Gros Ventre Hills 197 
 
 A Leisure Afternoon 200 
 
 The Carson Sink 202 
 
 Tail-piece 210 
 
 A Sensation 212 
 
 Contented Victims of a Delusion 215 
 
 Icy Ablutions 218
 
 1874.
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 i. 
 
 IT was my good fortune, In 1874, to become attached to the United 
 States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 
 through the invitation of its chief. This led to my making a foot- 
 and-saddle campaign through the southern part of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains. It was so enjoyable and profitable a summer, that I have since 
 availed myself of every opportunity to explore the fastnesses of those 
 noble ranges, and I now propose to refresh pleasant recollections by 
 recounting some experiences — none of which were startling, it may as 
 well be said to start with. 
 
 If the reader should chance to recognize something he has read 
 before, he should remember that I have dredged the material for these 
 pages out of the deep sea of magazine* and newspaper f files where 
 they sunk, years ago, after the briefest possible surface-existence. 
 
 * Harper s Magazine, Scribners Monthly, St. Nicholas, and Good Company. 
 
 t New York Tribune, New York Herald, Forest and Stream, The Country, The 
 Congregationalist, Spirit of the Times, The Hour, Army and Navy Journal, and 
 others.
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE initial point of all expeditions, large and small, into the moun- 
 tains was, and remains, the city of Denver, the capital of Colorado, and 
 a marvellous town. 
 
 That gold existed in the Rocky Mountains has been certainly known 
 since the earliest exploration of them ; it is one of the most curious 
 facts about the whole matter, indeed, that the utilization of this wealth 
 did not begin sooner. About 1803, for instance, a Kentuckian named 
 James Pursley, while travelling with a band of Indians " into the moun- 
 tains which give birth to the La Platte, Arkansaw, etc., etc." (the locality 
 seems to have been near Mount Lincoln), found gold there, and " car- 
 ried some of the virgin mineral in his shot-pouch for months." Other 
 wanderers reported it at various times, according to tradition, but no 
 publicity was given to the fact, so that the real history of the mining 
 excitement in the lofty mid-continent ranges, and the annals of Denver, 
 their metropolis, begin with the summer of 1858, and are associated 
 with the name of W. Green Russell. 
 
 This gentleman was a Georgian, who had learned the delights of 
 gold-digging where the gentle Etowah rolls enticing sands through the 
 charming gorges of the Blue Ridge. When the gold excitement of the 
 Pacific coast aroused the country he started Westward, taking his course 
 up the Arkansas, passing along the eastern base of Pike's Peak, and so 
 northward to the emigrant trail. He observed at that time what seemed 
 to him indications of gold-gravel, but did not pause to verify it. When, 
 therefore, a few years later, he retraced his steps, he halted long enough 
 in Colorado to assure himself of the richness of its bars, and then pro- 
 ceeded homeward to organize a party to return with him to this point. 
 Two brothers, some friends, and a few Cherokee Indians joined him.* 
 
 * The Cherokees had previously been through here searching a promised land 
 for their tribe, and had themselves reported gold. They concluded to remain in 
 the Indian Territory, but left their name attached to several springs, mountains,
 
 PROSPECTING AT AURARIA. 5 
 
 Following up the Arkansas river, they were joined by adventurers, until 
 finally the party numbered thirty or forty, and reached the base of the 
 mountains early in the summer. Finding nothing in the neighborhood 
 of Pike's Peak, they advanced up Squirrel creek, and then across to 
 Cherry creek, where they built a village, near its head. Sluicing there 
 proved of small consequence, however, and finally they worked down to 
 the site of the present city, where Cherry creek empties into the South 
 Platte. Here, building a camp, they prepared to spend the winter. 
 Exaggerated reports of their success having gone back to the border 
 States, recruits came steadily, until, by the time cold weather really set 
 in, three or four hundred persons (only three of them women) were gath- 
 
 
 ' 
 
 DEPARTURE FROM THE MISSOURI. 
 
 ered in the camp. The settlement 
 
 was christened Auraria, after the 
 
 mining town of that name near 
 
 Dahlonega, Georgia; and straggling immigration during the winter 
 
 brought in many merchants and artisans as well as gold-seekers. 
 
 Meanwhile the story of the new discoveries of gold in Pike's Peak 
 
 etc., as a memento of their visit of inspection. Little is known of this interesting 
 journey "looking for a home," in which about half the tribe participated, the re- 
 mainder staying in Western North Carolina,
 
 f, KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 (for all the mountain region was known by that name, though the 
 Peak itself was seventy -five miles from the diggings) hastened east- 
 ward, gathering marvels as it ran, and was attested by sundry goose- 
 quills full of dust. Just following the financial distresses of 1857, 
 thousands of men were ready for anything, and the spring of 1859 
 witnessed the beginning of such an emigration across the plains as 
 had only been equalled by the wildest hours of the rush to California 
 a decade before. Council Bluffs, Atchison, Kansas City, and all the 
 other outposts of civilization became filled with excited crowds hastily 
 preparing for the two months' journey across the plains, and an almost 
 
 
 pike's PEAK 1 ik Bl SI !' 
 
 continuous procession of wagons of every description filed out from their 
 streets to undergo the hardships and perils of that eager race to be first 
 at the gold-fields. He who could not pay for the swift stage became 
 driver or escort of a freight-wagon, or followed along with his ambu- 
 lance ; while thousands rode on horseback, or walked, trundling their 
 luggage in a handcart or wheelbarrow, or slung upon their backs. Those 
 were the storied days when the motto "Pike's Peak or Bust!" was in- 
 scribed on many a wagon-sheet by jubilant owners, and those also the 
 days when the same wagons, hopelessly bogged in some treacherous 
 fording of the Arkansas, or broken down among the rocks of a stony 
 bit of butte-road, were grimly labelled " Busted, by Thunder!" 
 
 The vanguard of this exodus reached the Platte in April, and it is 
 estimated that nearly a hundred thousand persons followed during the 
 summer. We are told that they were in the main from the better 
 classes of men at home, but that ninetcen-twentieths were entirely igno- 
 rant of gold-mining. Thousands were disappointed, of course, and a thin 
 returning stream met, but failed to discourage, the new-comers, who 
 pressed across the weary, bone-marked plains, sure that their lot would 
 be an exception to all the misfortunes described. 
 
 As soon as the snows were sufficiently melted the Russells and
 
 INVASION OF THE SNOWY RANGE. 
 
 7 
 
 others pushed into the mountains, reasoning that, if these outer streams 
 contained a sediment of drifted gold, some source of the riches must 
 remain in the rocks whence the waters came. One party, under the 
 leadership of J. H. Gregory, started up Clear creek to a point just 
 above where Black Hawk now is, and began prospecting in the gulch. 
 " He climbed the hill," says a written account of the incident, " where 
 he believed the wash or gold-dirt would naturally come from, scraped 
 away the grass and leaves, and filled his gold-pan with dirt and took 
 it down to the gulch. Upon panning (washing) it down there was 
 about four dollars' worth of gold in it ! He dropped his pan, and im- 
 mediately summoned all the gods of the universe to witness his as- 
 tounding triumph. That night he could not sleep." 
 
 Whether any immortals obeyed the summons the record fails to 
 inform us, but it is certain that it was a very few days only before 
 the rugged trails, slippery with ice and gagged with snow, became 
 
 EVENING OX THE PLAINS. 
 
 thronged with the well-nigh disheartened emigrants, fired with a new- 
 hope. Almost simultaneously discoveries of rich bars and veins were 
 made at Idaho Springs, Boulder, Golden, and elsewhere ; and the moun- 
 tains, from Estes Park to the Sangre de Christo, began to be overrun 
 with prospectors ; while gold and silver ledges and placers were discov- 
 ered so rapidly, that no one could keep track of them, and thousands of 
 claims were taken up on both sides and among the very summits of
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 A RACE TO NEW DIGGINGS. 
 
 the Snowy Range,* under laws and regulations framed by the miners 
 themselves. Valleys hitherto undisturbed except by the light tread of 
 the moccason and the scarcely timid game it followed, cliffs that had 
 echoed to no other sound than the noise of the elements or the voices 
 of bird and beast, now resounded with human energy, and were de- 
 spoiled by the ruthless shovel and axe. The sage-brush yielded place 
 to wagon-tracks, and the splendid spruces were felled to lie docile in 
 the walls of log cities that sprung into shape with the startled swift- 
 ness and decision of macic. 
 
 Fine mines of silver — which are still worked — were opened a few years later 
 on the brow of Mount Lincoln, at an elevation considerably over 14,000 feet, in the 
 midst of perpetual snow.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF DENVER. 9 
 
 There is much of romantic, picturesque, and human interest in the 
 story of these early years of gold and silver hunting in the Rocky 
 Mountains ; but I have said enough to show that, while thousands 
 turned back, tens of thousands had good cause to remain, and that 
 this widely scattered, nomadic army needed and naturally would come 
 to have a central point, where supplies could be gathered and dis- 
 pensed ; where a post-office and express-office might be established, and 
 where the convergent interests of this new and isolated world might 
 find a focus. How Denver fulfilled these conditions, and became, from 
 the very first, the metropolis of the mountains, it is now time to explain. 
 
 When the Georgians built their cabins for winter-quarters among 
 the lofty cottonwoods between the Platte and Cherry creek, they 
 thought " Indian Row " a good enough name ; but when a settlement 
 grew up around them, and more men kept coming, they surveyed a 
 town-site and named it " Auraria," as already stated. At the same time 
 a few persons crossed to the east side of Cherry creek and built a group 
 of cabins, which they called " St. Charles ;" and a few others ''located" 
 on a ridge northward under the name of the " Highlands." These 
 last two were abortive attempts at city-making, however ; and during 
 the winter of 1858— '59 a party, with General Larimer at its head, came 
 to St. Charles, "jumped " the now deserted settlement, laid out a nine 
 hundred and sixty acre town-site of their own, and christened it Den- 
 ver City, in honor of the Governor of Kansas, of which territory all this 
 region soon became a county, known as Arapahoe. 
 
 This last deliberate movement was a direct recognition of the ad- 
 vantages which this point offered as a town-site. It lay midway be- 
 tween the routes of travel to the Pacific coast along the North Platte 
 and by the way of Santa Fe. It was at the junction of two water- 
 courses, along which grew abundant timber and unlimited pasturage. 
 It was a situation central to the half-dozen passes and canons which 
 then, as now, constituted the gate-ways through the mountain barrier 
 into the interior valleys and parks. Lastly, it had priority, and was fast 
 getting the advertising which has ever since been so liberally accorded 
 to it, and to which it owes, in no small degree, its present success. 
 
 Each of the forty-one share-holders was required to erect a cabin at 
 once, and General Larimer was the first man to put up his roof. Den- 
 ver thus sprung at one bound into rivalry with Auraria ; but the strife 
 for supremacy was brief, and resulted in a consolidation by which the 
 older sister of the twain lost her name, and became simply West Den- 
 ver ; or, when spoken of with contumely, simply, " 'Cross the creek." 
 
 2
 
 10 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Those were wild days in the young city's history. Thousands of ex- 
 cited people thronged her streets, living in tents, in wagons, in dug-outs, 
 and in the rudest of log-huts and shanties — the best way they could. 
 Everything eaten had to be brought across the plains, except game and 
 some cattle that Mexicans would drive up from Santa Fe. Yet there 
 was no great scarcity; and though prices were almost uniformly ten 
 times as much as at present, gold-dust and coin were abundant, and 
 wages in proportion. If a man thought it cheap to be able to buy a 
 sack of flour at ten dollars, he felt outraged if he was not getting fifteen 
 or twenty dollars a day for his labor. 
 
 The fall of 1859 saw Denver very city-like and busy. Machinery 
 poured in, and with it every appliance of civilization possible at such a 
 distance from the frontier of even the Western States. All kinds of 
 business enterprises were projected, and among others a newspaper. 
 The Honorable William N. Byers — a gentleman who has been identified 
 with the best interests of Colorado — was the moving spirit in this lat- 
 ter venture, and its history is a good illustration of ways and means in 
 " Pike's Peak " twenty years ago. Mr. Byers and his associates heard that 
 there was lying idle at Belleview, near Omaha, such a printing-office 
 as they wanted — a relic of a starved-out journal. Mr. Byers went there 
 and secured the property, leaving Omaha with it on the 8th of March, 
 1859. The streams were all flooded, snow and rain storms frequent, 
 and the third day out the trains waded through a frozen sheet of water 
 three feet deep and two miles wide, breaking the ice as they progressed. 
 The wagons carrying the press and types had a variety of mishaps, 
 and at the end of the month had only reached Fort Kearney, 185 miles 
 from Omaha. Beyond there, however, the roads were firm, and faster 
 time was made, so that on the 20th of April the precious press and 
 types entered Denver. The name of this fair-sized and nicely-printed 
 weekly was T/ic Rocky Mountain News. To-day it is an eight-page daily, 
 and owned by another company, but the name remains, and is widely 
 known. Its salutatory is worth quoting, as a piece of brave crowing, 
 for that very week was the time of the remarkable stampede which car- 
 ried back in a panic four-fifths of the emigrants who had set out for the 
 promised land, scared by a cry of fraud and certain starvation : 
 
 " We make our debut" said this introductory paragraph, " in the Far 
 West, where the snowy mountains look down upon us in the hottest 
 summer day as well as in the winter's cold ; here, where a few months 
 ago the wild beasts and wilder Indians held undisturbed possession — 
 where now surges the advancing wave of Anglo-Saxon enterprise and
 
 A PERIOD OF DEPRESSION. 11 
 
 civilization — where soon, we proudly hope, will be erected a great and 
 powerful State, another empire in the sisterhood of empires." 
 
 This was plucky, and partook of the character of " bluff," for real- 
 ly the stoutest-hearted had intelligent doubts about the truth of the 
 boast ; but the journal can take to itself much credit for staying the 
 stampede, and bringing capital and brains to the development of the 
 new camp. 
 
 It was not long before rivals sprung up, and in May of the following 
 year a daily edition was begun, to which a second daily, The Herald, op- 
 posed itself within a few weeks. At first the nearest post-office was at 
 Fort Laramie, 220 miles northward, and the mail reached there from 
 the East only once or twice a month. About the 1st of May, 1859, a 
 messenger was induced to go to this post-office, and through an utter 
 wilderness he brought a mule -load of letters and newspapers, which 
 were delivered on payment of twenty-five cents each for the former, and 
 fifty cents for the latter. Nor did affairs speedily improve. More than 
 two years passed before Denver had its own post-office, all mails being 
 carried from the East on the overland coaches, which came regularly 
 after June, 1859, an( l letters were charged for as express matter, at 
 twenty-five cents apiece. 
 
 There is a whole book to be written some day- — and a book of thrill- 
 ing interest — on the overland coach lines, the pony express, and the 
 fast-freight arrangements, which preceded the trans-continental railways. 
 Their histories might properly come in here, but would take up so 
 much space that I prefer passing them by altogether to making an un- 
 satisfactory mention. Denver owed much, in its infancy, to the enter- 
 prise and pluck of its stage and express managers. 
 
 At this time the War of the Rebellion was raging in the East, and a 
 general Indian war harassed the plains. In 1863 mails were so irregular 
 that weeks would elapse without one, and what was received came by 
 the way of Panama and San Francisco. The freighting business was 
 demoralized, so that many a hundred pounds of paper cost a hundred 
 dollars for its transportation alone ; and wrapping, tissue, and even let- 
 ter paper were used to keep up the daily issues of the News, which 
 often shrunk to a mere bulletin of military orders, etc., for lack of some- 
 thing to print upon. In 1861 the telegraph reached Fort Kearney, 
 where it rested two years. Then the Denver journals begun taking 
 news despatches, which were printed here only four days after their ori- 
 gin in New York. This increased the competition between the papers, 
 and the most bitter personalities were indulged in through the editorial
 
 12 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 columns. It is great fun to read these old files ; it is like witnessing a 
 battle between men of straw. Both offices established pony -express 
 lines to the principal mining camps in the mountains, and their daily 
 editions were delivered in Black Hawk, Central City, and other neigh- 
 borhoods, forty or fifty miles away, more quickly than the steam-cars 
 now manage to do it. Under these circumstances twenty-five dollars a 
 year was not a high subscription rate, the retail price being twenty-five 
 cents a copy ; but this was in gold, which, at that time, was worth twice 
 as much as currency. There was no lack of local news, of course, in so 
 wide-awake a community, and these journals were more successful than 
 is usual in manufacturing " items" on their own account. 
 
 In 1859 tne town became overrun with gamblers and cut-throats, 
 who thought themselves too far from authority and too strong in num- 
 bers to be interfered with ; but one night several of them were hanged, 
 and the next night others. Rumors of a Vigilance Committee got 
 abroad, and the leading desperadoes found it to their advantage to 
 depart. As a consequence the reign of terror, which forms a part of 
 the early history of all the Pacific Railroad towns, never amounted to 
 much in Denver. Still there were plenty of bad men, and the carrying 
 of fire-arms was a universal custom. Gambling, too, was as open and 
 prevalent as it now is in Leadville, Durango, or Cheyenne ; and " tan- 
 gle-foot whiskey," at two bits a drink, was to be had on every corner, 
 and two or three times between. As a natural result quarrelling and 
 bloodshed were of so frequent occurrence as to excite no notice ; and 
 when anybody was killed, 
 
 " They piled the stiffs outside the door," 
 
 and went on with the game, under the impression that it served the 
 dead man right for not being quick enough to "get the drop" on the 
 other fellow. 
 
 A single incident of the beginning of a higher sentiment on the 
 subject may be worth the space to print it. 
 
 One night, in 1861, when The Rocky Mountain News was a few 
 months old, a man named Harrison shot a companion across the card- 
 table in one of those " silver exchanges " which in the young metropolis 
 were a good deal closer together than chapels. Though well aware of 
 the existence of the general ideas which made such a state of affairs 
 possible, the News was so utterly lost to all regard for Mr. Harrison's 
 sensibilities that it denounced the case as Murder (with a big M), and 
 called for proper punishment. The accused man took it good-natured-
 
 THE ATTACK UPON THE "NEWS." 13 
 
 ly : but some of his friends, having drunk themselves into a state of bel- 
 ligerency, concluded that this slur upon the honor of a citizen must be 
 avenged. Mr. Byers, the editor of the News, sitting quietly at his desk 
 that afternoon, was considerably surprised, therefore, to find himself 
 suddenly grasped by three men in a way that rendered him powerless. 
 They cursed him in the foulest manner, and threatened him with six- 
 barrelled revolvers. Keeping his wits about him, nevertheless, and cool- 
 ly opening a parley, Mr. Byers secured a little time, until the ruffians 
 were alarmed by the click of a gun-lock, and looked up to see three or 
 four rifles, the possessors of which were only waiting to get an oppor- 
 tunity to fire without killing the editor. The News office had reckon- 
 ed upon the character of the men it had been writing against, and for 
 weeks every printer and pressman had had a musket at his elbow ready 
 for emergencies. 
 
 Mr. Byers, however, promised to go with the men to see Harrison, 
 the alleged murderer; and between the two desperadoes, flourishing 
 their revolvers and momentarily threatening to kill him, he walked up 
 to the saloon. The instant they entered Mr. Byers saw that the out- 
 rage had not been instigated by Harrison, who evinced his displeasure 
 most emphatically, and demanded the instant delivery of the editor 
 into his own custody. Then, taking him into a back room, he warned 
 him of the danger from these uncontrollable ruffians, and opened the 
 rear door. Mr. Byers took the hint, and made haste to return to his 
 office, but not to his desk — a very wise precaution. 
 
 Finding their prey escaped, Wood and Steele, the would-be avengers, 
 started out to collect a mob, but kept carefully out of range of the 
 office-windows of the newspaper. Finally, however, Steele mounted a 
 swift horse and dashed by, firing his revolver through the window at 
 Mr. Byers's desk with an aim which would have been fatal had the 
 editor been sitting there. Receiving portions of two charges of shot 
 from the printers as he passed, he dashed on through West Denver, 
 brandishing his pistol in the face of all opposition, and returned across 
 the Blake Street bridge for a second attack. Just here, however, riding 
 ahead of him, was a friend of Mr. Byers. Hearing Steele approach, this 
 gentleman quietly turned in his saddle and, asking no questions, sent a 
 rifle-ball through the " terror's " brain. 
 
 Meanwhile, an impromptu " law-and-order " posse comitatus had ar- 
 rested Wood ; a court was extemporized and a hasty trial conducted, 
 in the presence of a crowd whose temper emulated that of the mob 
 which dragged Captain Porteous from the Heart of Midlothian. Yet
 
 14: KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 there were plenty of desperate sympathizers with Wood, and whispers 
 of an attempt to rescue him were heard ; but a hundred rifles and six- 
 shooters clicked ominously, and the idea was abandoned. Even then 
 the sentence of Judge Lynch was not death, but banishment. Wood 
 was given his arms, a horse, and twenty minutes to get out of town. 
 A mounted escort showed him the way with grim politeness, and he 
 vanished forever over the hills to the northward. 
 
 There are many old citizens who look back to those days from our 
 tamer times with a certain longing interest, as to the golden age of 
 Denver's history. This was the kind of city which Horace Greeley 
 saw, and wrote to The Tribune about, and which Albert D. Richardson 
 describes in his book. Yet there was a deal of quiet family comfort, 
 too, even in those days, only it was hid beneath the turbulence of the 
 surface-life. 
 
 Although Auraria had long before lost its identity, yet the west side 
 remained the business part of Denver until 1864; and the circumstance 
 which caused a change of base was the memorable flood of that spring, 
 one of the events from which Denver people date. For several days 
 a mixture of rain and snow had fallen over the whole region in an 
 almost continuous storm, and Cherry creek, ordinarily an insignificant, 
 civil stream, was full to the top of its banks. At last there came an 
 unprecedented fall of hail, followed by an hour or two of warmth, and 
 then by a thunder-storm. Hundreds of small reservoirs up on the Di- 
 vide were thus unlocked at a stroke, and in pitchy darkness, rain, thun- 
 der and lightning their loosened contents swept down the valley of 
 Cherry creek, and struck the town in a series of prodigious waves. 
 Uprooted trees, drifted houses and barns, and floating dt'bris of every 
 sort were borne along upon the swift water ; and the inhabitants of 
 half the city, particularly on the west side, were driven from their sway- 
 ing houses by this unexpected, black, and icy flood. It was a night of 
 destruction of property and horror to mankind throughout the whole 
 region, for Cherry creek was only one of many that rose into majestic 
 proportions, and asserted themselves as the channels of awful power. 
 Yet less than a score of persons lost their lives, and it was all over in 
 a few hours. The most serious loss sustained was that of the county's 
 safe, wherein were deposited a large number of deeds, leases, mining 
 records, and other important documents, the destruction of which has 
 been the source of a vast deal of litigation. Shrewd ones suspect that 
 the safe was found long ago; but that those who prefer that it should 
 never turn up have paid so much more highly to have it buried again
 
 THREATS OF AN INDIAN WAR. 15 
 
 than the public authorities offered for its production, that it never will 
 be seen until exhumed by some future antiquary. 
 
 Cherry creek has "boomed" without warning three or four times 
 since then, and will do so in future ; but the guards along its banks 
 and channel are such as, it is hoped, will ward off disaster. When the 
 water is heard and seen coming down in a mighty flood, crested with 
 great waves and spreading from one trembling bank to another, the 
 fire-bells ring and the creek-side becomes thronged with spectators and 
 men with ropes, grapnels, and hooks. As night advances they build 
 great bonfires at the end of each street which touches the creek ; and 
 the angry, chocolate-colored, swift-racing waters run this long gauntlet 
 of fires, that throw their rays far across the turbid waste and lend new 
 vividness to what is always an exciting picture. 
 
 Meanwhile, Denver had grown to possess fifteen hundred or two 
 thousand people. More and more persons had gone into the moun- 
 tains, and every available point near the town had been pre-empted for 
 ranching. The Arapahoes of the plains and the Utes of the mountains, 
 seeing this inroad of white men, were far from pleased, and by the 
 spring of 1864 their depredations had culminated in united war over 
 the whole length and breadth of the plains. The transportation of 
 merchandise from the East became impossible, except in great com- 
 panies, under armed escort, and even then hundreds of men lost their 
 lives. My memory teems with thrilling incidents as I write. The 
 mail -service along the Platte became broken up, and Colorado was 
 practically cut off from the Atlantic coast. Even the city itself was 
 fearful of attack and massacre. Knowing this, it is strange that so 
 complete a panic should have occurred as happened one memorable 
 night early in June, when the report that an army of Arapahoes were 
 about to sack the town spread through the streets. It was a wonder- 
 fully propitious moment for the savages. Most of the able-bodied men 
 of the town were away in the mountains, with teams on the plains, or 
 doing service in the three regiments that Colorado sent into the Union 
 army. At Camp Weld, a mile away up the Platte, were only a cor- 
 poral's guard of sick and disabled soldiers, and a large number of fami- 
 lies who had been rendered homeless by the recent flood. The bar- 
 racks lay right in the track of the Indians, and a messenger started at 
 a breakneck pace to give warning. The wife of the officer in charge 
 was sitting quietly sewing, in company with another lady, when the 
 door suddenly burst open, and a soldier, his knees knocking together 
 and his face pale with fright, gasped out, " D-d-on't be fri-frightened,
 
 1G KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 ladies; there are only th-thr-three thousand Indians a mile and a half 
 from Denver!" and vanished. The barracks resolved itself at once into 
 Bedlam, where hysterics developed a clamor which might well have 
 frightened away even a war party of Arapahoes. The acting comman- 
 dant was away ; but Mrs. Sanford, thinking that he would come out to 
 the post, decided to stay where she was, and persuaded several other 
 ladies to the same sensible course. Before long the captain came, sure 
 enough, and marshalled the few women and children for the dreary 
 walk into town. The darkness was intense, the plain was rough and 
 full of cactus and bayonet-grass, and everybody was overburdened and 
 fearful. In town bells were ringing, men were organizing into armed 
 corps, and the women and children, many in their night-clothes, were 
 being crowded into the only brick building on the w r est side — the large 
 three-story structure now occupied by the Lindell Hotel. The build- 
 ing had been considered unsafe, even to stand alone ; but no one 
 thought of this, and in packing it full of people hazarded the greatest 
 peril of the evening. So our friends from Camp Weld made their way 
 out as hurriedly as they got in, and took refuge in a log-hut until some- 
 thing more alarming should appear than had yet shown itself. It was 
 a night as full of dread and terror as that of the flood, and more so, for 
 it affected everybody; but plenty of comical things happened. A dozen 
 or so cravens among the men crept into the old brick building, cower- 
 ing among the women, who were not soothed by their abject faces; 
 and one fellow was found hiding beneath his wife's wide-circling skirts. 
 One little party, fleeing in from the suburbs, heard the noise of what 
 seemed a thousand hoofs, and saw a host of dark forms sweep over a 
 ridge of the prairie. They knew their time had come, and dropped 
 upon their knees in the prickly-pear, clasping imploring hands to — half 
 a dozen mules ! 
 
 These are not the customary examples of Far Western heroism, 
 but, unfortunately, are " ower-true tales." 
 
 Well, after a night of sceuting and patrolling, waiting and watching, 
 praying and cursing, fear and fury, morning dawned ; but no Indians, or 
 traces of Indians, showed themselves. Everybody went back to their 
 work, and in the course of the day it leaked out that the whole scare 
 originated with a nervous old couple, who were surprised at milking- 
 time by the advent of a band of horses. Never stopping to see that 
 they were unsaddled, and driven by only a Mexican boy or two, they 
 leaped into their wagon and rushed off to tell Denver that three thou- 
 sand Arapahoes were ready to cut its throat.
 
 DENVER REDIVIVUS. 
 
 17 
 
 The outcome of all this excitement was the proclamation of mar- 
 tial law, and the sudden organization of a regiment for Indian fighting. 
 The " Sand Creek" campaign followed, and secured instant peace to the 
 harassed settlers and miners, over whose heads the tomahawk had 
 been suspended for months. 
 
 The flood, or the Indian scares, lost to West Denver its pre-emi- 
 nence, and business moved to the east side, building up Blake, Holliday, 
 Larimer, and Fifteenth streets. Its expansion has been eastward and 
 northward ever since. When, in 1874, our expedition was fitting out, 
 the city itself was too well built up, and the environs either too un- 
 suitable or too expensive to afford space for the rendezvous camp ; ac- 
 cordingly, it was fixed in a grove of cottonwoods, six miles from town, 
 on Clear creek. There the tents were set up, all the baggage and 
 stores distributed among the various divisions, the new hands given 
 their first taste of roughing it, and the animals brought together and 
 prepared for the campaign. 
 

 
 18 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 III. 
 
 It goes without saying that, in making original explorations through 
 so lofty and broken a region as is comprised in the term Rocky Moun- 
 tains, wheeled vehicles are out of the question. Before they can be 
 used to any extent roads must be laboriously built ; and it was one ob- 
 ject of the Surveys to discover the most practicable routes for these 
 prospective highways. Explorers, meanwhile, had to trudge afoot or 
 take to the saddle. 
 
 The Survey, during its many successive years of service, acquired a 
 large herd of animals, which were kept from season to season, whenever 
 worth it. The labor required was severe, and a superior grade of stock 
 was needed. The great majority of these animals were mules, for their 
 endurance is greater than that of horses, and their size and build are 
 better suited for bearing burdens. This is so well understood by all 
 mountaineers that, whereas you can buy a fair pack-pony for fifty dol- 
 lars, or less, you must pay three times that amount for a good mule. 
 
 The rendezvous camp having been organized, the laboring-men hired 
 (usually the same muleteers, year after year), and the stores collected, 
 the first thing done is to distribute the live stock. Herewith begin 
 both the fun and the peril of the expedition. 
 
 The herd of a hundred or more animals, that have been ranging the 
 open plains in the wildest license all winter, have just been " rounded 
 up," and are at last penned in a corral by themselves. The head packer 
 now looks them over as they go careering round the confined space, 
 and selects the quota of each division of the Survey. Some will require 
 to be re-shod ; and those bravest of men, the frontier blacksmiths, who 
 would fearlessly straddle a thunder-bolt if it needed an iron tip, un- 
 hesitatingly do the job, whether the mule consents or not. Then the 
 animals go back to the corral to fight and play, and to mature, by long 
 consultations, the evil designs which they propose to execute during 
 the coming campaign. 
 
 By this time the saddles and aparcjos (California!! pack-saddles) have
 
 CONDENSING PERSONAL LUGGAGE. 
 
 19 
 
 been repaired and distributed, the stores divided, and, as far as possible, 
 stowed in bags, in order to be most conveniently lashed upon the mules' 
 backs ; and each man has studied how to bestow his bedding and small 
 personal outfit most compactly. In place of trunks or valises every- 
 thing is stuffed into canvas cylinders, each about the size of a section of 
 stove-pipe, which close by means of puckering-strings at the top. Near- 
 ly everything that each one carries must be enclosed in this one war- 
 bag; but, for the few fragile and shapely articles needful, a pair of pan- 
 ier-boxes is given to each party. My writing-kit I stuffed into a small, 
 
 >;,#> 
 
 STUFFING THE WAR-BAG. 
 
 soft travelling-bag, the last time I was out, and it carried very well. Of 
 course such arrangements preclude "boiled shirts" or starched goods 
 of any sort. Your war-bag, like everything else, will be placed in that 
 part of a mule's load where it will ride best, and the utmost strength of 
 two men will be expended in drawing the lash-ropes tightly across it. 
 Anything more linen than a handkerchief or whiter than an under-shirt 
 is, therefore, treated with scorn and derision in camp, and old trousers
 
 20 KNOCKING •ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and coats, heavy flannel shirts, coarse shoes, and broad-brimmed felt 
 hats are the mode. 
 
 Finally comes the gala-day, when the mules are to be saddled for the 
 first time after their long vacation, and everybody is on hand to see the 
 fun. 
 
 The Western pack-mule is small, sinewy, and, like old Joey Bagstock, 
 " tough, sir, tough ! but de-e-vlish sly !" Most of them are bred from 
 Indian ponies, and are born on the open plains. Having previously 
 been lassoed and branded, when three years old they are driven (or in- 
 veigled) into a corral, and exhibited for sale as bronchos. An untamed 
 horse is a model of gentleness beside them. Sometimes they are accus- 
 tomed at once to the saddle by one of those wonderful riders who can 
 stick on the back of anything that runs, and more rarely they are bro- 
 ken to harness ; but ordinarily their backs are trained to bear the pack, 
 which is generally the only practicable method of transporting freight 
 through these rugged mountains. 
 
 The first time the pack-saddles are put on the excitement may be 
 imagined. The green mule, strong in his youth, having been adroitly 
 " roped," or lassoed, is led out into an open space, stepping timidly but 
 quietly, not seeing any cause for alarm. Before he understands what it 
 all means he finds that a noose of the rawhide lariat about his neck has 
 been slipped over his nose, and discovers that his tormentors have an 
 advantage. He pulls, shakes his head, stands upright on opposite ends, 
 but all to no avail. The harder he pulls the tighter the noose pinches 
 his nostrils ; so at last he comes down and keeps still. Then a man ap- 
 proaches slowly and circumspectly, holding behind him a leathern blind- 
 er, which he seeks to slip over the mule's eyes. But two long ears stand 
 in the way, and the first touch of the leather is the signal for two fran- 
 tic jumps — one by the beast and one by the man, for packers are wise 
 enough in their day and generation to fight shy of the business-end 
 of a mule. The next attempt is less a matter of caution and more of 
 strength ; and here the animal has so much the advantage, that often it 
 must be lassoed again and thrown to the ground. 
 
 It is a fine sight to witness the indignation of such a fellow ! He 
 falls heavily, yet holds his head high, and essays to rise ; but his fore- 
 feet are manacled by ropes, and his head is fast. Yet he will shake 
 almost free, get upon his hind feet, stand straight up, and dash down 
 with all his weight in futile efforts for liberty. Secured with more 
 ropes, allowed but three legs to stand upon, and cursed frightfully, he 
 must submit, though he never does it with good grace. It is not always,
 
 THE KICK OF THE " MULO BRONCHO." 
 
 21 
 
 however, that this extremity is resorted to. Some animals make little 
 resistance while the strange thing is being put upon their backs and the 
 fastenings adjusted — all but one. When an effort is made to put that 
 institution called a crupper under a young mule's tail language fails to 
 describe the magnificence of the kicking ! The light heels describe an 
 arc from the ground to ten feet above it, and then strike out at a tan- 
 gent. They cut through the air like whip-lashes, and would penetrate 
 an impediment like bullets. But even mule-flesh tires. Strategy wins. 
 The crupper is gained, and the first hard pull made upon the cinclia (as 
 the girth is termed), which holds firmly every hair-breadth, and finally 
 will crease the contour of the mule's belly into a semblance to Cupid's 
 
 
 SUBMISSION TO THE APAREJO. 
 
 bow. But this one pull suffices to set him springing again — bucking 
 now, with arched back and head between his knees, landing on stiff 
 legs to jar his burden off, or falling full weight on his side and rolling 
 over, to scrape it free. He will sit on his haunches and hurl himself 
 backward ; duck his head and turn a somersault ; finally will stand 
 still, trembling with anger and exhaustion, and let you lead him away,
 
 22 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 conquered. So much is enough for one day; having fitted the aparejo, 
 the putting on of the burden will come easier. 
 
 Let me turn now to the matter of supplies — shelter, bedding, food, 
 and arms — which were accumulated at the rendezvous camp. 
 
 Those old heroes who made a beginning of exploration in the Rocky 
 Mountains, nearly a century ago, as trappers and hunters for the fur 
 companies, would have thought themselves in Paradise could they have 
 seen our stores in 1874; but a casual reader may not be moved by any 
 such envious feeling. The trappers used to make their head-quarters 
 mainly at Fort Benton, at the head of navigation on the Upper Mis- 
 souri. Everything civilized had to be taken twenty-five hundred miles 
 up the river from St. Louis in batteaux ; and for the last five hundred 
 miles these heavy boats must be hauled mainly by men, who walked 
 along the shore with ropes over their shoulders. The value of the car- 
 goes by the time the three months' voyage was completed may be im- 
 agined. Flour was unheard of at Fort Benton, sugar was a wild extrav- 
 agance, and tea and coffee were only fit for the nabobs who conducted 
 the business of the post. The journey was too frightfully long and 
 difficult to admit of many articles of food being transported, since all 
 available space in the overladen mackinaws needed to be reserved for 
 the indispensable whiskey. 
 
 Going out into the woods for a tour of lonely trapping, lasting four, 
 five, or six months, and extending hundreds of miles beyond even this 
 extreme outpost of civilization, these half-savages took nothing in the 
 way of food except a little salt and pepper, and perhaps a trifle of tea, 
 as an occasional indulgence. An iron skillet and a tin cup comprised 
 their only furniture ; if they needed anything more they made it out 
 of poplar-bark or soapstone. For months together these men would 
 live wholly on the flesh their guns brought them, varying this diet now 
 and then with berries, sweet roots, or a pungent decoction of sage-leaves 
 and the bark of the red willow or other plants that would serve the 
 purpose of tea. The red willow bark, mixed with kinnikinnic, made very 
 good smoking, too, after the trapper's tobacco was exhausted. It often 
 happened in the northern mountains (where little alkali occurs) that a 
 trapper would even have no salt for his meat ; but in this he fared no 
 worse than the Indians, who, indeed, have to acquire a taste for it. 
 " White men big fools," they say; " want fresh meat, fresh meat, all time 
 — then put heap salt on it !" The history of these trappers adds to the 
 record of human endurance and abstinence ; but we had no desire to 
 imitate them, though in the earlier years of the government expeditions
 
 THE CAMP COOK CONSIDERED. 23 
 
 the fare was primitive and scanty enough wherever game proved scarce. 
 Latterly we lived better, and finally even attained to four-tined forks ! 
 
 Dr. Hayden's survey was divided into several working divisions of 
 five to seven persons, each of which had a cook, and spent the season 
 in a field of work by itself. Whether or not one thinks these cooks 
 had a hard time of it depends upon the point of view. It seems to me 
 they had, because they had to rise at an unearthly hour in the morn- 
 ing ; but, on the other hand, they were not obliged to climb snowy and 
 back-breaking peaks, and half freeze on their gale-swept summits in 
 " taking observations," nor to chase a lot of frantic mules and horses 
 that chose to be ugly about being caught up. However, upon a fairly 
 satisfactory cook depends a large portion of your good time. 
 
 The camp cook presents himself in various characters. There are 
 not many colored men in the West in this capacity, and few French- 
 men ; but many Americans have picked up the necessary knowledge by 
 hard experience, not one of whom, perhaps, regards it as a " profession," 
 or anything better than a makeshift. 
 
 It is considered by the ordinary mountaineer as a rather inferior 
 occupation, and, as a rule, it falls to the lot of inferior men, who have 
 tried and failed in more energetic, muscular, and profitable pursuits. 
 Of course there are exceptions, but, as a rule, they are men who are not 
 even up to the level of picturesque interest, and are worthy of small re- 
 gard from the observer, unless he is hungry. We are hungry — therefore 
 we pursue the subject. 
 
 Roads being non-existent, and it often being necessary to go boldly 
 across the country, without regard for even Indian trails, the cuisine, 
 like everything else, had to accommodate itself to the backs of the 
 sturdy mules, on whose steady endurance depended nearly all hope of 
 success. The conditions to be met by kitchen and larder were : ability 
 to be stowed together in packages of small size, convenient shape, and 
 sufficient strength to withstand without injury the severest strain of 
 the lash-ropes, and the forty or more accidents liable to happen in the 
 course of a thousand miles of rough mountain travel. The only sort of 
 package that will meet these requirements is the bag. When it is full 
 it is of that elongated and rounded shape which will lie well in the bur- 
 den ; as fast as it is emptied space is utilized and the weight remains 
 manageable. In bags, then, were packed all the raw material, except 
 the few condiments in bottles and flasks, for which, with other fragile 
 things, a pair of panniers was provided. Even the few articles of iron- 
 ware permitted to the camp cook were tied up in a gunny-sack.
 
 1>4 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let me omit the rough methods and vexatious delays of the first 
 morning's setting out. Let me simply suppose the party fairly away, 
 beginning its summer campaign ; and let us leave for the later expe- 
 riences of actual mountaineering the details and routine of daily life, 
 when the animals have quieted down, and we have hardened to a com- 
 mendable regularity of work. Starting from near Denver, it is a day's 
 march to the foot-hills, and, for the beginning, a long march, as you find 
 at the end, somewhat to your surprise if you are an eager novice. 
 
 The smooth, level plains, rising almost imperceptibly to the black 
 wall of the forest-clad foot-hills, are covered with short, bunchy buffalo- 
 grass, already (though in May) grown sere; and the wagon-track you 
 follow dips and rises over greenish gray ridges in monotonous succes- 
 sion. There is little to charm the eye, save the gleaming peaks uplifted 
 ahead — the glorious beacons for our progress. In spring the weather is 
 likely to be misty, so that the mountains do not stand out with as sharp 
 and definite outline as they will later in the season ; but the more prom- 
 inent heights are very plain a hundred miles away. Long's Peak shows 
 all his gigantic proportions, everywhere mantled in snow ; and in clear 
 moments I can catch sight of the silvery crests of snow-covered moun- 
 tains behind, away in the interior of the Snowy Range. 
 
 Rising abruptly from the plains, standing in orderly array, north and 
 south, the peaks crowd together and tower up among the storm-clouds 
 that drift past them, until, as you watch, it is the mountain peaks which 
 seem to be moving, cutting the clouds asunder and dashing the flurries 
 of snow from their fronts, as ships before a gale part the white spray of 
 the waves. This grandeur of the tremendous contest of the elements 
 among the serried ridges is better witnessed in this season of thunder- 
 storms, when winter disputes every step of summer's advance, than at 
 any other time. The mountains are still piled high with snow, only the 
 black crests of the cliffs streaking their white cones. And while you 
 are watching the pure gleam of the snow, or the rosy play of sunlight
 
 LESSONS OF THE FIRST DAY'S MARCH. 25 
 
 upon it, an indigo cloud, dense and square-fronted with rain, will march 
 up from the valley at one side, cutting off all the rest of the landscape, 
 while a similar phalanx will sweep up on the left hand, hiding the 
 other mountains behind its black veil, and together they will assault the 
 mountain whose white and lofty head stands out between them firm 
 and clear against the angry sky. But as the storms strike the mon- 
 arch's flank and climb his sides and close about his base, sounding the 
 long-roll in their thunder and hurling the bolts of their lightning, the 
 dense blue-black of the rain is changed to the misty white of snow, 
 the darkness gradually vanishes, the ammunition of the lightning is ex- 
 hausted, and the mountain emerges from the battle whiter than ever 
 with fleecy trophies of victory; while triumphant banners of crimson 
 and gold are hung upon the clouds so blackly defiant a moment ago. 
 
 Beyond some grand exhibition like this, the pranks of a few ill- 
 packed mules, or the early vagaries of the beast you ride, there will be 
 little to amuse you. This first day, indeed, is likely to be tiresome and 
 unsatisfactory. You have not become accustomed to your mule, nor 
 he to you. You are sunburnt, your eyes smart with the hot alkali 
 dust — for the cool mountains are not yet reached — and your muscles 
 ache with the unwonted labor of riding. If it happens to have been 
 wholly in the wilderness, you have got along without much trouble, 
 perhaps ; but if your road has led you through the miserable outskirts 
 of civilization, you have been gazed at in an annoying way, and chaffed 
 on your " green " appearance. The mules have exerted themselves to 
 enter every gate and door-way, to go anywhere and everywhere but 
 where they ought ; and the amount of caution, invective, and hard- 
 riding necessary to keep them together and under their respective 
 packs has been vexatious and fatiguing, conducive neither to observa- 
 tion of scenery nor to the cultivation of Christian virtues. 
 
 Indeed, on this initial trip, you get some new ideas on the subject 
 of mountain mules. You learn, for instance, that they love company, 
 cling together, and enjoy walking one behind the other in long file ; but 
 no mule has independence of judgment enough to lead a train, even 
 with a bit in his mouth. On the other hand, all mules are " stuck 
 after" a horse, as the muleteers phrase it, and advantage is taken of 
 this to cause them to travel steadily, and to keep them together at 
 night, by having a horse to lead the march. The horse has a stock-bell 
 round its neck, and is ridden by the cook, who is thus debarred from 
 anything except steadily plodding along ; while the others can ramble 
 off from the train as much as they please. At night the bell-horse is 
 
 3
 
 26 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 hobbled, and all the mules are turned loose to graze about the neigh- 
 borhood, the tinkle of the bell giving us information of their position in 
 the morning ; for there is little fear that they will wander away from the 
 horse, unless stampeded, and that rarely occurs. Mules will go absolute- 
 ly daft over a horse, and there are always fierce contests between the 
 animals on the first day a train starts out as to which shall have the 
 coveted place next to the leader. It often happens that for weeks af- 
 terward the victor has to maintain his position by constant exercise of 
 heels and teeth, and with much mulish profanity. I have seen two 
 mules fight so incessantly for the place next the bell-horse, when feed- 
 ing, that they forgot to eat all day. 
 
 This quarrelling among the animals, and the continual loosening of 
 their burdens, due to the fulness of. their bellies, the stiffness of the 
 
 FIRST STAGE. — ADJUSTING THE PACK. 
 
 new lash-ropes, and the weight of the loads, make frequent stops nec- 
 essary, and more than one chase occurs after a panic-stricken runaway, 
 which must be caught and repacked, while the remainder wait most 
 restlessly.
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE DIAMOND-HITCH. 
 
 SECOND STAGE. — "MODERATE PULLING." 
 
 Here let me say a word about the art of " packing." Years ago 
 everybody used the old Mexican saw-buck saddle, and it still bestrides 
 the lacerated spines of unfortunate burros ; but generally it has yielded 
 place to the Californian stuffed aparejo, the shape of which is seen very 
 well in the cut on page 
 19. This is fastened firm- 
 ly to the long-suffering 
 beast by all the strength 
 of two men, who tighten 
 the girth by bracing their 
 feet against the upright 
 mule's ribs. Then a long 
 lash-rope, having a broad, 
 strong girth at one end 
 terminating in a wooclen 
 hook, is thrown across 
 the aparejo, and the pack- 
 ing begins. The burdens 
 are laid on so as to bal- 
 ance properly, and are held in place until all, or the main part, is in 
 position. Then the ends of the lash-rope are handed back and forth 
 by the man on each side, twisted and looped loosely in a way very 
 
 dexterous but utterly indescriba- 
 ble, and finally, by moderate pull- 
 ing, the whole net-work is tight- 
 ened. The load is now criticised 
 and balanced anew, small articles 
 are tucked in, and it is pro- 
 nounced ready. One man goes 
 to the left side of the animal and 
 seizes a portion of the rope which 
 passes round the hook, while the 
 other, on the opposite side, turns 
 his back and passes the end of the 
 lash-rope over his shoulder, so as 
 to give him the greatest possible 
 This done, he calls back to his invisible mate, 
 
 THIRD STAGE. — "GIVE IT TO HER!" 
 
 pulling power. 
 "All set?" 
 "All set." 
 " Give it to her !"
 
 28 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Then results a sudden and mighty strain in concert, a dreadful 
 groan escapes from the poor mule, there is a stifled sound of creaking 
 and crushing, and in an instant more the fastening is made and the 
 work is done. This lashing is all one rope, but it is crossed and en- 
 twined till it seems half a dozen. On the top of the load it forms a 
 rectangular or diamond-shaped space, which gives the process its name 
 among the packers. To know how to do it is a passport to mountain 
 society, and establishes your credit. I remember once being alone at a 
 stage station in Wyoming. I wore a partially civilized coat and hat, 
 and hence was under suspicion among the party of men assembled. 
 Foolishly venturing an opinion upon some subject, I was judged by 
 the clothes I wore, and promptly snubbed. 
 
 "What right have you to know anything about it?" a big Klamath 
 man hurled at me. "You're a tender-foot !" 
 
 "Perhaps I am," I answered, meekly; "but I can put the diamond- 
 hitch on a mule." 
 
 " Can you do that ? Then, sir, you are entitled to any opinion you 
 please in this 'ere court !" 
 
 Even this lashing will not always hold firm, however, against equi- 
 asinine contortions; but it is incomparably superior, both for the wel- 
 fare of the mule and the safety of the burden, to the antiquated and 
 cruel saw-buck. 
 
 A day of such rough experiences is only wearisome, and at night, 
 very likely, you curse your folly in having come out, and find that the 
 first irregular camp in the foot-hills is not worth description. 
 
 Divide Colorado into nearly equal east and west halves, and you will 
 have two districts of entirely different physical characteristics, that on 
 the east being the edge of the broad plains stretching away to the Mis- 
 souri river; while the western half rises abruptly into piles and ranges 
 of great mountains, which, intersected by frightful canons, and em- 
 bracing some extensive table-lands, cover the whole to the borders of 
 the State and beyond, exhibiting the most startling development in the 
 great uplifts where the Rio Colorado takes its rise. This great moun- 
 tainous system was the terra incognita which the Surveys opened to the 
 light, and the foot-hills are its outposts. 
 
 Leaving Denver, which is situated on soft sandstones and marls (at 
 the base of which formation occur the extensive coal-beds of Colorado), 
 you pass over "hog-backs" of upturned rocks, running in a north-and- 
 south direction, at the base of the foot-hills. In these you find the 
 edges of all the upturned series of underlying sedimentary rocks, till
 
 1 v 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE RANGE. 29 
 
 you reach the deep, crystalline rocks of the mountains themselves. 
 Among the oldest of these strata that have been set upon edge by the 
 upheavals that elevated the range are the triassic " red -beds," whose 
 thin vertical walls stand, with grandeur so theatrical, at the gates of the 
 Garden of the Gods — fit portals to that geological play-ground. The 
 coal from the base of the mountains comes from the beds of this hori- 
 zon. At Golden — now a thriving manufacturing and railway town — 
 you observe a noticeable peculiarity in the geology, for it is the only 
 place east of the mountains where basaltic lava occurs. Here, too, one 
 gets a good idea of the amount of erosion that has taken place. The 
 top of Castle Rock, a bluff six hundred feet high, close to the town, was 
 once the bed of a valley ! Going up Berthoud Pass, you soon get away 
 from all the sedimentary rocks, and advance through an immense thick- 
 ness of metamorphosed pre -Silurian schists, gneisses, granites, etc., 
 among which occur the lodes of gold and silver. This was the route 
 of my first entrance to the mountains. Now a good wagon-road goes 
 across, and there is even talk of a railway, but at first a mere muddy 
 and rough path traced the little-frequented course to Middle Park. 
 
 The hills grow more and more precipitous as you near the moun- 
 tains, the higher ones being crowned with fantastic pinnacles of shat- 
 tered rocks, or showing a bold escarpment of granite along the crest of 
 a ridge. The slopes of the distant hills are thickly clothed with resin- 
 ous woods as far up as timber grows — that is, 10,500 to 11,500 feet — 
 and the watercourses are marked by the lighter foliage of a species of 
 aspen, with occasional currant and gooseberry bushes ; but close to the 
 road the trees have been cut down and converted into firewood for the 
 mines, piles of which you pass along the way. This stripping of the 
 hills, and the familiar marks of the axe, detract from the wildness while 
 enhancing the desolation of the scene. I do not remember to have no- 
 ticed anything, so far, which was picturesque or pretty, except certain 
 night effects in camp, which, rather, are weird. It is all on so large and 
 grand a scale as to produce less immediate satisfaction and pleasure 
 than one probably would derive from a week's trip among the Cats- 
 kills or Adirondacks ; but there is a breadth, and height, and depth to 
 a day's experience among these silent, sky-piercing peaks that you can- 
 not take in at once, but must make an effort after, and grow to the ap- 
 preciation of, through a lifetime. For example, approaching Black 
 Hawk we descended two thousand feet in one hill. From the top of 
 this hill, itself a depression among foot-hills, I could take in at a glance 
 the icy summits of Evans, James, Gray and Torrey, Chief and Squaw,
 
 30 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Arapahoe, and a dozen other peaks, named and nameless, whose sepa- 
 rating valleys were two miles above the sea. In the majestic calm of 
 that presence all else dwindled ; yet I heard a man swear in hot anger 
 because, forsooth, a strap had loosened! It seemed more than profanity. 
 
 Much of our way after this lay down the side of a long range, every- 
 where punched with the "prospect-holes" and tunnels of gold-diggers, 
 into the deep valley of Idaho Springs, a hot watering-place, where, not- 
 withstanding my exaltation over the mountains, I was glad to pay a 
 dime for a glass of poor lager. We camped for the night quite near the 
 village : and whereas we had before been set down as a prospecting 
 party, and afterward chaffed by the small boys of Central City as fisher- 
 men, here in Idaho we were classed with a circus company which was 
 just leaving town. Now we were at the base of the main range, and our 
 climb really began ; but it was easy at first, for we followed the wagon- 
 road to Georgetown and Empire City. 
 
 All through here these mining camps were the most interesting thing 
 visible to us new-comers. The miners build their hasty villages in the 
 spots least likely to prove valuable for mining purposes ; yet I have 
 seen many places where they would dig the streets and yards up, leav- 
 ing their houses perched on pillars, or would tear them down altogether, 
 to get at the gold in the heavy soil underneath. All the hill-sides are 
 furrowed with ditches bringing water to the mines from some upland 
 spring ; or pitted with holes about the size of graves, where some search- 
 er has tried to find the lode that should make his fortune. Far and 
 near only stumps show where trees once stood, and the fair snowborn 
 creeks are polluted with the mud of "tailings," or diverted from their 
 beds to feed the flumes. 
 
 A Rocky Mountain mining camp, indeed, is about the newest and 
 roughest place, at its beginning, to be found in the world. When a suc- 
 cessful "strike ' has been made, no matter how far from anywhere it 
 happens to be, thither rush scores and hundreds of miners and other 
 restless money-makers, and every one houses himself as best he can 
 until lumber can be sawed and other regular building materials pre- 
 pared. Some dig little caves in the hill-side, roofing them over in front 
 with a sort of porch and door-way; others put up a framework of poles, 
 and stretch their tents over them, laying down a floor of slabs, and 
 banking up the sides with dirt ; some haul logs and construct square 
 cabins, ten or twelve logs high, roofed with poles and thatched with 
 mud, which soon supports a crop of weeds. This is the dwelling of an 
 aristocrat ; yet it has only a rough stone fireplace, continued outside
 
 PICTURESQUE PEOPLE. 31 
 
 into a big mud-and-stone chimney, surmounted by a corn-cob structure 
 of fagots, a headless barrel, or an old powder-canister. The floor is 
 dirt, the door a couple of slabs, or perhaps only a pendant gunny-sack ; 
 and the bed a bunk of poles, covered with hay and army blankets. On 
 a shelf above the small window stands a row of 'empty whiskey-bottles, 
 and some bitters and liniment. The table, chairs, and stools are 
 knocked together by means of a few nails and an axe. The kitchen 
 requisites consist of copper pails, tin cups, and iron knives and forks; 
 the library of a pack of cards, a copy of the " Mining Code," and per- 
 haps a well-thumbed copy of Bret Harte's " Luck " or Mark Twain's 
 " Roughing It." I once found Byron's poems, Dickens's " Nicholas 
 Nickleby," Shakspeare's plays, and an old Harper s Magazine, as the 
 entire library of a Colorado camp. 
 
 Such a collection of flat-roofed, wide-verandaed log-houses perched 
 up among the rocks beside a foaming stream, skewed out of shape, and 
 devoid of any color or appearance of civilization, is exceedingly pictu- 
 resque, reminding one of a distant view of Swiss hamlets. But here 
 there is little green in the landscape — only the dull olive of the sage- 
 brush and buffalo-grass, and dark-hued rocks. Perhaps the white fence 
 of a sad little graveyard in a corner of the picture will be the only light 
 in it. All is desolation. 
 
 The inhabitants of these towns were a curious lot — bearded miners, 
 dirty laborers, strong-armed bull-whackers, thin-lipped gamblers, men of 
 every character, and women of no character. Sunday is unheard of, or 
 devoted to the dance-hall. Clothes wear out, and are superseded by 
 buckskin jackets and breeches made of army blankets ; while the women 
 renew their "linen" by saving the flour-sacks, labels and all. I remem- 
 ber, once noticing among a lot of red shirts and heterogeneous textures 
 hanging on a quaking-asp pole to dry, in a Wyoming mining camp, a 
 garment answering the purpose of a chemise that some woman had 
 made out of two flour-sacks. On one side was printed, in large blue 
 letters, " Hard to Beat ;" on the other an azure legend, " Rough and 
 Ready." These were the brands of the mills. Salt-bags, being stouter, 
 are used to patch trousers, care being taken to have the grocer's adver- 
 tisement outside. One week such 'a town would be overflowing with 
 people, and money in plenty, whiskey triumphant, contractors busy, 
 everybody aflame with news of wonderful gold discoveries near by, 
 and excited with anticipations of marvellous riches and a great city to 
 spring up there in a night. The next week the dazzling "finds" had 
 proved " blind leads," real estate had fallen one hundred per cent., and
 
 32 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 everybody was selling his extra boots to get out of town, leaving the 
 "city" with empty houses, a high-sounding title and reminiscences — 
 nothing else. There are dozens of towns throughout these mountains, 
 once the abode of hundreds of eager people and the scene of thriving 
 business, that are now as fully given to the moles and the bats as Baby- 
 lon was ever threatened to be. They were once graphically described 
 to me, by one who knew them well, as " towns where there are two 
 or three whiskey-shops and a lot of dead-beats." It was a good defi- 
 nition. 
 
 Such a relic was the town of Empire, lying on our road to Ber- 
 thoud Pass. Now it has become a railway station, and is somewhat 
 revived, but then it was the merest ghost of a town. There were houses 
 and stores enough — barns, and fences, and gardens; Clear creek ex- 
 panded into a pond above the strong dam that supplied ruined mills 
 yet standing on its banks, but the people had departed. Yet its decline 
 had been less rapid than its rise, if one might judge from the look of 
 hasty construction about all the buildings, mainly unpainted structures 
 of loose boards or simple log-cabins. With the high hope of a sudden 
 great city which animates the breasts of all Western men " where two 
 or three are gathered together," the town seems to have been elabo- 
 rately laid out, and the broad streets run at equal intervals, and inter- 
 sect at right angles all across the valley, hemmed in by precipitous hills 
 beyond which snow-capped peaks make a horizon. Ten years before, 
 fifteen hundred people, attracted by the mines which were discovered 
 in the vicinity, built the town with almost magic haste, and its streets 
 were busy with congregated men and women. The valley was a pleas- 
 ant one, the mines proved productive, the trades and industries to sup- 
 ply the demands of this population were just established, when sud- 
 denly new mines were opened at Georgetown, Buckskin Joe, Idaho 
 Springs, and elsewhere, and almost in a day the miners had gone. 
 Robbed of their customers, the shops were quickly closed ; the black- 
 smiths, coopers, and carpenters locked up their tools, to begin again their 
 nomadic life; and the school -house (newly built) did not even see 
 the benches that were to be whittled by jack-knives of pupils who never 
 came. The apothecary-shop was the last to succumb, but even that 
 went long ago, for this is a healthy country; and now the tavern, which 
 was also the post-office, was the only public place. Half a dozen families 
 comprised the entire population, and these all lived in the best houses, 
 as though they had taken their pick of the abandoned tenements. Cav- 
 ernous mansions were so common that they had lost, with the absence
 
 A NEW ERA. 
 
 33 
 
 of isolation and novelty, the fearfulness which hangs about empty houses, 
 and the few children played in them with unaffected glee. 
 
 These are pictures of a by-gone time, however; and, though you may 
 find plenty of ruins, you may search far for a similar life to that of the 
 old camps. Civilization has been brought too near by railway and tele- 
 graph and a crowd of travellers, to make possible the wild scenes which 
 were the result of extreme isolation and outlawry. Yet in some of the 
 new and distant silver camps, even now, a brief period of disorganized 
 revelry and roughness will exist, and there will be wickedness and ter- 
 rorism enough to satisfy the most sensational appetite.
 
 34 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 V. 
 
 AFTER leaving Empire we began the real ascent of the mountain- 
 pass, properly speaking. 
 
 The trail led upward by a gradual ascent along the sides of heavily- 
 timbered mountains, with almost unattainable heights overhanging on 
 one hand, and an immense depth dropping from one's track on the other. 
 There was little chance for extended vision till the higher portions were 
 reached ; but the luxuriant growth of mosses, lichens, and ferns under 
 the damp pines, and lovely flowers and grasses along the path, formed 
 a contrast to the sombre massiveness of the opposite mountain that was 
 never wearisome. At one point the ridge of the other mountain, far 
 above timber-line, was hollowed into a great amphitheatre, opening out- 
 ward. From this a slender stream trickled down to the invisible creek 
 in the bottom of the canon, as I could trace by its foam. Like all 
 these snow-torrents, it was very narrow, and flashed out from the dark 
 background of pines as if somehow a zigzag of lightning had become 
 fixed there; when, farther up, I could look clown into this amphi- 
 theatre, I saw that the source of the stream was a delta of brooklets 
 from a semicircle of snow-banks. 
 
 On the way I met one of the surveyors of the new wagon-road 
 into Middle Park — an old man, clad in homespun, with long, gray hair 
 and beard setting off his brown face and sweeping his bent shoulders. 
 He carried a levelling-rod, and drove before him a sedate little ass, as 
 homespun and grizzled as himself, on which was packed his small roll 
 of butternut blankets. He was all neutral tint, like the mountain, but 
 as picturesque as one of its weathered bowlders. 
 
 That night we encamped at timber-line — always the pleasantest of 
 bivouacs — under Parry Peak, named after Dr. C. C. Parry, the botanist, 
 whose party built a monument on its summit some years ago. It is 
 easily climbed ; but I chose to ascend an opposite spur in the gray 
 of the long evening, and here I had my first tramp above timber-line. 
 
 We were so near the limit of tree-growth that it was short work to
 
 ABOVE TIMBER-LINE. 35 
 
 get out of the scattered spruce-woods. Then came some stiff climbing 
 up ledges of broken rocks standing cliff-like to bar the way to the sum- 
 mit. These surmounted, the remainder was easy; for from the north- 
 east — the side I was on — this mountain, and nearly all others visible, 
 present a smooth, grassy slope to the very top ; but the western side 
 of the range is a series of rocky precipices, seamed and shattered into 
 chaos. 
 
 Just above the cliffs grew a number of dwarf spruces, some of them 
 with trunks six inches or more through, yet lying fiat along the ground, 
 so that the gnarled and wind-pressed boughs were scarcely knee-high. 
 They stood so close together, and were so rigid, that I could not press 
 between them ; but, on the other hand, they were stiff enough to bear 
 my weight, so that I could walk over their tops when it was too far to 
 go around. Two or three species of small brown sparrows lived there, 
 and were very talkative. The sharp, metallic chirp of the blue snow- 
 bird was heard also as it flitted about, showing white feathers on either 
 side of its tail in scudding from one sheltering bush to another. Doubt- 
 less careful search would have discovered its home, snugly built of cir- 
 cularly laid grasses, and tucked deeply into some hollow by the root of 
 a spruce. There would be young at this season, for it was now the 
 beginning of July. 
 
 Proceeding upward a few hundred feet at a slow pace — for any 
 exertion quickly exhausts the breath at this great altitude — I came 
 to the top, and stood upon the verge of a crag which was being 
 rapidly crumbled by water and frost. Gaping cracks seamed its face, 
 and an enormous amount of fallen rock covered a broad slope at 
 its foot. 
 
 The first moment I arrived here I heard a most lively squeaking 
 going on, apparently just under the edge of the cliff or in some of 
 the cracks. It was a strange noise, somewhere between a bark and a 
 scream, and I could think of nothing but young hawks as the authors 
 of it. So I set to work to find the nest, but my search was vain, while 
 the sharp squeaking seemed to multiply and to come from a dozen dif- 
 ferent places. By this time I had crawled pretty well down the rough 
 face of the cliff, and had reached the talus of broken rock, when I 
 caught a glimpse of a little head, with two black eyes, like a prairie- 
 dog's, peering out of a crevice, and was just in time to see him open his 
 small jaws and say skink ! about as a rusty hinge would pronounce it. 
 I whipped my revolver out of my belt and fired, but the little fellow 
 had dodged the bullet and was gone. The echoes rattled about among
 
 30 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 the rocks, wandered up and down the cafton, and hammered lustily 
 at half a dozen stone walls before ceasing; but when they died away 
 not a sound was to be heard. Every little rascal had hidden himself. 
 So I sat down and waited. In about five minutes a tiny, timid squeak 
 broke the stillness; then a second, a trifle louder; then one away under 
 my feet, in some subterranean passage. Hardly daring to breathe, I 
 waited and watched. Finally the chorus was as loud as before, and I 
 caught sight of one of the singers only about ten yards away, head and 
 shoulders out of his hole, and doubtless commenting to his neighbor in 
 no complimentary way upon the strange intruder. Slowly lifting my 
 pistol, I fired. I was sure he had not seen me; yet a chip of rock fixing 
 from where he had stood was my only satisfaction — he had dodged 
 again. 
 
 I had seen enough, however, to know that the noisy colony was a 
 community of conies, or Little Chief hares {Lagomys princcps), as they 
 are called in the books. They live wholly at or above timber-line, bur- 
 rowing among the. fallen and decomposing rocks which crown the sum- 
 mits of all of the mountains. Not every peak by any means possesses 
 them ; on the contrary, they are rather uncommon, and always are so 
 difficult to shoot that their skins are rare in museums, and their ways 
 little known to naturalists. During the middle of the day they are 
 asleep and quiet ; but in the evening, and all night, when the moon 
 shines, they leave their rocky retreats and forage in the neighboring 
 meadows, where they meet the yellow-footed marmot and other neigh- 
 bors. About the only enemies they have, I fancy, are the rattlesnake 
 and weasels, except when a wild-cat may pounce upon one, or an owl 
 swoop down and snatch up some rambler. In midwinter, of course, 
 their burrows are deep -buried in snow; but then they neither know 
 nor care what the weather is, for they are hibernating, snugly ensconced 
 in the warm bed of soft grasses and downy weeds that they have 
 thoughtfully provided against this very contingency. If he can catch 
 a cony, an Indian will eat it ; he likes to use its fur, too, to braid his 
 locks; but the lively little rodents are pretty safe from human foes — 
 even when armed with Colt's revolver ! 
 
 Although it was getting a trifle dusky I chose to explore a new way 
 back to camp, which seemed to obviate re-climbing the peak. Follow- 
 ing a stream down a quarter of a mile or so, I found I was all right, but 
 must go through a bog and get my feet wet — an accident of too little 
 consequence to cause much hesitation. 
 
 I did not have such an easy time on a subsequent occasion, when we
 
 SPRUCE-TREE LADDERS. 37 
 
 delayed our return to camp until darkness overtook us — always a dan- 
 gerous risk. This happened near the head-waters of the Rio Grande, 
 where, just for sport, four of us added to our day's work a postprandial 
 climb of about two thousand feet, with nothing in the way of view or 
 novelty at the end of it as reward — one of the stiffest climbs I ever 
 made, too. We began it by creeping up a narrow defile through the 
 vertical escarpment of granite and basalt which hemmed in the valley 
 and carried the mountain-top on its shoulders. Coming down the dark- 
 ness overtook us, and we had to trust to luck to find the stairway-like 
 passage through the cliff, for we could see nothing, and of course there 
 was no path. Proceeding cautiously as best we could, the margin of 
 the crag — the jumping-off place — was at last reached, but no passage 
 down appeared. Below there, half a mile away, we could see the faint 
 sparkle of our camp-fire, and wish for our blankets, but the situation 
 promised little hope of reaching them before daylight the next morn- 
 ing. This was a hard prospect, for even an August night is freezing 
 cold when you are without fire or shelter in the high Rockies. 
 
 Working our way along the cliff, however, we finally came to a small 
 chasm in its face, within which a spruce-tree was growing, whose top 
 came just a little above the surface of the bluff. The tallest of trees 
 would reach only a fraction of the way down ; but where this was root- 
 ed there might be a shelf and another break in the wall. So it was 
 decided that I, being the lightest and most nimble of the party, should 
 go down this tree and explore. In almost pitch-darkness, therefore, 
 my sense of feeling my only guide, I began the descent. To get to 
 the lower branches was easy; then, grasping firmly the bulky trunk, I 
 " swarmed " down the rough shaft for perhaps twenty feet before I 
 touched the ground and shouted back, " So far so good." There was a 
 considerable ledge here, which creeping along I speedily found a way 
 to a second lower shelf, whence I could dimly see that by scrambling 
 down the smooth trunk of a dead pine, which had fallen against the 
 cliff, we could reach sloping rocks, and thus extricate ourselves. Making 
 a trumpet of my hands, I howled these facts up to my companions, and 
 waited until, one by one, they had all descended. Then, with a few 
 broken shins and barked elbows, we made our way safely back to our 
 somewhat alarmed cook and his camp-fire, deciding not to try moun- 
 taineering at night again, except in an emergency. 
 
 Here in the wet grass — to return to my bog in Berthoud's pass — - 
 the beautiful white-crowned sparrows, brothers to our common Eastern 
 white-throated sparrows, or peabody-birds, were singing away in great
 
 38 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 glee. Besides some chips and chucks, the)' had a very sweet strain, fre- 
 quently repeated, which said 
 
 fe=^=; 
 
 t=t= 
 
 Pra 
 
 rie, 
 
 These sparrows were just leisurely migrating from their Southern 
 winter-homes to their breeding-places, almost altogether north of Colo- 
 rado. Eastward of the Plains, indeed, their nests are built rarely south 
 of Labrador, but in the Rocky Mountains the birds stay in summer 
 
 among the cool uplands almost 
 down to the 40th parallel. I my- 
 self had the pleasure of discover- 
 ing one of the earliest nests of 
 this bird ever taken in the United 
 States. It was fixed in the tall 
 grass growing on the bank of a 
 lovely trout-brook in Southwest- 
 ern Wyoming, and could not be 
 seen from above, for the yellow 
 grasses arched over it like a roof, 
 and the bird crept in through a 
 concealed tunnel. 
 
 HOME OF THE WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW. 
 
 It had been pretty rough com- 
 ing up the pass, but the descent 
 from this summit was ten times worse. The road was merely a bridle- 
 path, and had never been improved in the least respect from the way 
 Nature left it. On the contrary, every animal that passed left it worse 
 than before, so that the whole road was a succession of deep holes, full 
 of mud and water, of big bowlders, with angular edges and slippery sides, 
 and of bogs, across which we had to build corduroy bridges, and then 
 thrash the mules, to keep them from leaping on one side into the mire. 
 The whole was steeply descending, and wound through a dense forest, 
 so that the getting down was an experience to be remembered. As 
 soon as the mules began to drop their loads in the torrents that rushed 
 across the trail, and do their level best to kick them to pieces; as soon 
 as they began to throw themselves headlong on the sharpest rocks they 
 could find; as soon as they got well mired in sloughs such as Bunyan 
 never dreamed of; as soon as they rolled, load and all, a hundred feet
 
 MULE STRENGTH AND STUPIDITY. 39 
 
 or so down into a gulch, the day's sport began, and there was no in- 
 termission till the broad prairies of Middle Park gladdened our eyes at 
 evening. 
 
 Some farther characteristics of the genus mule were well brought 
 out by that day's struggle — for instance, strength. Our pack animals 
 were loaded with from two to three hundred pounds each ; yet, while 
 everything went well, they climbed about as though they were free. 
 We found them very sure-footed and plucky under their loads so long 
 as they kept on their legs. This was particularly true in fording rivers, 
 and I once had one take me out of a very awkward predicament in 
 that way ; but let one fall, and his courage seems to leave him. 
 
 In a bad place to go through, like a bog, mules are desperately stupid. 
 The very first of our mishaps that day was when the leading mule got 
 a trifle mired on the edge of a mud-hole, became frightened, and fell. 
 No power could prevent every single one of the eight pack animals fol- 
 lowing from piling themselves into that same hole in a determined effort 
 to get past or over the prostrate body of their leader. There they were 
 — nine of them — floundering on their backs in one mire, spoiling their 
 harness, breaking their shins against the rocks, and kicking their packs 
 to pieces ! Safely out of that, and re-packed, the next move was for the 
 big mule carrying the kitchen kit to fall off the shelf-like path and roll 
 over and over down the hill-side about sixty feet. 
 
 These tough beasts can stand more than that, though. One of our 
 parties had a mule fall, by a series of bounds, an almost vertical distance 
 of about two hundred feet. It being supposed, of course, that he was 
 done for, one of the men went down with a rifle to put the animal 
 out of its misery, if perchance it still lived. But he found the tough 
 beast pretty comfortable, the pack having acted as a cushion to most of 
 its tumbles ; and when released the acrobat followed along into camp 
 little the worse for its accident. 
 
 His mule is the mountain-man's mainstay. He treats it much more 
 kindly than he does himself, and respects it far more than he does his 
 neighbor. Finding all sorts of excuses for an habitual cutthroat, he 
 simply Jiangs the mule-stealer.
 
 4ii KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 VI. 
 
 EMERGING from Rcrthoud's Pass and its Gehenna of trails (never- 
 theless, I traversed far worse afterward, down in the San Juan country 
 and up among the Wind Rivers), we came out, just before sunset, into 
 the grassy savannas of Middle Park, and overtook a party of the Survey 
 that had preceded us, resting in a little grove of pretty quaking-asp 
 trees. 
 
 Knowing where the camp is to be placed, the most of us — there 
 are half a dozen, all told, in the party — gallop ahead and unsaddle our 
 riding animals, each putting his saddle, gun, coats, etc., in a heap at the 
 foot of a tree. By that time the train has come up, and every one turns 
 to help remove the packs and place the cargo in orderly array. This op- 
 eration the sagacious mules undergo with the most exemplary quietude ; 
 and a little later, when the animals have cooled, the aparejos are taken 
 off, the bell-horse is hobbled, and the whole herd are turned loose for 
 the night. Their first act is to roll, removing the perspiration and 
 scratching the backs grown hot and irritated under the heavy loads, 
 which, at first, often average 250 or 300 pounds. Then how they eat! 
 The sun sets, twilight fades, the camp-fire is replenished, and still they 
 munch, munch at the crisp grass; the stars come out and the riders go 
 in, but the last glimpse of the mules in the darkness shows them with 
 their noses to the ground. A pack train intelligently cared for will act- 
 ually grow fat upon a trip of this kind, though they never get a mouth- 
 ful of grain during the whole four or five months. 
 
 The very first mule unloaded is the staid veteran distinguished by 
 the honor of bearing the cuisine. A shovel and an axe having been re- 
 leased from their lashings, the cook seizes them, and hurriedly digs a 
 trench, in which he builds his fire. While it is kindling he and any- 
 body else whose hands are free cut or pluck up fuel. We are so stiff 
 sometimes, from our eight or ten hours in the saddle, that we can 
 hardly move our legs ; but it is no time to lie down. Hobbling round 
 after wood and water limbers us up a little, and hastens the prepara-
 
 "FLY-FISHING" WITH '"HOPPERS." 
 
 41 
 
 tion of dinner — that blessed goal of all our present hopes ! If a stream 
 that holds out any promise is near, the rod is brought into requisition 
 at once ; and, if all goes well, there are enough fish for the mess by 
 the time the cook is ready for them. 
 
 IN THE EDGE OF MIDDLE PARK. 
 
 Flies, as a general thing, are rather a delusion to the angler than a 
 
 snare for the trout. The accepted bait is the grasshopper, except when 
 
 there are great numbers of this insect, in which case the fish are all 
 
 so well fed that they will not bite. The best fishing had by any 
 
 party that I was with was in Wyoming, along the head-waters of the 
 
 Green river, and in eastern Idaho, on the tributaries of the Snake. 
 
 That region, the entomologists say, is the nursery of all the "'hopper" 
 
 hordes which devastate the crops of Dakota, Colorado, and Kansas ; 
 
 but when we were there it was so difficult to find bait, that we used 
 
 4
 
 42 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 to keep our eyes open all day, and pounce upon every grasshopper we 
 could find, saving them for the evening's fishing. The usual catch was 
 salmon -trout, great two and three pounders, gleaming, speckled, and 
 inside golden pink — that sunset color called "salmon." They were 
 not gamy, though — really it was more exciting to capture the lively 
 bait than it was to hook the trout — and we were glad of it, since the 
 object was not sport, but the despised " pot." In the southern Rocky 
 Mountains we took true brook-trout, of smaller size, but of excellent 
 flavor. The largest I ever saw came from the upper Rio Grande, where 
 a charming little ranchwoman fried them for us — in commemoration of 
 which the canon where they lurked was named " Irene." Rapid de- 
 capitation and splitting finished the dressing. The flesh was always 
 hard and firm and white, as it ought to be in a fish born and bred in 
 snow-water. If by chance any were left over from dinner, they made 
 most toothsome sandwiches for the next noon-day lunch, especially if 
 (as was once our happy lot) there was currant jelly to put between the 
 bread and the backbone. 
 
 But all this happens while the cook gets his fire well a-going. That 
 accomplished, and two square bars of three-quarters inch iron laid 
 across the trench, affording a firm resting-place for the kettles, the 
 stove is complete. John sets a pail of water on to heat, jams his bake- 
 oven well into the coals at one side, buries the cover of it in the other 
 side of the fire, and gets out his long knife. Going to the cargo, he 
 takes a side of bacon out of its gunny-sack, and cuts as many slices 
 as he needs, saving the rind to grease his oven. Then he 'is ready to 
 make his bread. 
 
 Flour is more portable than pilot-biscuit; therefore warm, light 
 bread, freshly made morning and night, has gratefully succeeded hard- 
 tack in all mining and mountain camps. Sometimes a large tin pan is 
 carried in which to mould the bread ; but often a square half-yard of 
 canvas kept for the purpose, and laid in a depression in the ground, 
 forms a sufficiently good bowl, and takes up next to none of the pre- 
 cious room. When a bread-pan is taken it must be lashed bottom up 
 on top of the kitchen-mule's pack. If it breaks loose and slips down 
 on his rump, or dangles against his hocks, there is likely to be some 
 fun ; and when a squall sweeps down from the high peaks, and the 
 hailstones beat a devil's tattoo on that hollow pan, the mule under 
 it goes utterly crazy. The canvas bread -pan, therefore, is preferred. 
 Sometimes even this is dispensed with, the bread being mixed up with 
 water right in the top of the flour -bag, and moulded on the cover
 
 THE UBIQUITOUS TIN CAN. 
 
 43 
 
 of a box or some other smooth surface. Baking-powder, not yeast, is 
 used, of course. This species of leaven (of which there are many varie- 
 ties) is put up in round tin boxes. You find these boxes scattered from 
 end to end of the Territories, and forming gleaming barricades around 
 all the villages. The miners convert them to all sorts of utilities, from 
 flying targets to safes for gold-dust ; and one man in Colorado Springs 
 collected enough of them, and of fruit-cans, to shingle and cover the 
 sides of his house. There seems now to be found no region so wild, 
 no dell so sequestered, that these glittering mementos do not testify 
 to a previous invasion. On the highest, storm -splintered pinnacle of 
 Mount Lincoln I discovered a baking-powder can tucked into a cranny, 
 as a receptacle for the autographs of adventurous visitors. 
 
 ■^ '^WW 1 
 
 TOSSING THE FLAPJACK. 
 
 Sometimes the cook used the Dutch bake-oven — a shallow iron pot 
 with a close-fitting iron cover, upon which you can pile a great . thick- 
 ness of coals, or can build a miniature fire. Having greased the inside 
 of the oven with bacon-rind, bread bakes quickly and safely. A better 
 article, nevertheless, results from another method. Mould your bread
 
 4-i KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 well, lay the round loaf in the skillet, and hold it over the fire, turning 
 the loaf occasionally until it is somewhat stiff ; then take it out, prop it 
 upright before the coals with the aid of a twig, and turn frequently. It 
 is soon done through and through, and equally on both sides. Some- 
 times we had biscuits made in the same way; but these were more 
 troublesome ; and the one great anxiety in the preparation of dinner, 
 after a day's riding or climbing, is speed. Men must eat heartily in 
 this oxygen-consuming West, and are eager to discharge that duty. I 
 invariably found myself travelling in a particularly hungry latitude. 
 
 The table-furniture, and a large portion of the small groceries, such 
 as salt, pepper, mustard, etc., are carried in two red boxes, each two and 
 a half feet long, one and a half feet broad, and a foot high. Each box 
 is covered by a thin board, which sets in flush with the box, and also 
 by two others hinged together, and to the edge of the box. Having 
 his bread a-baking, the cook sets the two red boxes a little way apart, 
 unfolds the double covers backward until they rest against each other, 
 letting the ends be supported on a couple of stakes driven into the 
 ground, and over the whole spreads an enamelled cloth. He thus has 
 a table two and a half feet high, one and a half feet wide, and six feet 
 long. Tin and iron ware chiefly constitute the table-furniture ; so that 
 the mule carrying it may roll a hundred feet or so down a mountain, 
 as occasionally happens, yet not break the dishes. 
 
 His table set, John returns to his fire, and very soon salutes our 
 happy ears with his stentorian voice in lieu of gong : " Grub Pi-i-i-le !" 
 
 Coffee is the main item on our bill of fare. It is water, and milk, 
 and whiskey, and medicine combined. Ground and browned in camp, 
 made in generous quantity over the open fire, settled by a dash of cold 
 water and drunk without milk, it is a cup of condensed vigor, the true 
 elixir vita;, a perpetual source of comfort and strength. Tea is pro- 
 nounced "no good," and chocolate is only used to distinguish Sunday 
 by. Oh, what a bitter trial it was, after one particularly hard day's 
 work in Wyoming, and a stormy day at that, to have the steaming and 
 fragrant coffee-pail kicked over by a clumsy foot ! There was an irre- 
 pressible howl of execration, and one man's hand impulsively clutched 
 his revolver. 
 
 But coffee, though the main-stay, is not all of our feast. For meat 
 we have bacon and generally steaks or roasted ribs of elk, mule-deer, 
 or mountain sheep, with fresh, crisp bread, or sometimes wheaten flap- 
 jacks, made in the orthodox way, and properly thrown into the air 
 during the cooking. When, as occasionally happens, two parties meet,
 
 THE ART OF FLAPJACKING. 
 
 45 
 
 the rival cooks toss the flapjacks to each other, when they require turn- 
 ing, so that every cake begins at one fire and is finished at the other. 
 In the mining camps (it is said) they toss them up the chimney, and 
 catch them right-side up outside the door ! Butter there is none, nor 
 
 • rt 
 
 
 A CAMP-DINNER. 
 
 milk, nor potatoes, nor vegetables, except rice and hominy ; but there 
 is plenty of fruit -sauce — apricots, peaches, prunes, etc., which, being 
 dried, are very portable, and, being Californian, are wonderfully good. 
 Occasionally, also, there is a corn-dodger by way of variety, when a 
 pound cake of maple-sugar will be melted into sirup, for a feast. For 
 dessert we have nothing at all (yet are content), save when, now and 
 then, the cook makes a plum duff to put our digestions to the test. 
 
 Here, in this Middle Park camp, just as we were sitting down
 
 4:6 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 around the table, using bowlders and war-bags and sacks of bacon as 
 chairs, we saw approaching at a leisurely lope over the prairie, a large, 
 lean sorrel horse that showed good points, but seemed to have been 
 roughing it quite as much as his rider. The horse bore a gayly-rigged 
 ranger's saddle, behind which was slung the carcass of a black-tailed 
 deer, whose flapping head and heels seemed not to disturb him in the 
 least : and in the saddle sat a remarkable man — a person of medium 
 height, but of so powerful a build that his breadth of chest and massive 
 loins seemed better fitted for a giant. His hair and beard were curly, 
 and yellow as corn-silk ; his face fiery red, through incessant exposure 
 to sun, and snow, and alkali-dust; but his eyes were blue as the lit- 
 tle Lyccena butterflies flitting in thousands over the blossoming prairie. 
 Across his shoulder he balanced a heavy, double-barrelled rifle; his 
 waist was girdled by a red-white-and-blue cartridge-belt ; from his boot- 
 leg protruded the horn handle of a hunting-knife, and a six-shooter was 
 strapped to the pommel of his saddle. He was dressed throughout in 
 buckskin, from every seam of which depended a six-inch fringe of the 
 same material ; but his hat was a colorless sombrero, badly crushed. 
 
 This was "Mountain Harry" Yount and his horse "Texas." He 
 was a professional hunter, with whom later I became well acquainted 
 through months of companionship in hard work — a notable man, of 
 a type almost as foreign to the Eastern States as is a native of Japan. 
 
 Yount's parents were Swiss, but he was born at Susquehanna, Penn- 
 sylvania, and so came by double right to his deep affection for the 
 mountains. When he was a child his father moved to Kansas, intro- 
 ducing the boy at an early age to pioneer life. But, wearying of the 
 plains, when eighteen years old Harry joined an emigrant train, and 
 pushed out to Pike's Peak, driving oxen. Gold-mining, however, was 
 not his vocation ; and, stimulated by his innate passion for the freedom 
 of unfenced nature, Yount quickly abandoned the rocker for the rifle, 
 beginning the wild and lonely career he has since led. At that time 
 such a life was far more lonely than at present, notwithstanding that he 
 was able to get his game much nearer to the main settlements than is 
 now possible. Yet the towns twenty-five years ago were far between, 
 and wanderers among the snowy ranges or interior parks very few. 
 Harry hunted principally in the Medicine Bow range, the lofty crests 
 of which are about the only peaks of the Rocky Mountains the traveller 
 on the Union Pacific Railway catches a glimpse of after Cheyenne has 
 been left an hour behind. Here roamed the mountain buffalo, the broad- 
 antlered wapiti, the agile black-tail, the shy, covert-loving Virginia deer;
 
 & i'.h; 
 
 OUR HCNTER.
 
 "MOUNTAIN HARRY." 49 
 
 every valley was haunted by antelopes, and all the crags were homes of 
 the mountain sheep. Where there was so much tender flesh of course 
 many beasts of prey were present — Harry once unexpectedly stepped 
 into a convention of seven grizzlies — and hard experience with these 
 creatures added deliberate courage to the skill learned from seeking 
 wary deer and trapping the small, shrewd game whose furry coats were 
 coveted. To find out all the passes and game-trails through these un- 
 known mountains — all the resources of living alone anywhere, and at 
 any season ; to elude or conciliate the Indians, all of whom were to be 
 dreaded ; and, most of all, to become thoroughly acquainted with the 
 distribution and habits of the animals and birds, was the task before 
 this young hunter, and one looked forward to with eager pleasure. 
 
 He was armed with stout hands, keen powers of observation, and 
 strong enthusiasm. Never killing for sport, all his energies were direct- 
 ed toward making every grain of his costly ammunition yield a profit- 
 able return. He shot buffaloes for their robes, and what meat he could 
 send a wagon after from the nearest mining camp, many a time slaugh- 
 tering a whole herd by keeping himself concealed while he shot them 
 one after another, or by riding them down in a long chase on Texas's 
 back. Antelopes he hunted for the sake of the flesh. They were abun- 
 dant on the plains everywhere, and his method was to drive a span of 
 mules and a wagon to some point and hunt in a circle around it, killing 
 a load, and then driving back. There is far more skill than appears 
 in this kind of work. He once shot seventy antelopes in one day, in a 
 match with a crack shot from the East, who was mightily skilful in scor- 
 ing bull's-eyes, but found hitting a nimble prong-horn an entirely differ- 
 ent matter. Difficult as this feat was, and much credit as it reflected 
 upon him, Harry was always ashamed of it. It went against his heart 
 to kill so many innocent creatures only for the glory of markmanship. 
 
 Harry was (and is, for he still lives in the West, as game warden of 
 Yellowstone Park — and here's to you, old fellow !) a quiet, simple-heart- 
 ed man among a generation of ruffians fortunately growing less. Con- 
 stantly supplying the workmen along the new trans -continental rail- 
 ways with meat, he never joined those orgies that used to characterize 
 their hours of leisure, or took part in the series of bloody quarrels that 
 never ended so long as any combatants were alive. By nature a gen- 
 tleman, under his sinewy frame and tireless strength there glows a 
 heart which hates cruelty. His eye is open to every beautiful feature 
 of the grand world in which he lives — his heart is alive to all the gentle 
 influences of the original wilderness. Having been much alone, he is
 
 50 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 timid in new society, reticent, thoughtful, and given to framing fanciful 
 theories to account for such phenomena as he does not comprehend. 
 
 What stories he could tell round a camp-fire at night, when dinner 
 was over, the big blaze had been built, and the pipes lit ! I had many 
 a discussion with him concerning points in natural history, wherein he 
 opposed life-long experience to the statements of the books in not a 
 few instances. He has read much, particularly about the West, and 
 written somewhat for newspapers, even indulging in rhyme now and 
 then. A handsome man, but holding in great contempt the long-haired 
 fops of the plains who ape the style (because they cannot rise to the 
 heroism or skill) of Kit Carson or Buffalo Bill, Harry is as vain as a girl 
 about his personal appearance. His belt, holster, knife-sheath, bridle, 
 and saddle are all set off with a barbaric glitter. . I have known him 
 to pay seventy-five dollars to a Shoshone squaw for the adornment of 
 a single buckskin jacket, which was a marvel of fringes, fur-trimming, 
 and intricate embroidery of beads. Yet his is not a peacock-like, strut- 
 ting vanity, but a simple, genuine delight in bright colors and pretty 
 things. He laughs quietly at it himself, but says he likes it. And why 
 shouldn't he dress as suits him ? 
 
 " Mountain Harry" could on no account be induced to leave his be- 
 loved hills. He is happy as a man on broad estates — indeed, he feels 
 that he owns such, as, in truth, he does, to all purposes. He has an 
 idea that he belongs there, and that those rough and desolate slopes, 
 those mighty canons and towery walls of lichen-stained rock, those for- 
 ests hiding the sources of mighty rivers, those white peaks striking up 
 into the azure, would miss him and grieve for him, as he would for 
 them, if once he got beyond the invigorating chill of their snow-banks 
 and the resinous fragrance of their pines. It is such a character as his 
 that Thoreau addressed : 
 
 " O man of wild habits, 
 Partridges and rabbits, 
 Who hast no cares, 
 Only to set snares ; 
 Who liv'st all alone 
 Close to the bone, 
 And where life is sweetest 
 Constantly eatest !"
 
 CAMP LEISURE. 51 
 
 VII. 
 
 DINNER over (and, much as our bodies ached with ten hours in the 
 saddle, or a day's climb to make some topographical station, the brief 
 rest and the help of the food has freshened us remarkably), the remain- 
 ing hour or two of daylight is employed in odd jobs — exploring the 
 neighborhood, to get an idea of next day's route or in search of the nat- 
 ural science of the place ; in fishing, mending saddles or clothes {hoc opus, 
 hie labor est!), in making beds, writing letters, and, if it looks like rain, 
 in putting up the little dog-tents, of which there is one for each two of 
 us, except the cook, who has a tent to himself and his comestibles. 
 
 Under how many varying circumstances, then, this evening meal is 
 eaten ! Sometimes, when the camp is stationary for two or three days, 
 in a pleasant bower; next, out on the dry plains, before an illimitable 
 landscape of sere grass stretching away to where the delectable moun- 
 tains lie on the snow-silvered rim of the world ; again, it is in a hot val- 
 ley of Arizona, and the scalding alkali dust blows in your face and fil- 
 ters through your food ; or at high timber-line in Colorado, where sleet 
 and snow contest the passage down your throat with rapidly cooling 
 coffee and chilly bacon ; or beside the Yellowstone in August, with its 
 millions of ravenous flies and hordes of thirsty mosquitoes ; eaten any- 
 where and everywhere, with the royal vigor of appetite that comes of 
 this out-door life, and the marvellous grandeur of the Rocky Mountains 
 as garniture for your dining-hall. 
 
 Then the times afterward, when 
 
 " The day is done, and the darkness 
 Falls from the wings of Night !" 
 
 That is the pleasant hour of camp-life, and you forget that a little while 
 ago you were vowing that if ever you got safely home you would never 
 again be caught out on such an all -work, no -play expedition as this. 
 After-dinner reflections take on a rosier hue, and your pipe never tastes 
 sweeter than now, as you idly creep about among the brookside willows 
 till its smoke warms the wings of the birds seeking an early roost.
 
 52 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The most noticeable bird, by-the-way, in this part of the mountains, 
 haunting our track all through the pass, and not quite deserting our 
 fireside here in the park, was the Canada jay. My first sight of it was 
 at the summit. As soon as the smoke of the camp-fire began to drift 
 away toward the rocky peaks over our heads, and the odor of the juicy 
 and hissing bacon, mingling with the warm fragrance of the russet- 
 backed biscuit, essayed to rise among the spruces, then the Canada 
 jays began to assemble to share in the coming meal. 
 
 " What are those birds, Steve?" I asked our old head packer. 
 
 "Well," he replied, "in Oregon we used to call 'em 'camp-rob- 
 bers;' in Californy I've heerd 'em called 'meat-hawks;' and up North 
 we called 'em ' buffalo-birds.' " 
 
 He had never heard the name "whiskey-jack" (said to be a corrup- 
 tion of a Cree Indian word), or " moose-bird," both of which are the 
 common designations of the bird in the Canadian and Maine lumber 
 camps; nor had it occurred to him that they closely resembled the 
 other jays, which he knew very well. The scientific name is Perisoreus 
 canadensis of Bonaparte. 
 
 This bird is nearly eleven inches in length, and strongly built ; its 
 head and neck and the forepart of the breast are white ; beginning 
 dull lead-color at the back of the head, a general ashy tinge covers the 
 whole upper parts, interrupted by a whitish collar; there are two nar- 
 row white bars across the wings, and the edges of some of the wing- 
 quills and the extremity of the tail are obscurely whitened ; underneath, 
 its color is smoky gray, and the bill and feet are black. 
 
 Belonging to the Arctic regions, it spreads in summer over the 
 whole of British America to the shores of the Frozen Sea, and is com- 
 mon enough; while in winter it retreats southward only so far as the 
 shutting up of the polar world by darkness obliges it to, and only strag- 
 glers get as far south as Pennsylvania, except along high ranges. In 
 the Rocky Mountains, however, the Canada jay lives all the year round, 
 even south to Arizona ; since those Alpine heights supply, through alti- 
 tude, that congenial climate which, nearer the level of the sea, he can 
 only find in high latitudes. The Canada jay is not alone in thus ex- 
 tending southward its Arctic range into a warmer climate, along the 
 peninsula which the snowy tops of the mountains afford. There are- 
 many other birds that do the same thing — for instance, the white-crown- 
 ed sparrow, of which I have already spoken; the horned lark, the ptar- 
 migan, and various others. The same advantage is shared by many 
 sorts of insects, particularly beetles ; and on some of the peaks occur
 
 TRAITS OF THE CANADA JAY. 53 
 
 isolated colonies of moths and butterflies, which otherwise you will not 
 find south of the Arctic circle. So, too, it is reported that the rare 
 mountain goat — a lover of ice-fields, like the Alpine ibex and chamois — 
 works his way even to the borders of Arizona along the cold and lofty 
 crests of the sierras, though nowhere found, even at the level of timber- 
 line, south of the headwaters of the Mackenzie river. 
 
 The Canada jay is smaller than the familiar blue jay, and has no 
 crest like his ; but the lighter-tinted feathers of the head are moderately 
 long, causing a fat, rounded appearance, as though a white hood were 
 drawn over the ash-gray mantle of the rest of the body. Around the 
 neck is a band of dark lead -color, like a blackish cape to the hood. 
 This, with his black feet and bill, make him like a brigand ; and, in fact, 
 he is one — the terror of the smaller birds of the woods, whose homes 
 he robs ruthlessly of both eggs and young. I have a record of a case 
 where a single pair of these jays destroyed the fledglings in four nests 
 of snow-birds in one day. The narrator emptied both barrels of his 
 gun in the direction of the marauders, and naively remarks that he is 
 " inclined to think they have killed no young birds since." The small 
 birds hate them, therefore, as they do owls and crows, and mob them 
 at every safe opportunity. A lost straggler of this species was seen 
 many years ago, in midsummer, in the upper part of New York City — 
 of all curious places ! — where he was surrounded by a group of spar- 
 rows and warblers poking no end of fun at the bewildered stranger, 
 just as the city newsboys would at a country lad. 
 
 This jay is never seen out of the forests of the high mountains — 
 say from nine thousand feet upward — where he picks up a precarious 
 existence ; and in winter the poor bird is often reduced to mere skin 
 and bones. "At such times it will frequently weigh no more than a 
 plump snow-bird or sparrow, and undoubtedly starves to death some- 
 times. During the latter part of autumn its hoarse croaking is almost 
 the only sound to be heard in the cold, sombre forests that lie near 
 timber-line." The moment the hunter camps in the dark spruce forests 
 the jays flock about and peer at him with great curiosity. They are 
 so tame that they perch just over his head, and walk about among his 
 luggage, chattering to each other about the matter, and cocking their 
 head on one side and the other just as a gigantic chickadee might do. 
 If the hunter leaves camp for a moment the birds flock in and snatch 
 at any scrap of meat or other eatable morsel, even pulling the frying 
 bacon out of the skillet sometimes ; and if he cuts up a deer, then he 
 is sure of their interested and inquisitive company.
 
 :A KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The Canada jay afforded Wilson an opportunity to fire a shot at 
 Buffon, whose self-conceited fancies he was never weary of ridiculing. 
 He says : " Were I to adopt the theoretical reasoning of a celebrated 
 French naturalist, I might pronounce this bird to be a debased de- 
 scendant from the common blue jay of the United States, degenerated 
 by the influence of the bleak and chilling regions of Canada, or, per- 
 haps, a spurious production between the blue jay and the cat-bird ; or, 
 what would be more congenial to the Count's ideas, trace its degradation 
 to the circumstance of migrating, some thousand years ago, from the 
 genial shores of Europe — where nothing like degeneracy or degradation 
 ever takes place among any of God's creatures. I shall, however, on 
 the present occasion, content myself with stating a few particulars bet- 
 ter supported by facts, and more consonant to the plain homespun of 
 common-sense." Then follows his account, most of the facts of which 
 he obtained from Hearne's "Journey." 
 
 In the Arctic regions (where it is a great nuisance to the hunter, 
 stealing the bait from his traps) the jay builds a stout nest in a dense 
 evergreen -tree, woven of sticks and twigs, inside of which is a well- 
 packed inner nest of soft mosses, lined abundantly with feathers. 
 Though it lays its eggs and hatches them out before the snow has left 
 the woods in the spring, it is able to feed its young out of hoarded 
 stores of food. Our Rocky Mountain variety breeds in the elevated 
 spruce forests, but I was never there early enough to take its nest, 
 which is always a rare thing to find. 
 
 Though noisy and thievish, the camp-birds are amusing fellows, and 
 we liked well to have them around the often cold and desolate camps 
 made just under the snow-line. It was hard to believe that they were 
 so perfectly wild, for their actions suggested those of a trained parrot 
 — every motion implied a spectator.
 
 THE HOT SULPHUR SPRINGS. 55 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE march across the Middle Park was decidedly uninteresting. 
 On this side the mountains you come upon the cretaceous formations 
 which were deposited as debris from the worn-down summits, when they 
 were only islands here and there in a boundless ocean. These creta- 
 ceous strata were folded and flexed before that great upheaval lifted the 
 Rocky Mountains bodily throughout their whole extent. Here, too, are 
 many dikes and palisades of eruptive rock, all of which about this dis- 
 trict can probably be referred to a line of small volcanoes lying south of 
 here. These lava-bluffs, resting on sedimentary strata, have been carved 
 by water and frost into all sorts of queer shapes, reminding one of 
 the Garden of the Gods. The heights bounding the Park were pictu- 
 resque, but the ground travelled was only a bare, rough plain, after all, 
 and I was glad to get to Hot Sulphur Springs, where a little settlement 
 was beginning to exist, under the care of Mr. William N. Byers, the 
 plucky Denver editor already introduced to my readers. These springs, 
 and the land about them, were early pre-empted by Mr. Byers, who built 
 a cabin, and placed a log roof over the principal basin. It is one of 
 the most remarkable localities in Colorado. Close to the bank of the 
 Grand river there boils out a great central spring of hot sulphur-water, 
 the deposits of which have built up a mass of white rock many feet 
 high and yards square, in the centre of which is the vent, and an oval 
 basin about forty feet long and twenty wide. At the lower end the wa- 
 ter is only knee-deep, perhaps ; but at the upper end, where the stream 
 pours out, it is seven or eight feet deep. You step in at the lower end, 
 and find the temperature very pleasant ; but as you advance there is a 
 rapid increase of heat, until you must have been long parboiled before 
 you can stand close up at the vent, whence water of about no degrees 
 of heat gushes in a strong stream. 
 
 The springs have been resorted to for their medicinal properties 
 from time immemorial by the Indians, who still come here during the 
 summer in large companies. Such a bath is, of course, the best pos-
 
 56 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 sible help for rheumatism, a disease from which all Indians are great 
 sufferers ; and the Utes were greatly disgusted to see the white owner 
 assert his rights by roofing the basin in and putting a lock on the door. 
 The fact that he gave them every reasonable privilege for bathing free- 
 ly, while he charged the prospectors and tourists who happened along 
 six " bits " for an entrance, did not satisfy them ; and they were so 
 grieved and angry about the matter at first that it almost came to war. 
 
 I believe this was not all selfishness and rheumatism on the part of 
 the Indians, but partly a superstitious feeling that a sacrilege was being 
 committed — something that moves an Indian very quickly, and which 
 once put me in a dangerous place, as I shall have occasion to mention 
 farther on. 
 
 The Utes have a tradition about these springs, told me by Antelope, 
 one of the sub-chiefs whose band was encamped there. He said that 
 long ago, before any Europeans ever came to the West, there lived a 
 chief of the Utes who was not only an heroic warrior but also a wise and 
 saintly man. His voice was always for peace, and under his moderate 
 guidance the whole tribe prospered. When he had grown aged, though, 
 the restless young men urged the making of war upon the neighboring 
 Indians of the plains, the Arapahoes, and won a good many votes in the 
 council in its favor. The old chief resisted and begged and argued ; 
 but at last the hotheads conquered, not only disregarding the aged 
 man's admonitions, but scornfully deposing him from his presidency. 
 Broken-hearted, the old chief sank away into feeble health, and upon 
 the news of the first defeat of his braves he died. Yet it was with sor- 
 row, not anger; and, true to his beneficent life, his spirit entered into 
 the heart of a lofty hill, whence instantly burst out the healing waters 
 of these varied and copious springs. 
 
 The indignation of Antelope's Utes — which was almost at boiling- 
 point when we happened along — therefore had this semi-religious foun- 
 dation ; and a half-drunken old squaw, hideously scarred by a husband 
 who had cut off her nose years ago to mark her forever as an adul- 
 teress, expressed about the temper of the tribe when she rushed at two 
 of us with a knife, made from the end of a broken scythe, as if to cut 
 us in pieces. 
 
 Close beside the spring used for bathing is a second one, also of hot 
 sulphur-water; and near to these several other springs, both hot and 
 cold, varying in their mineral character; and in addition cold springs 
 of sulphur-water, with others of pure water whose temperature is almost 
 at freezing-point. Ah, what delicious draughts came from that round
 
 SOCIABLE SWALLOWS. 57 
 
 little fountain up on the hill — princess of all the springs in the world 
 in my recollection ! 
 
 The natural history of this place was very interesting — even the 
 little that a two-days' stay afforded the- superficial observer. There 
 used to be plenty of elk and deer here, but now they are very rare. 
 The howl of the mountain-lion is sometimes heard, and one day a small 
 cinnamon bear came rattling down the hill-side and stampeded a pair 
 of valiant explorers in magnificent style, paying for it with his life, 
 however, as soon as they had got their breath. 
 
 But I was after smaller game. In the outlet of the hot sulphur- 
 bath, for example, I went searching for mollusks ; and there, and also 
 immediately in the cooler alum, salt, and magnesia springs, I found 
 abundance of little pJiysa snails, although they seem to occur nowhere 
 else in the vicinity. The rocks that encroach upon the Grand river 
 here, and form the first indication of the magnificent canon through 
 which its waters rush furiously a few miles below, are full of niches 
 and small grottoes, the last of which are the homes of innumerable 
 bats. This was attested by their presence in the evening, when they 
 went squeaking and diving about over the river, hawking after insects; 
 and also by large deposits of their dung, which closely resembles tar. 
 
 The niches in the rocks were occupied by large colonies of barn- 
 swallows — the only place I ever found them breeding away from civil- 
 ized structures, as, of course, they were all obliged to do before the 
 coming of white men to America. Sometimes the niches in the lime- 
 rock (the whole mass of which had been built up of deposits from the 
 mineral waters) were so close together that there would be half a dozen 
 in a square yard ; yet every one had its burnt-breasted tenants, and the 
 twittering silenced the gurgle and sputter of the rapid stream at the 
 ledge's base. The floor of each niche was hollowed out, so that it only 
 required to be softly carpeted to constitute it a perfect nest. For this 
 grass-stems and a few large feathers were used, precisely as in our East- 
 ern barns. But here the birds had greatly economized labor by occu- 
 pying the niches, for they needed not to build the firm underpinning 
 and stout high walls which become necessary in the barn, or on an ex- 
 posed rock-shelf, to prevent the eggs and young from rolling out ; all 
 these happy birds had to do was to furnish a house already made. 
 These were the Hirundo crythrogastrum — the true barn swallow, with 
 orange breast, which builds on the beams or in angles of the rafters 
 inside of the barn ; but on the opposite bluff — which, being native rock, 
 and not this lime-deposit, had a smooth face — lived the familiar cliff 
 
 5
 
 58 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 or eave swallows {Petrochelidon lunifrons), whose cup -like or bottle- 
 shaped abodes cling in a long row outside our barns under the shelter 
 of their eaves. 
 
 Climbing a high point back of our tents, which were in the midst 
 of a sage-brush flat, close to the river, I had a queer little bit of good- 
 luck one evening. It was just at nightfall, and as I reached the top a 
 large owl came swooping down and perched on a crag some distance 
 off. Drawing my revolver, I held it up and walked slowly nearer, ex- 
 pecting neither to get within range nor hit the bird if I fired ; but he 
 let me get so near that at last, about thirty yards off, I blazed away, and 
 down came the owl. Rushing up, I could see him lying in the brush 
 a little way below ; but it was some time before I got courage enough 
 to reach down and take hold of him, for a bite or talon-grasp from a 
 wounded owl is no joke. He proved to be stone-dead, and it was a 
 long time before I found out the bloodless wound, the bullet having 
 gone in at the base of the skull and out of the open mouth, without 
 tearing any of the feathers. He was a fine barred or "cat" owl, about 
 two feet long. 
 
 From this pinnacle, in daylight, there is visible a picture of blue 
 mountains whose sharp, serrated outline indicates a portion of the main 
 range in front of Long's Peak. Among those immutable yet ever- 
 changing bulwarks lies a lake in a circle of guardian peaks whose heads 
 tower thousands of feet above it, and whose bases meet no one knows 
 how far below the surface of its dark waters. It is Grand Lake, a spot 
 taboo among Indians and mysterious to white men. The scenery is 
 primeval and wild beyond description : Roundtop is one mountain at 
 least that has suffered no desecration since the ice ploughed its fur- 
 rowed sides. The lake itself lies in the trough of a glacier basin, and 
 its western barrier is an old terminal moraine, striking evidences of gla- 
 cial action occurring on all sides in the scored cliffs and lateral moraines 
 that hem it in. Its extent is about two miles by three, and its greatest 
 depth unfathomable with a line six hundred feet in length. The water 
 is cold, and clear near the shore, but of inky blackness in the middle. 
 In the reflection usually pictured upon its calm bosom all the cloud- 
 crowned heads about it meet in solemn conclave; but not seldom, and 
 with little warning, furious winds sweep down and lash its lazy waters 
 till the waves vie with each other in terrible energy. On such treachery 
 hangs one of the many tales told by the camp-fire of this singular lake. 
 
 Some years ago — so the story, goes — a party of Utes, with women and 
 children, were camped upon its banks, trout-fishing. Suspecting noth-
 
 THE LEGEND OF GRAND LAKE. 50 
 
 ing, and unprepared for war, they were one day surprised by a strong 
 band of Arapahoes, their ancient and implacable enemies. Looking 
 first of all to the safety of their wives and little ones, the best and 
 quickest way seemed to be to set them adrift upon rafts in the centre 
 of the lake till the victory should be won. This done, they returned 
 
 GRAND LAKE. 
 
 to repel the attack. The battle waged. Engrossed in its excitement, 
 none noted the rising winds, till the patience of the elements failed, the 
 unleashed storms rushed down upon their prey, and the rafts were sub- 
 merged. Never to this day has the lake given back a single one of its 
 victims. In their consternation the Utes fell an easy prey to the Ara- 
 pahoes, and only one of all that company escaped to tell the fearful
 
 00 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 tale. What wonder that the Indian counts such signal and swift de- 
 struction as a special manifestation of the Great Spirit's anger, and 
 avoids the place as a dreadful and fatal spot? 
 
 The outlet of the lake is one of the forks of the Grand river, follow- 
 ing which brings me back to where I started from. It is fortunate that 
 I can follow river-courses, or I should get totally lost!
 
 THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY. 61 
 
 IX. 
 
 A DAY'S march down the Grand river from the Hot Sulphur Springs 
 takes one to the junction of both the Blue and the Muddy rivers, flow- 
 ing in from opposite directions, through a wide, marshy plain. There is 
 a knoll that juts out into the valley, from which the finest view is ob- 
 tained. You naturally face the north there, and at your right hand the 
 Grand winds five or six miles down from where a bend in the river lim- 
 its the view, through meadows of that deep-green grass seen only in 
 wet ground, and on both sides series of hills sweep up higher and high- 
 er till they merge into the dark mountains behind them. These hills 
 are covered with sage-brush, whose dense, ashy foliage makes them ap- 
 pear carpeted with drab plush. From this cinereous tint there is a gra- 
 dation into the indigo of greater heights ; and, as though to set these 
 out, the indistinct outline of peaks in the main range is visible in the 
 wondrously clear air — a rear rank of mountains. At one point they rise 
 into a mass, among which Roundtop, at the side of Grand Lake, is but 
 a dwarf beside the towering height of Long's. Farther to the right a 
 near hill, Elk mountain, hides a quarter or so of the horizon, which con- 
 tains some of the highest peaks in the range ; but to the left you can 
 follow the line of bald hills around to the north, where, through the 
 break in which the Muddy comes down, you can discern Rabbit Ears 
 and its neighbors of the Medicine Bow range, dim with distance and 
 embroidered with snow. Between them and you some remarkably ab- 
 rupt hills will attract your attention, and just in front long, brown pal- 
 isades of indurated clays form the prominent object in the picture. 
 Running your eye along the hills to the left, you catch sight of the 
 jaws of the Grand Canon of the Grand, a tremendous rent through gran- 
 ites and eruptive rocks, three miles long and 1500 feet deep,* where in 
 
 * This gorge now appears on the maps as Gore's Canon, and the Denver and 
 Rio Grande Railway has run a narrow-gauge line through it, adding one more to 
 the long list of views of splendid scenery this company offers the traveller.
 
 62 KNOCKING ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 main- places you may drop a stone plumb from the edge of the cliff 
 to the river below. 
 
 Now turn around. At your feet is another river wriggling through 
 the grass and willows, just as the Grand does, till it joins that stream in 
 the centre of the valley. It is named the Blue, but its waters are yel- 
 low with the mud from the streams at its head. Its hither banks are 
 mere sage-brush plains, lovely in the distance and uncomfortable close 
 by; but on its farther bank stand the Park mountains, the finest range 
 in the region, with their heroic head, Mount Powell — the most mountain- 
 ous they seem to-day of all the mountains I have yet seen. The whole 
 range is rugged and inaccessible in the extreme, and of a deep-blue col- 
 or, whether seen one or one hundred miles away. Behind Powell stand 
 almost his equals, isolated by "great gulfs," all bare and ragged and 
 black save the long, thin locks of snow blown back from their ancient 
 foreheads. Climbing 2000 feet to the top of an opposite hill, we photo- 
 graphed these mountains and their foreground. During the time we 
 were there snow-storms drifted through, banks of clouds filled their 
 gorges, rain came from them and scudded across the valley, their pinna- 
 cles swam one moment in the glow of sunlit haze, and stood out the 
 next sharp and cold against a steel-gray winter sky. 
 
 One day we had a lively experience of this same "winter sky." It 
 treated us to an all-day, steady down-pour of rain and sleet, through 
 which we rode in dripping and disconsolate silence. The train had gone 
 ahead, as usual ; and when my friend and myself reached the place of 
 encampment it was pitch dark, the storm increased in force, and our 
 tents were not even raised. In this plight we cooked and ate our food 
 under such shelter as a willow bush afforded ; and, erecting the tent, 
 with a big ditch around it, crept out of our rubber ponchos into our 
 blankets, and slept in spite of wind and rain. 
 
 " Rheumatism next morning?" 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; never felt better in my life." 
 
 It is fifty miles from the mouth of the Blue river to Breckenridge — 
 a little mining town — where we crossed over the Park range to the 
 head-waters of the South Platte, through the Hoosier pass. This pass 
 admits you into South Park. The descent — nothing remarkable, how- 
 ever — is rather steep, and near the base you come face to face with 
 very high, vertical walls of smooth, black granite, perfectly marbled 
 by veins of quartz intersecting each other in every direction, and meas- 
 uring from a tenth of an inch to six feet in thickness. Right here, in 
 the ruggedest of rugged gorges, where it would seem impossible for
 
 IMITATING A WATER-OUZEL. 53 
 
 goats to spend the night comfortably, is the village of Montgomery, 
 whose glory, like that of three-fourths of these mountain towns, is de- 
 parted. The miners seem to take delight in forming their " camps " in 
 such a way as to exclude every possibility of anything nice or inviting. 
 In a choice of two objects they invariably take that which is most rude 
 and uncomfortable. But this contributes to picturesqueness, and I can 
 think of nothing which exhibits this element of beauty more than one 
 of these towns perched among the debris of a primeval earthquake. 
 
 Down this gorge came the South Platte, a brawling, bounding youth 
 of a stream, just released from the icy fetters of the mountain where it 
 takes its rise. It was not late when dinner was over, and, lighting my 
 favorite pipe, I unfolded my bed, stretched it out in a convenient place 
 without any special making up, and then walked down to the bank of 
 the river. Just as I reached the margin a little drab-colored bird flitted 
 across the stream and dived into the water. The bird looked like a 
 sparrow. But who ever saw a sparrow dive like that ? I went nearer, 
 and saw it come out ; so there could be no doubt about its having gone 
 under. An instant later a second came flying down the creek, dropped 
 upon the water, where I could see it plainly, sank to the bottom, and 
 with outspread wings began to move about the pebbles as unconcerned- 
 ly as if he was picking up grubs on shore. I knew him then. He was 
 the water-ouzel, or dipper — a bird now very well known to naturalists 
 (and popularly), but then more of a novelty. Anxious to get a better 
 view, I incautiously walked out on a log that spanned the current, when 
 in a flash my cap and pipe went one way and I the other. Ugh ! how 
 cold that water was ! and deep, too ! By the time I struggled up I was 
 completely saturated with ice-water ; and by the time I had succeeded 
 in extricating from the depths of my war-bag any dry clothes I was al- 
 most too stiff to put them on, for a cutting wind swept down from the 
 heights. But this accomplished at last, I began to run back and forth 
 as briskly as my chilled muscles would permit, when down came an icy 
 blast and a heavy fall of wet snow. Snatching our tents, we laid them 
 across our half-made beds and crept under, supposing we should be out 
 again in a quarter of an hour or so ; but that squall settled into a storm, 
 and we had to undress ourselves in those confined quarters, wriggle the 
 blankets into shape as best we could, and stay there under six inches of 
 snow till morning. This was the very next night after the rainy day on 
 Rattlesnake creek ; and during the succeeding one I slept out alone on 
 Mosquito pass, without any bed at all, as you will presently hear.
 
 04 KNOCKING ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 X. 
 
 My first year's campaign taught me some points in camp-life which 
 would have lessened the hardship, if known earlier, information upon 
 which may prove useful to some future wanderer. 
 
 Any one, for instance, who is of the opinion that it is not hard work 
 to ride on mule-back in the Rocky Mountains an average of twenty 
 miles a day for three months, is respectfully referred to practical expe- 
 rience for an answer. It is noteworthy, though, that the wisest enter- 
 tain widely different views on the point of hardship at 6 A.M. and 6 
 P.M. At sunrise breakfast is over, the mules and everybody else have 
 been good-natured, and you feel the glory of mere existence as you 
 vault into your saddle and break into a gallop. Not that this or that 
 particular day is so different from other pleasant mornings, but all that 
 we call the weather is constituted in the most perfect proportions. The 
 air is " nimble and sweet," and you ride gayly across meadows, through 
 sunny woods of pine and aspen, and between granite knolls that arc 
 piled up in the most noble and romantic proportions. But later you 
 toil up a mountain thousands of feet high, tramp your weary way 
 through the snow and loose rocks heaped upon its summit, " observe," 
 and get laboriously down again ; or search through forty ledges and 
 swing a ceaseless hammer in collecting fossils ; or march all day under 
 a blazing sun, or in the teeth of a dusty gale, munching only a sand- 
 wich as you plod along — till gradually your "glory of existence" oozes 
 away, and the most dismal reflections arise to keep company with your 
 strained muscles. How welcome after that is the evening bivouac, 
 when there is rest for the aching limbs, and no longer need to tighten 
 the belt ! The busy hour between the end of the march and sitting 
 down to dinner quickly passes, and the meal is not hurried ; after that, 
 leisure and the solid comfort of camping. 
 
 It is astonishing how greatly recuperated one feels after half an 
 hour's rest and his dinner, following the most tremendous exertions all 
 day. Sometimes it seems, when camp is reached, that one has hardly 
 strength to make another move ; but after dinner one finds himself
 
 PREPARING FOR THE NIGHT. 65 
 
 able and willing to do a great deal. This, as I have already said, is the 
 hour for exploring the neighborhood, preparatory to next day's work ; 
 for investigating the natural history of the locality, or putting up the 
 specimens accumulated during the day; for mending harness and arms 
 and clothes, and writing memoranda, or perchance letters, against a pos- 
 sible opportunity to send them out to the civilized world by some In- 
 dian or friendly trapper. But the most important work is the making 
 of your bed. It is the one thing in this wandering life that you cannot 
 afford to neglect, and which, if neglected, is the cause of more hardship, 
 distress, and possible illness than any other one thing which it is pos- 
 sible to guard against. Nevertheless, unless the camp is to be fixed 
 in that spot for several days, it is not usual to put up the tents, except 
 when the weather is stormy. 
 
 These tents are of the army pattern known as " dog-tents " — just 
 large enough for two persons to stretch themselves out, side by side, 
 but not more than three feet high, even under the ridge. The canvas 
 is of good quality, however, and will stand a severe rainfall without 
 wetting through, so long as the inside of the cloth is not touched. If 
 the precaution is taken to dig a ditch around the tent, so that the 
 water will run away and not spread underneath the edges, making 
 pools on the floor, you will find yourself secure from all storms. But, 
 as a rule, one doesn't bother to put up a tent. 
 
 No matter how firmly resolved you may be upon roughing it, you 
 soon find that it pays to keep your bed dry and warm, and to spend 
 all needed time in making it up. Hardship enough will be inevitable ; 
 needless exposure is foolish. The proper supplies in the way of bed- 
 ding consist of the following articles: a piece of moderately heavy 
 canvas-ducking, water-proofed, fourteen feet long by four feet wide ; a 
 buffalo-robe, trimmed into a rectangular piece sufficient to lie at full 
 length upon ; two pairs of thick California blankets, and a small pillow. 
 This appears to be the list settled upon by the best experience. All 
 are light and warm, and can be rolled up inside the canvas and strapped 
 into a cylindrical bundle, so compact as easily to be carried in one hand, 
 and so tight that it may be rained upon all day and not be wetted 
 through. The California blankets are expensive, but it is better econ- 
 omy to buy them. A pillow is a great comfort; lacking it, one finds a 
 fair substitute in his boots, saddle, war-bag, or even in a piece of wood. 
 A thick night-cap is more convenient than your broad-brimmed hat to 
 sleep in ; and nothing warms chilled feet so much in bed as dry woollen 
 socks, which may be kicked off later in the night.
 
 OG 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 At every opportunity air the bedding thoroughly in the sunshine. 
 Then, before the evening dew comes, stretch out your long piece of 
 canvas, lay the buffalo-robe smoothly on the upper end, double your 
 blankets, and place them one over the other upon the robe. After 
 
 THE DOG-TENTS. 
 
 smoothing out every wrinkle, the two blankets together are evenly 
 folded once over lengthwise, the remainder of the cam-as (seven feet) 
 is drawn up over the foot, so that the toes cannot push through, and 
 the bed is made. You have a canvas, buffalo-robe, and four thicknesses 
 of blanket under you, and (except the robe) the same over you, the 
 blankets passing full thickness behind your back, which you will learn 
 to place to windward. Then you fully undress, put your rifle, revolver, 
 and clothes under the flap of the canvas cover, to keep the frost off,
 
 SCIENTIFIC BED-MAKING. 
 
 67 
 
 slide gently into your rough, clinging blankets, pull the edges together 
 in front, jerk the canvas over your ears, and — pleasant dreams to you ! 
 
 Such is scientific bed-making : but there are niceties. It is impor- 
 tant, for example, that the surface you lie on shall be, not soft — that is 
 a little matter — but level; sloping neither toward one side nor from 
 head to foot. Unless you are sure about this you will slide out of bed 
 in some direction. Common-sense would tell you to clear all stones 
 and nodules away (though sometimes this is impossible) ; but only ex- 
 perience, or a wise friend, will teach the camper that his rest will be 
 tenfold better if he digs a depression underneath his bed where his 
 hips come. The reason why persons become so stiff who pass an acci- 
 dental night on the floor, or on a railway bench, is mainly because they 
 have had no support for the spine, such as the yielding bed affords ; 
 all night long many muscles have had to keep on duty, bearing up the 
 less prominent parts of the body. The spring of a mattress cannot be 
 found in the ground, but it can be imitated by sinking the hips until 
 the small of the back also rests upon the earth. Always dig a hole 
 under your bed. 
 
 If you are in fear of the cold (frequently an altitude is attained for 
 which the bedding sufficient below is an inadequate protection, partic- 
 ularly if a heavy wind is blowing or the snow is flying), a good plan 
 is to fold your blankets, turn up the bottom as usual, and then stitch 
 the whole together into a bag. Another way is not to erect your tent, 
 which is little or no protection against cold, but to spread it over you
 
 68 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and peg it down, or pile enough rocks around the edges to keep it from 
 blowing away. The former plan I tried in 1877, with great success; but 
 it was the hardest work in the world to get into my bag, which was just 
 large enough and no larger. I had to insinuate my body as gently as 
 a surgeon probes a wound, in order to keep the blankets from drawing 
 out of shape before I was inside. When once I had wriggled in, how 
 snug it was ! I could not turn over without rolling the larger part 
 of my bedding with me. Yet those very same nights, away up on the 
 bald brow of a lonesome peak, when every man piled on as many extra 
 canvas maiitas and buffalo-robes as he could find, the mosquitoes were 
 so thick that we had to build miniature tents of netting over our half- 
 frozen heads to get any sleep at all. It was the most startling con- 
 junction of winter and summer, zero and insects, that I ever heard of. 
 
 But at such altitudes one must expect often to find it very cold at 
 night, even in midsummer. Often, down in the San Juan country, near 
 the head-waters of the Rio Grande, we woke up to find the canvas over 
 us frozen as stiff as sheet-iron. When one rises under those forbidding 
 circumstances he gets into his frosty trousers with considerable celerity. 
 
 I think the very coldest night I ever had in the mountains was on 
 the occasion of a little adventure in Mosquito pass, long before Leadville, 
 to which that pass has since been made a highway, was ever dreamed 
 of. It was then a very high, rough pathway over the range — merely 
 a place where it was possible to get up and down, and used mainly 
 by donkeys — but I had to go across that way, and started. It was 
 a long, unfamiliar road ; I was alone ; a storm came up ; I went widely 
 astray from the dim trail, and had a variety of minor adventures, which 
 I have chronicled elsewhere. The result was, that when I got over the 
 gale-swept crest and down to timber-line on the right side it was dark ; 
 and, after thrashing through half a mile of wet thickets and dense 
 woods, my horse and I at last came to an utter stand-still in front of 
 where a tornado had piled fallen timber across the already half-obliter- 
 ated trail. It was useless to go farther, so I unsaddled at a little open 
 spot among some spruces. Securing my exhausted horse by his long 
 lariat, I dragged the heavy ranger's saddle to an evergreen, and dived 
 into the pouches after matches, for if you are warm being hungry does 
 not greatly matter. Alas, there were none ! For the first and — cela va 
 sans dire— ior the last time in the West I had not a lucifer ! Then I 
 took an inventory of my goods, which were not designed for such an 
 evil fate as this. First, there were my saddle and saddle-bags, which 
 contained only a stupid flask, empty of everything save odor, a tanta-
 
 A LONELY NIGHT IN THE FROST. 69 
 
 lizing pipe which could not be lit, and a pair of woollen socks, which I 
 pulled on as an attempt at a night-dress. This saddle was my pillow, 
 and a thin, worn-out saddle-blanket, with my rubber poncho, constituted 
 my bedding — rather scanty for eleven thousand feet or so above the 
 sea! I spread my poncho under the drooping branches of the spruce, 
 just where partridges love to hide, gathered the ragged blanket about 
 my legs, belted an army overcoat tight about me, and lay down. I 
 was very weary ; my nag's steady crunching was the only disturbing 
 sound, and I soon fell asleep. My nap was not a long one, however 
 on account of the cold ; but, re-arranging the coverings, I again slept an 
 hour or so. This time I awoke thoroughly chilled, yet dozed a little 
 longer, until I shook in every member, and had just sense enough left 
 to raise myself up and move about. My poor horse was standing, 
 head down, the picture of lonesome misery. With a low neigh as I 
 approached, he came to meet me, and followed me with his nose at 
 my shoulder as I walked back and forth. What a night it was! All 
 around the glade stood a wall of forest, black except where, on one 
 side, a group of burnt trunks held aloft their skeleton -white arms. 
 The grass was pale and crisp with frost, which crackled under my feet 
 as I walked. Overhead the stars seemed fairly to project from their 
 jetty background, like glittering spear-points aimed at my cantonment. 
 1 noted the slow wheeling of that platoon of nebulae, the Milky Way. 
 I studied the constellations, but got little comfort. Corona only sug- 
 gested 
 
 "That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things," 
 
 and the Pleiades seemed to beg me to sympathize with their lost sis- 
 ter. At one side a bit of the creek valley was visible, over which faintly 
 gleamed the whitish snow-crest of some mountain. It was profound- 
 ly still. Icy water gurgled softly under the elders; tall, muffled trees 
 swayed gently ; an occasional ringing snap of frost was heard, like fairies 
 clinking glasses ; but these sounds were so consonant with the whole 
 scene that they did not break the stillness. There was nothing partic- 
 ular to be afraid of, my walking warmed me, and, giving myself up to 
 imaginative thought, I came readily to enjoy the novelty of the expe- 
 rience, and the calm delight which the sweet influences of the night 
 ever exert. Thus quieting myself, drowsiness weighted my eyelids, 
 till, scarcely feeling what I did, I again laid my head on the saddle, and 
 did not awake until the blue ridges were sharply and grandly outlined 
 against a glowing background of auroral light. 
 
 The reason for my being alone here was, that I had cut across the
 
 rO KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 range by this route, while the rest of the party went around through 
 South Park and over to the Arkansas by the way of Trout creek, in or- 
 der that I might get our mail at Granite — a mining camp and post- 
 office. I reached there too late to attend the proceedings in which it 
 was decided not to hang two Chinamen, whose only crime was that 
 they wanted to come there and work ; but I saw the court, and came 
 very near seeing the pigtails hung anyhow ! They left town in a great 
 hurry, at all events, and that night there was a ball at the Trans-con- 
 tinental Shades saloon. 
 
 This opportunity for unbending was embraced by pretty much all 
 the population of the camp. I think the only families unrepresented 
 were those of the justice of the peace and the proprietor of the hotel ; 
 and as they contained all the women there were in town, to speak of, it 
 is needless to say that the male element predominated in the ball-room, 
 to the entire exclusion of anything else. The genial proprietor of the 
 Shades united within himself the duties of both bar-tender and floor- 
 manager ; but in the former capacity he was ably assisted by a fiery- 
 headed youth popularly known as " Reddy." As for the "floor" he 
 managed, it was only hard-trodden earth, and the decorations of the 
 walls were old coats, old hats, discarded elk- antlers, rifles, and some 
 pictures from the Police Gazette, in which there was always a sufficient 
 breeze blowing to lift the pretty girl's petticoats a trifle above her boot- 
 tops. To these hangings was speedily added a row of boots of gigan- 
 tic proportions, which were hung on wooden pegs or piled under the 
 benches along the wall as soon as the dancing began. 
 
 Beside thirty or forty gold-washers, rough and big enough to sat- 
 isfy all conventional requirements for the type, there were present 
 three or four gamblers, who set up a faro-table in one corner ; the fid- 
 dler — a young freighter from Fairplay ; two or three cut-throat-looking 
 Mexicans, who had driven up some beef-cattle from Saguache ; a lank, 
 peaked -bearded lawyer or two, in rusty regimentals of broadcloth; a 
 Herald reporter from New York, who had just returned from South 
 Africa; and myself. 
 
 By the time the crowd had taken an average of two drinks all 
 round the bar-man ordered the fiddler to " whoop 'er up," and yelled a 
 general invitation to " clinch." The crowd fell back to the benches, 
 the wicks of two or three smoky oil-lamps fixed in the logs were turn- 
 ed up, two stalwart Missourians grasped each other's hands and waists, 
 where six-shooters dangled in lieu of tassels on a silken sash, and began 
 to pat the clay with stockinged feet to the time of a lively waltz, where-
 
 CUTTING CAPERS IN A LOG CABIN. 71 
 
 in the musicians were assisted by a jolly soul who drummed on the bar 
 with a beer-glass. In a moment another pair had joined them, then a 
 third, and so on until the floor was full of nimble miners, spinning and 
 whirling, executing interludes of pigeon-wing and double-shuffle, each 
 leap accented by a whoop or shriek, to which the delighted spectators 
 responded with approving yells and clatter. 
 
 When the dancers were out of breath — which comes hard in this 
 thin air — the bar-keeper invited them to a " What'll ye have, gentle- 
 men?" The fiddler took brandy in "his'n," while the majority of the 
 spectators drank on each other's account, and let the other pay for it, 
 intending to return the compliment themselves after the next dance. 
 
 This time a quadrille claimed the floor — two of them, indeed, and 
 we outsiders climbed upon the benches out of the way. After this an 
 adept in the jig business — whose Irish mug proclaimed his good right 
 to know the steps — gave an exhibition that elicited loud applause, but 
 ruined his socks ; and then the Greasers were invited to show how they 
 did it at the fandango down in " Mayheeko," and thought it prudent to 
 comply, though with bad grace. 
 
 And so the fun continued, tanglefoot whiskey flowing at two bits 
 a drink, until everybody was satisfied to go home ; but long before 
 this I had stolen away. I heard next morning that there had been a 
 murder during the night ; but I do not believe that the dance had any- 
 thing to do with it. 
 
 That night I slept in a bed, and on a spring-mattress ; yet it was a 
 very uncomfortable rest, for somehow I couldn't keep the bedclothes 
 snugly about me as I did my blankets out-of-doors. If I had known 
 then that the kind host had put himself and his family to sleep on the 
 kitchen-floor, in order to give me his only bed, I should not have slept 
 half as well as I did.
 
 72 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XI. 
 
 This part of Colorado was then the seat of the principal mining 
 for gold, the process of which may as well be described here, in order 
 that future allusions may be understood without special remark. 
 
 The person who travels through many parts of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, and of the Sierra Nevada, will observe along the banks of the 
 streams vast piles of bare gravel. Through the midst of these heaps of 
 pebbles — among which, now and then, there towers up the round back 
 of a bowlder, or rises a little grassy island, bearing some charred stump 
 — one may often see remains of wooden machinery and the ruins of 
 abandoned huts ; or he may even meet with men at work, and learn 
 how the hasty little stream is made to pause and pay toll in service as 
 it rushes downward from the snow-fields where it w r as born. 
 
 All these appearances are signs of gold -mining, by the method 
 known as " placer-washing " or " gulch-digging." It is the simplest and, 
 in some respects, the most interesting of all the processes by which the 
 precious metal is got out of the earth. It has been practised for a very 
 long period. History does not go back far enough to tell us when gold 
 first began to be used, but it is supposed that all the gold the ancients 
 had was procured in this way. Wherever that mysterious country Ophir 
 may have been, no doubt it was a placer district. 
 
 When gold has been discovered in any region (and this usually hap- 
 pens through some lucky accident) adventurous men rush to the spot 
 in crowds, and at once look for more signs of it. This search is called 
 " prospecting," and it is done by parties of two or three, who go along 
 the creeks flowing down from the hills, and test the gravel in the banks 
 until they find what they seek. The prospector's outfit consists of as 
 much provision as he can carry on his back or pack on a donkey — a 
 couple of blankets, guns and ammunition, a few cooking- utensils, a 
 shovel and pick, and a gold-pan. The last is the most important of 
 all these, excepting food. It is made of sheet-iron, and is shaped much 
 like an extra large milk -pan. The prospectors (who cali each other
 
 PROSPECTING FOR GOLD. 
 
 73 
 
 partner, or " pard " for short, agreeing to divide all they find) trudge 
 along all day beside their Mexican donkeys, keeping their eyes keenly 
 upon the lookout, and slowly climbing toward the head of the ravine 
 or gulch down which the creek plunges. Finally they come to a point 
 where the gulch widens out a little, or perhaps where a rivulet flows 
 down from a side-hill, and a high bank of gravel has collected. Then 
 they let their donkeys feed upon the short, crisp grass or nibble the 
 white sage, while they climb a little way up the bank and dig a pit a 
 few feet deep. 
 
 PANNING-OUT GOLD-GRAVEL. 
 
 You may see these " prospect -holes " all over the mountains, for 
 many times nothing has been found at the bottom of them to justify 
 farther operations there ; and a man who is unlucky enough to dig 
 many of these fruitless pits gets the reputation of being a " gopher," 
 and finds himself laughed at. 
 
 Their prospect -hole dug down to where the gravel is firm, they 
 scoop up a panful of dirt and carry it down to the margin of the 
 stream. First having picked out the large pieces of stone, one of the 
 prospecters then takes the pan in both hands, dips up a little water, 
 
 6
 
 74 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and, gently shaking the pan, allows the water to flow over the edge 
 and run away, carrying with it the lightest portions of the soil. This 
 is done repeatedly ; but, as less and less of the heaviest dirt is left be- 
 hind, greater care must be used. It requires much dexterity and prac- 
 tice to keep the bottom of the pan always lower than the edge and at 
 the same time dip up and pour out the water without throwing away 
 more earth than you wish to. Tender management for eight or ten 
 minutes, however, gets rid of everything except a spoonful of black 
 sand, and among this (if you have been successful) gleam yellow par- 
 ticles of gold, which have settled at the bottom, and have been left 
 behind in the incessant agitation and washing away of the earth, be- 
 cause they were heavier than anything else in the pan. 
 
 This operation is called " washing " or " panning-out ;" but it is not 
 quite done yet, for the " colors," or particles of gold, must be separated 
 from the black grains, which are mainly of iron or lead. By passing 
 a magnet back and forth through them these will be dragged out, stick- 
 ing to it, after which the gold left behind is weighed and its value esti- 
 mated. If a prospector finds he can average three cents in every panful 
 of dirt, he knows he can make money by the help of machinery; but 
 if he is to do his work wholly by hand he must collect at least ten 
 cents from each pan, and in the early days this would have been 
 thought very moderate pay. There used to be mines in Colorado 
 known as " pound-diggings," because it was said that a pound's weight 
 of gold a day could be saved by every man who worked there. 
 
 After testing here and there, our prospectors decide upon the best 
 part of the gravel-bank (which they would call a "bar"), and take 
 possession of a small tract, or " claim," the amount of which is regu- 
 lated by law, which " claim " they mark by driving down stakes upon 
 which are written the names of the claimants and the boundaries pre- 
 empted. 
 
 Our miners, let us suppose, prefer not to get their gold by the slow 
 method of panning. They therefore procure some pieces of board and 
 hammer together a " rocker," or " cradle." This machine takes its name 
 from its resemblance to an old-fashioned baby's cradle — the " old-fash- 
 ioned " referring to the furniture, not to the infant. It is mounted 
 upon two rockers, and its head -board is high enough to serve as a 
 handle for moving it. Inside is arranged a series of three or four sieves, 
 upon inclined supports, one above the other, the coarsest sieves being 
 uppermost. There is no foot -board, for in its place projects a long 
 spout out of which the waste water runs, which is fitted with cleats or
 
 ROCKING AND SLUICING. 
 
 "riffles" like those I shall explain farther on when I speak of the sluice. 
 Into this cradle one man shovels the dirt and gravel, while his partner 
 rocks it and pours in the water, which he dips out of the stream with 
 a long-handled dipper. The big stones all shoot off from the surface 
 of the cradle, but the dirt and 
 small pebbles fall through upon 
 the second sieve, through which, 
 in turn, the finer half goes, and 
 so on until the bottom and the 
 spout catch the gold and retain 
 it alone, while the water drifts 
 the worthless stuff away. 
 
 The cradle is an old contriv- 
 ance, and many forms of it are in 
 use, some having only a single 
 perforated partition to screen 
 off the largest stones. It can 
 be carried about wherever the 
 miner finds it convenient to 
 work, and it does not require a 
 vast deal of water ; lastly, it calls 
 for much less skill than most 
 other methods of washing. Nevertheless the day of the cradle is near- 
 ly gone by, except where a single poor man goes off by himself to some 
 retired spot and works, not so much for wealth, as merely for the hope 
 of getting a living. In its place the "sluice-box" has come to be the 
 great instrument for gathering gold out of a placer-bar. 
 
 In order to operate a sluice to advantage there must be plenty of 
 material to be handled and plenty of water. It is upon a sure sup- 
 ply of water that placer- mining depends, and it often happens that 
 a bar that is worth' very little might be worth a great deal, if only a 
 stream could be turned through it. Sometimes the gravels are in the 
 very bed of the creek, or on a level with it, and the poor stream, tort- 
 ured out of its course, is sent into a dozen new channels, while the old 
 beds are rocked through the creaking cradles, or go rattling down the 
 stretching lengths of the hollow sluices. But, as a rule, it is necessary 
 to bring the water in a ditch from some lofty point in the mountains 
 down to the highest part of the placers. Sometimes all the miners 
 stop work and unite in making the ditch, which they then own in com- 
 mon ; at other times one or two men will pay for the construction 
 
 MINER AND CRADLE.
 
 76 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 of the ditch, which they then own, and from which they lease water 
 to the miners. You may see these little canals curving under the 
 brows and along the retreating slopes of the hills, seeking in and out 
 of all the windings a slant by which the water will steadily run down- 
 ward. Now and then a rocky headland must be skirted or a deep gully 
 crossed, and here the water is carried in a wooden " flume," supported 
 upon a trestle-work of poles and props. These aqueducts become a 
 striking addition to the naturally strange scenery, in their rough out- 
 lines, as they straggle, all mossy, rude, and dripping, 
 over and around great bronze-brown cliffs and along 
 the green, velvety hill-sides. 
 
 Now let us examine how the ditch is made use- 
 ful. When it is completed, as many gates are made 
 as there are mines to be supplied. Through these 
 water can be drawn off. Then the water is let on, 
 and flows gurgling and sparkling through the canal, 
 bright and limpid as a natural mountain torrent. 
 
 Meanwhile each miner has built his sluices. 
 These consist of long, narrow boxes made of plank- 
 ing — one plank high on each side and two planks 
 broad at the bottom. Sometimes only two or three 
 of these boxes or troughs are placed end to end, 
 sometimes a long line of them ; but all along on the 
 bottom, particularly down toward the lower end, are 
 nailed, crosswise, strips of wood like cleats, which 
 are known as "riffles" — I suppose because they 
 make a series of little waves or riffles in the water 
 as it flows over them. Usually, also, in addition to ' 
 the cleats, the bottom is paved with cobble-stones, 
 so as to offer as many chinks and crannies as possible. Now all is 
 ready for extensive placer-mining ; and opening the gate which admits 
 to the little channel that leads to the sluices, down comes the clear blue 
 water, and goes dashing and foaming through the confined trough and 
 worries past the riffles, until it finds itself free, at the " tail," to run on 
 down the valley whither it will. It is pure and sparkling when it 
 enters, but in a moment becomes brown as chocolate with mud, for 
 the miners are shovelling the earth and gravel into the sluice-boxes, 
 and the rivulet's play-day is over — its work of gold-washing has begun. 
 After my description of the cradle, I need hardly trouble you to 
 read an explanation of sluicing. It is perfectly plain to you that, when 
 
 THE FLUM"E.
 
 THE "CLEAN-UP." 77 
 
 the gravel is shovelled into the sluices, the swift current sweeps away 
 all the light stuff, and rolls the round stones out at the end, while the 
 heavy grains of gold sink rapidly to the bottom, and are caught behind 
 the cleats, or between some of the paving-stones. Usually the men help 
 this process along by continually stirring up the bottom of the sluice- 
 box with a shovel, so that too much besides the gold shall not stay be- 
 hind ; and frequently some quicksilver is sprinkled in the bottom, to 
 attract and hold the gold more surely. This seems a very rude and 
 clumsy contrivance in working after so precious a prize ; indeed, it 
 never seems quite right to dig and toss and treat so carelessly the rich 
 soil of these mines ; but experience has shown that gold is so sure to 
 sink through all this agitation and mass of waste rock, and is so inde- 
 structible, that these rough methods are good enough for this kind of 
 mining. It used to be quite a common thing in California and Montana 
 for a speculator to buy a cabin where gambling had been carried on, or 
 the banking business had been done, and burn it down, for the sake of 
 panning out of the ruins the fragments of gold-dust which had been 
 spilled. I was told of a cabin in West Denver which thus yielded 
 twelve hundred dollars and over. 
 
 The proof of this efficacy comes at night, or at the end of the week, 
 when the clean-up is made. Then the water is shut off, the sluice is 
 drained dry, and all the big stones are thrown out. The black iron-sand 
 and other sediment in the bottom is scraped out of all the corners and 
 crevices, and carefully washed. A rich panful of gold remains — perhaps 
 hundreds of dollars' worth — which is separated from the iron by the use 
 of a magnet, as before, and poured into the little buckskin bag which 
 forms the miner's wallet. Last of all, it is weighed and divided be- 
 tween the various partners who are working the claim together. 
 
 By the amount of the " clean-up " they judge of the worth of the 
 claim, if anybody proposes to buy it of them. The general supposition 
 is, that a claim will average the same yield of gold all the way through ; 
 but this does not always hold true. The gold occurs in " pay-streaks," 
 and two claims, side by side, may be of very unequal value. The effort 
 of every miner is to get to " bed-rock" as soon as he can — that is, to the 
 rocky floor upon which the gravel has been drifted and piled — for the 
 reason that in the process of that drifting the gold has a chance to fall 
 through the bowlders and sift down to the bed-rock. He will tell you 
 that it is paved with a sheet of solid gold, but often he finds hardly 
 more than he met with on the way. 
 
 Sometimes it is only a certain layer in the bank which is " pay dirt "
 
 78 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and profitable to work. Then he pushes a tunnel into the side of a hill, 
 and brings his gravel out on a wheelbarrow to wash at the opening. 
 
 Men work all day in these tunnels, sometimes lying almost at full 
 length upon their sides ; and accidents occasionally occur, by the roof 
 falling or otherwise. In digging down to bed-rock it frequently happens 
 
 THE SLUICE AND 1TMI'. 
 
 that the hole or shaft becomes so full of water that no more work can 
 be done. It would cost too much to pay a man to pump it out, and 
 very likely one man, or even a dozen men, would be unable to do it. 
 But here is the water in the neighboring creek, or, if that is wanting, 
 the stream from the big ditch, waiting to be harnessed to do the work. 
 So the blacksmith is consulted, and an axle-tree, trunnions, and some
 
 THE GROWTH OF MINING-TOWNS. 79 
 
 other bits of iron -work, are forged. Then a framework is raised, a 
 small water-wheel knocked together and hung in it, a flume laid, which 
 pours a stream of water upon the wheel, and a rough gearing of poles 
 so arranged that every time the wheel goes around the plunger of the 
 pump is raised, and the water is pulled out. Sometimes the connecting- 
 rod between the water-wheel and the pump is a line of aspen-poles, a 
 hundred or two hundred feet long. This is supported, every dozen feet 
 or so, upon standards, which are fastened on pivots to firm blocks on 
 the ground, so as to move backward and forward with each lifting and 
 sinking of the pump. 
 
 When a company of men find a new gold gulch, and begin to work 
 it, they call the village which grows up there a camp, and give it some 
 name, which is just as likely to be absurd as it is to be appropriate. 
 Dutch Flat, Red Dog, Bough Town, Buckskin, and dozens of other com- 
 ical names, are examples. The miners hastily throw up little log cab- 
 ins, six or eight logs high, covered with a roof of poles and dirt, and 
 having nothing better than the hard-tramped earth for a floor. In one 
 end is the fireplace (the chimney is outside, like that of a negro's hut 
 in the South), and at the other end are rough bunks, where the owner 
 stuffs in some long grass or spruce boughs or straw, and spreads his bed 
 or blankets. These rude little cabins are packed close together up and 
 down the sides of the gulch, so as to be as near as possible to, and yet 
 out of the way of, the mining, and they give a very pretty look to the 
 wild scenery of these mountains. As the camp grows larger merchants 
 go there with goods to sell ; stage-coaches begin to run to and from 
 older settlements; shops, hotels, restaurants, and churches are built, and 
 the camp becomes a town. I have known of such a gulch-mining settle- 
 ment in a single year converting an utter wilderness in the mountains, 
 long miles away from anywhere, into a city of ten thousand people or 
 more. One of the most remarkable examples of this was the settle- 
 ment in California Gulch, which antedated Leadville by almost a score 
 of years and occupied nearly the same site. I will sketch it. 
 
 After the rush to Pike's Peak, in 1859, which was disappointing 
 enough to the majority of prospectors, a number of men pushed west- 
 ward. One party made their way through Ute pass into the grand 
 meadows of South Park, and, crossing, pressed on to the Arkansas val- 
 ley, up which they proceeded, searching unsuccessfully for gold, until 
 they reached a wide plateau on the right bank, where a beautiful little 
 stream came down. Following this nearly to its source, along what 
 they named California Gulch, they were delighted to find placers of
 
 80 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 gold. This was in the midsummer of i860; and before the close of the 
 hot weather ten thousand people had emigrated to the Arkansas, and 
 $2,500,000 had been washed out, one of the original explorers taking 
 twenty-nine pounds of gold away with him in the fall, besides selling 
 for 8500 a "worked-out" claim from which $15,000 was taken within 
 the next three months. Since that time this same " exhausted" gravel 
 is being washed a third or fourth time with profit. 
 
 The settlement consisted of one long street only, and houses even 
 of logs were so few that the camp was known as " Bough Town," every- 
 body abandoning the wicky-ups in winter, when the placers could not 
 be worked, and retreating to Denver. During the summer, however, 
 Bough Town witnessed some lively scenes. One day a stranger came 
 riding up the street on a gallop, splashing the mud everywhere, only to 
 be unceremoniously halted by a rough-looking customer who covered 
 him with a revolver, and said, " Hold on, there, stranger ! When ye go 
 through this yere town, go slow, so folks kin take a look at ye !" 
 
 No money circulated there ; gold-dust served all the purposes of 
 trade, and every merchant, saloon-keeper, and gambler had his scales. 
 The phrase was not " Cash up," but " Down with your dust ;" and when 
 a man's buckskin wallet was empty he knew where to fill it again. 
 It was not long, however, before the placers were all staked off, and the 
 claims began to be exhausted. Then the town so dwindled that in 
 half a dozen years only a score were left of the turbulent multitude 
 who, in i860 and 1861, made the gulch noisy with magical gains and 
 unheeded loss. Among the last of their acts was to pull down the old 
 log gambling- hall, and to pan two thousand dollars out of the dirt 
 where the gamblers had dropped the coveted grains. This done, every- 
 body moved elsewhere, and the frightened game returned to thread the 
 aspen groves and drink at the again translucent streams of California 
 Gulch, where eight million dollars had been sifted from the pebbles. 
 
 Not all the camps have so fleeting a life. Almost all the large cities 
 and towns of California and the Rocky Mountains began as placer- 
 camps. But it usually happened that, about the time it was found that 
 all the gold in the gravel-bar had been washed out, and people had 
 begun to leave the place, some shrewd rich man, or company of rich 
 men, bought out several claims, until they had a considerable area of 
 the gravel-bank in their possession. Then they erected machinery, and 
 pursued what is known as hydraulic mining; for they could make money 
 by this means out of gravel too poor in gold to pay for panning or 
 cradling, according to the gold-diggers' high ideas of profit.
 
 HYDRAULIC METHODS. 
 
 SI 
 
 In hydraulic mining a stream of water is brought into the mine 
 through iron pipes, from so high a source as to give immense force to 
 it when it leaps out of the nozzle. The fall must be from one hundred 
 and fifty to two hundred feet, usually, to furnish the necessary " head," 
 and upon the power which the water has depends the success of the 
 enterprise. The pipe consists of stout iron, and is a foot or so in di- 
 ameter. It is made' 
 up of sections, each 
 about twelve feet long, 
 and therefore can be 
 lengthened or short- 
 ened, bent or moved 
 about, as required. 
 Into its upper end, 
 away up on the steep 
 hill-side, flows the wa- 
 ter of the high -line 
 ditch, or perhaps the 
 current of a mount- 
 ain snow-fed torrent. 
 At the lower end of 
 the pipe is arranged 
 a very strong iron 
 mouth-piece, like the 
 
 nozzle of a steam fire-engine, only three times as big, which swings 
 upon compound joints in its attachment to the pipe, so that it can be 
 moved in any direction — upward, downward, or sideways. So much 
 for the water-power or hydraulic machinery. Now, observe how they 
 employ it. 
 
 Down at the edge of the creek there is room enough to lay their 
 pipes and set up the " Little Giant," as they call their nozzle. In the 
 creek-bed a little distance below has already been built a great sluice-box, 
 sometimes a hundred yards or more long, and much more capacious 
 than the sluices used in hand -work. Leading down to this, a steep 
 channel is arranged from the gravel-bank, and all is ready. The flood- 
 gates are opened, the big nozzle is pointed straight at the bank, the 
 water resounds through the humming pipes and rushes forth from the 
 nozzle in a solid, straight, ice-white beam, which bores its way into the 
 bank and tumbles the bowlders out very much as a steady stream of 
 cannon-balls would do it. It is great sport to watch this fierce attack 
 
 HYDRAULIC MINING.
 
 82 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 of so much water, remembering that it is only its weight, and the force 
 it accumulates in its eagerness to escape from the close pipes, which 
 is hurrying it on at this fearful speed. The bank crumbles, and bits of 
 hard clay, small stones, and fragments of petrified wood are tossed high 
 in the broad fountain which flies backward from the point where the 
 water strikes, and falls with a constant roar and rattle. The white, 
 mist-hidden beam of water bores its way deeper and deeper, the mass 
 of foam and broken earth changes and grows as the face of the cliff 
 and the direction of the nozzle are changed, and so the Little Giant 
 rapidly eats his way into the gravel, and at the same time sweeps 
 the loose material into the sluices by the very flood which his energy 
 creates. 
 
 I used to delight to watch this work down below Leadville, where 
 the same wilderness of pebbles and bowlders was being gone over that 
 were tossed about by thousands of eager hands a score of years ago. 
 It was fascinating to note the fearful power and effect of this concen- 
 trated beam of water, with no propulsive force behind it but its own 
 weight ; and none of the romance was destroyed in finding that here 
 and there the water cut down into some cabin — a relic of Bough Town 
 that had become utterly buried in debris. 
 
 While all this picturesque enginery is in operation above them, 
 down along the rough channel stand men aiding the separation of 
 the gold. They are picking the large, worthless stones out of the 
 stream, and piling them in an out-of-the-way place ; they are walking 
 about knee -deep in the raging, mud -laden flood, continually poking 
 out the heavier rocks, and stirring up the bottom with shovels, in or- 
 der that no gold may settle there. Through the stout sluice leaps a 
 swift and noisy current, bearing in its thick waters thousands of minute 
 flakes of gold, with now and then a nugget. These quickly sink to the 
 bottom, and are caught by the riffles : so that the clean-up of an hydrau- 
 lic sluice ought to be, and usually is, very rich, for a hundred times more 
 earth is sent through it each day under the tearing strength of the 
 Little Giant than ever shovels alone could handle. Moreover, it often 
 happens that there are five or six pipes and nozzles firing at the same 
 bank. Then the destruction is very rapid, great masses of gravel being 
 quickly undermined, and falling with a noise like thunder. 
 
 The gold is collected from the sluice by shutting off the water, 
 taking out the riffles, and scraping the bottom. Some quicksilver has 
 usually been sprinkled in the sluice previously, and more is now added, 
 the better to collect the gold, for which it has a strong attraction. The
 
 PROFIT AND LOSS OF GOLD-DIGGING. 83 
 
 union of the two metals forms what is known as an amalgam, and there 
 are two ways of separating them again. If the miners do not care to 
 save the quicksilver (which is the same thing as the mercury of our 
 thermometers), they put the amalgam in a bag, and strain out the 
 quicksilver by squeezing, just as you press the juice out of grapes when 
 jelly is to be made. Then the gold and the trifle of quicksilver remain- 
 ing is placed upon a shovel and held over the fire until all the white 
 metal passes off in vapor. 
 
 If, however, it is desired to save the mercury, the amalgam, as soon 
 as it is cleaned out of the sluice, is put into a chemist's retort and 
 heated. The mercury turns to vapor, which rises through a tube pass- 
 ing at a short distance through a box of ice or cold water, and is there 
 condensed or turned back to liquid again, when it runs into a jar and 
 is ready to be used a second time. In this way the same mercury may 
 be used over and over again, with but little loss. 
 
 Sometimes several thousand dollars are the profit of a single week 
 of hydraulic mining, but several hundreds would be a more ordinary 
 estimate. 
 
 Conducted on whatever system, gold-mining is not always so profit- 
 able a business as it seems at first glance. After all, an ounce of gold 
 is worth only so much, and a pound only twelve times as much. To 
 get a pound of gold requires much hard work, and a considerable out- 
 lay of money for food, for wear and tear of clothes, for rent of water, 
 for purchase of machinery, etc., etc. Sometimes the gains are enor- 
 mous, but it is only a few who have become rich in gold-digging out 
 of thousands who have struggled and failed. Nor, exciting and roman- 
 tic as it seems to live in this wild, out-door, picnic style, and to dig the 
 shining, precious, poetic mineral out of the ignoble gravel where it has 
 so long lain neglected, is it altogether enjoyable work. You must be 
 almost continually wet, and the water in the mountains is cold ; you 
 must handle all day long rough stones, heave huge bowlders, and shovel 
 heavy dirt ; you must swing the pick till your back aches, and waggle 
 that rusty gold-pan till your arms grow lame and your fingers are sore, 
 while the sun beats down straight and hot, or the chill wind cuts 
 through your wet garments ; you must work early and late, hard and 
 fast, often defending your property by a little war, if you would equal 
 your neighbors and hold your claim. 
 
 Then see how the gold-miner lives. His cabin is low and dark and 
 dirty. The climate is too severe and the ground too rocky for him to 
 raise a garden if he cared to, and he has no time for such pleasantries.
 
 84 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 His hard work permits him to wear none but the very roughest of 
 leathern and woollen clothes, and his fare is of the plainest kind, such 
 as he himself can cook. I have known a placer-camp to be without a 
 potato, or a drink of milk, or a bit of butter for nine months at a time ; 
 but nowadays miners live somewhat better than they used to, because 
 grocers have learned how to pack food in such a shape that it will keep 
 well, and can be carried far into the mountains. 
 
 The amusements of a mining-camp are almost all connected with 
 liquor and gambling. It is in such dissipations that gold-miners spend 
 nearly all the great wealth they get, so that often they will make and 
 lose a dozen large fortunes in as many years. There are some, of 
 
 THE PROSPECTOR AND HIS BURRO. 
 
 course, who save, hiding away their little buckskin bags of gold-dust ; 
 but they are careful not to let any one know of it, for if they did 
 they would very likely be robbed, and perhaps shot, by some despera- 
 do. Gold-digging is hard, dangerous, and life-wearing work, yet always 
 fascinating. 
 
 Did it ever occur to you to ask how the gold got mixed up in the
 
 GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE PLACERS. 85 
 
 gravel ? Perhaps I can give my younger readers a hint as to how to 
 study the matter out fully. 
 
 The gravel-banks were piled in the places where they are now found 
 either by the streams, which formerly were vastly larger than they now 
 are, or else by great moving masses of ice, called glaciers. If you should 
 read Professor Tyndall's little book, " Forms of Water," you would get 
 a very good idea of this ice -power, and much entertainment besides. 
 Whatever the way, the broken fragments of the mountain, which the 
 action of the atmosphere and trickling water had undermined, frost had 
 cracked off, or lightning had splintered to pieces during thousands of 
 years, became rolled down the bed of the ancient river and rounded 
 into pebbles and cobble-stones, just as is still being done in the bed 
 of every rapid stream. 
 
 Now, scattered all through the granite rock of which these tower- 
 ing Rocky Mountains are built up, are veins or streaks of quartz — a 
 white, crystalline rock in which the gold is found, though it by no 
 means follows that every quartz-vein carries the royal metal. When, 
 by the action of frost, rain, lightning, and ice, the rocks are shattered 
 and rolled down the bed of the stream, the quartz goes along with the 
 granite, and of course, if there is any gold there, it also is torn out and 
 grinds along with the rest, until it finds a chance to settle and help 
 build up the bar that, ages afterward, our prospectors seek and dig into. 
 Therefore placer-gold is sometimes known as "floated" gold; and high 
 in the range, at the head of a gulch which contains good gravel, are to 
 be found quartz-veins whence the riches below have come, and where 
 the undiscovered gold may be dug out and separated from the mother- 
 rock by the various processes known under the head of quartz-mining, 
 which are far more expensive and complicated than anything done in 
 working the placers. It is the general belief that in the United States 
 the placers have been pretty well exhausted, and that most of the gold 
 of the future is to be expected from the quartz lodes, and sought for 
 hundreds of feet underground, deep in the heart of the mountains.
 
 86 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XII. 
 
 WELL, to go back to my trip to Granite, I may dismiss the matter 
 by saying that I got no letters for myself or anybody else, much to 
 our disgust. It was nearly four weeks since we had had a word of 
 news either from home or from head-quarters. 
 
 Starting away early, I rode about fifty miles before night. It was 
 almost all accomplished by keeping my poor tired horse at a dog-trot — 
 a pace which is less than a trot and more than a walk. All his muscles 
 seemed lax, and he went on, like a machine, at about five miles an hour, 
 without any apparent effort. Now and then he would rouse into a gal- 
 lop, and at noon he had an hour's rest. 
 
 The next fortnight was not productive of many adventures or note- 
 worthy incidents, though it contained plenty of hard work. Our track 
 led across into the head of the San Luis Park, and so on down to Sa- 
 guache — a Mexican town near the Rio Grande. There was a pleasant 
 bit of natural history picked up along here, though. 
 
 The plover of these interior valleys does not seem to care for 
 marshes, like the most of his race, but haunts the dry uplands. It is 
 closely related to the golden plover, and is named in books sEgiali/is 
 montanus. (See cut, p. 60.) A flock of these plovers dropped down on 
 the plain one day, and I determined to get them for dinner, if possible. 
 Jumping off my horse — who would stand stock-still wherever I left 
 him— I approached to where they had dropped, and finally caught sight 
 of one by distinguishing the dark dot of its eye against the light-tinted 
 surface of the ground. Even then I really could not follow with my 
 eye the outline of the bird's body, so closely did the colors of the plu- 
 mage agree with the white sand and dry grass. I shot it ; then found 
 another, shot that ; and so on until all were killed, none of them flying 
 away, because their " instinct," or habit of thought, had taught them 
 that when danger threatened they must invariably keep quiet ; move- 
 ment would be exposure, and exposure would be fatal. I and my gun 
 formed a danger they had had no experience of, and here their inherit- 
 ed "instinct" was at fault. When I had shot them I was unable, with
 
 THE SANGRE DE CHRISTO RANGE. 
 
 87 
 
 the most careful searching, to find all the dead birds. Hunting for a 
 black pin on a mottled carpet, or a sixpence in a skating-rink, were 
 an easy task compared with finding those color- protected plovers on 
 the San Luis barrens. 
 
 Several clays gave no special incident that I remember. The Sangre 
 de Christo range, along the western side of which our road led us to 
 Saguache, is, perhaps, the most beautiful in Colorado, as we viewed it, 
 because the range presents a perfectly straight line of the most lofty 
 and shapely peaks — blue triangles, with white tips. Down at the south- 
 ern extremity the splendid rank terminates in the Sierra Blanca — king 
 
 
 b a a i\ f\ ,r \ n 1 
 
 FURT GARLAND AND SIERRA BLANCA. 
 
 of Colorado's peaks in respect to height. Afterward I went all round 
 its base, but never scaled its almost inaccessible summit, mindful of the 
 terrible dangers and suffering which our party encountered who meas- 
 ured it. Among other things, they were obliged, in order to reach the 
 topmost pinnacle, to creep for a long distance upon a ridge of rock fall- 
 ing on either side to frightful depths, which was so narrow and sharp 
 that in many places it was possible to sit astride it.
 
 88 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 From Saguache— an old Mexican village, inhabited chiefly by cattle- 
 men and shepherds whose herds range in the Rio Grande valley — the 
 trail took us over an exceedingly water-worn and desolate region, and 
 then, through the beautiful pass of Cochetopa creek, into the valley of 
 
 ALONG THE COCHETOPA. 
 
 the Los Pinos. Here there was the Southern Agency of the Utes, and 
 we came suddenly, at a turn in the road, to a view of an immense col- 
 lection of Indian lodges, with all their attendant herds of horses and 
 crowds of women and children, spread below us on the green river-plain. 
 The sight of six hundred lodges and three thousand savages, all togeth- 
 er, was to me a most novel and inspiring one. 
 
 Though we passed on to a point near the Agency house to fix our 
 camp, yet, as we stayed here a week, I had abundant opportunities to 
 visit the red men and become familiar with their summer home-life. 
 
 This Agency — which, I believe, has lately been removed — is on the 
 direct trail from Saguache to Antelope Park and the San Juan region, 
 to which we were bound. It is said to have come here by accident, and 
 the story goes that the officer who had charge of locating the Agency 
 was instructed to put it on the Rio Los Pinos, one hundred miles or 
 so south-west of here ; but he said, " Put it anywhere, and call it Los 
 Pinos." So here it is. 
 
 The valley of the Cochetopa is eight or ten miles long at this point, 
 and three or four wide. Being full of good grass, and surrounded by
 
 OURAY AND HIS UTES. 89 
 
 high, timbered hills, it has always been a favorite summer halting-place 
 for the Indians, and here Ouray (I spell it as has been the custom, but 
 it is pronounced Oo-ray), the chief of the seven tribes that formed the 
 Ute confederation, had his head -quarters. Ouray was a remarkable 
 man, and I am glad I knew him ; but there proved finally to be too 
 many rascals in his nation for the strength of his influence. 
 
 It is difficult, of course, to estimate a man in his position by the 
 standards we apply to civilized leaders ; but it seemed to me that his 
 hold upon his tribe was always precarious, and that he accomplished his 
 ends, when he did succeed, by artful devices, patience, and the force of 
 the side he took, rather than by any power as a ruler. He was not 
 wholly popular with this federation, though followed faithfully by his 
 own tribe — the Weeminoochees. The Northern bands, which had their 
 head-quarters at the White River Agency, always looked upon Douglas 
 as their chief, though acknowledging the nominal supremacy of Ouray, 
 since he had been recognized at Washington as " head chief." 
 
 Ouray continually lost popularity with a large number of his men by 
 his persistent endeavor to keep peace with the whites, to prevent war 
 of any sort, in short, and his steady advocacy of the principle that the 
 prosperity of the tribe lay in their adapting themselves to the manners 
 of the white men. He was the apostle of progress and liberality among 
 a people too thoroughly cast in its traditions, too inflexibly moulded, 
 to willingly consent. This appeared very strongly in several incidents 
 which occurred while I was at the Agency. 
 
 The division of the Survey that I accompanied at this time was 
 the photographic party, under the charge of Mr. W. H. Jackson, whose 
 beautiful and highly artistic pictures have done more, perhaps, than 
 anything else to make the Survey widely and attractively known. Our 
 purpose was to photograph portraits of Indians and scenes in their life. 
 
 Ouray was informed of this, by a visit paid him at his cabin at the 
 Agency, where he lived with his pretty wife in an attempt at civiliza- 
 tion, and he acquiesced heartily, promising to sit himself, and have his 
 wife and his brother-in-law (I believe he was) also sit, with all their best 
 regimentals on. That afternoon, therefore, there was a large gathering 
 on the veranda of the house of the Agent, the Rev. Mr. Bond, a Unita- 
 rian clergyman from Boston. 
 
 Ouray ordinarily wore a civilized dress of black broadcloth, and even 
 boots, though he had never cut off his long hair, which he still bound up 
 in two queues, Indian fashion. But now he came out in buckskin cos- 
 tume of native cut, full and flowing, with long fringes trailing from his 
 
 7
 
 '.it i KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 arms and shoulders, skirts, and leggings, until they dragged upon the 
 ground. These garments were beaded in the most profuse and expen- 
 sive manner ; and as he gravely strode through the circle of spectators 
 and seated himself in a dignified and proud way, his many medals flash- 
 ing, he looked every inch a monarch. 
 
 His wife, Sowabeeah," was that day about the most prepossessing 
 Indian woman I ever saw, and Ouray was immensely proud of her. She 
 evidently had prepared with great care for this event, yet at the last 
 was very timid about taking her place before the camera ; but the en- 
 couragement of her husband and assistance of Mrs. Bond soon overcame 
 her scruples, and she sat down as full of dimpling smiles as the veriest 
 bride. The doeskin of which her dress was made was almost as white 
 as cotton, and nearly as soft as silk. From every edge and seam hung 
 thick white fringes, twelve or fifteen inches long, while a pretty trim- 
 ming of bead-work and porcupine-quill embroidery set off a costume 
 which cost Ouray not less than $125. 
 
 The third negative made was that of the brother-in-law, and chief 
 medicine-man of the tribe, whose dress was more resplendent than even 
 his royal brother's, being almost wholly covered with intricate patterns 
 of bead-work. He was a tall, straight, broad-shouldered fellow, and had 
 not an unpleasant face, but it was thoroughly painted in vermilion and 
 yellow — a bit of savage full-dress which Ouray and his wife, with liberal 
 taste, had discarded. The most noticeable thing about this great sor- 
 cerer, however, was the evidence of his prowess in war. The fringe on 
 his coat, from shoulder to elbow, consisted wholly of locks of human 
 hair — the black, straight hair of Arapahoe and Cheyenne scalps that 
 had fallen to his valorous share in battle. The heart he wore upon his 
 sleeve was a dauntless one. 
 
 We made good pictures of all three of these, singly and in groups, 
 and had much fun out of it ; but the consequences were dire. 
 
 At the conclusion I sat on the chief's porch, and asked him some 
 questions as to the origin of the Ute nation. Ouray told me that they 
 first occupied a little district at the southern end of the Uncompahgre 
 mountains, about the sources of the Rio San Juan and Rio Uncom- 
 pahgre, where, according to tradition, they were without horses, had no 
 arms other than bows and arrows, and used stone implements cxclusive- 
 
 * I learn, too late to ascertain the real fact of the case, that possibly I am wrong 
 in this name; or, at any rate, that she had another name by which she was more 
 widely known beyond the Agency.
 
 HISTORY OF THE UTES. 91 
 
 ]y. I asked him many questions about the method of making the stone 
 tools, but got no satisfactory answers. After the advent of the Span- 
 iards, who introduced metals, the use of weapons and implements of 
 stone gradually declined, until soon they wholly disappeared. Having 
 only bows and arrows, no horses or dogs, and yet trusting to the chase 
 for their maintenance, they secured all their wild game by driving it 
 into ambush along the runways. They had at this primitive time no 
 goats, sheep, or cattle ; nor was there any current means of exchange, 
 legal tender, or money, unless the buckskin in which the medicine-men 
 were paid might be called such. This pay was for teaching the young 
 men traditions and knowledge of national import, in addition to the 
 regular family instruction practised by the parents. 
 
 The only enemies of the tribe at this time were the Indians of the 
 plains, and some mountain tribes to the northward. From these they 
 were constantly obliged to defend themselves ; but they made few ag- 
 gressive raids beyond their own narrow limits. South of them were the 
 Jicarrilla Apaches, with whom they were always on friendly terms, and 
 even intermarried. But, curiously enough, it was always an Apache 
 girl marrying a Ute, and never a young Ute girl giving her hand to an 
 Apache brave. There was no law about it— only usage had confirmed 
 a custom. (It is a common feature of Indian society, from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific, that members of the same band or tribal family shall not 
 marry ; but I do not remember to have seen such a secondary fact as the 
 above-mentioned recorded elsewhere.) Through the Apaches the Utes 
 communicated with the Spaniards, who had already settled south and 
 west of there, in what is now eastern Arizona, and from them obtained 
 a few horses and dogs, which by being carefully bred soon multiplied 
 until they had accumulated a sufficient stock. This was the first step 
 toward their subsequent prosperity. 
 
 They now changed their attitude of defence to one of offence, and 
 pushed the war hotly against their old enemies, refusing to fight the 
 Spaniards, as nearly all of the village tribes south of them were doing. 
 It was in these raids that they first obtained, and learned to use, fire- 
 arms, capturing them from the plains Indians who had been visited by 
 traders. Gaining in strength, numbers, and courage with new victories 
 through long years and weary battles, they finally drove their foes east- 
 ward to the open plains, and were possessors of all the territory now 
 included in Utah and Colorado, between the Wahsatch mountains and 
 the main range. 
 
 Of course, it is difficult to tell how long ago all this happened ; but
 
 92 KNOCKING "ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 that the main account is a true history of the tribe I have little doubt. 
 The rest we can form a definite idea of, for Ouray tells me that he can 
 remember when the Utes first met the white man (that is, Americans — 
 the Spaniards had been seen long before), in the vicinity of Del Norte, 
 on the Rio Grande. His father, Salvador, was then chief of the tribe, 
 and his mother an Apache. These white men were, of course, traders; 
 but they were soon followed by others, and the Utes soon became fa- 
 miliar and friendly with them; and, Ouray added, " It is their boast to- 
 day that a Ute in good standing never killed a white man." I knew 
 that that was not quite true, but I did not argue the point just then. 
 Now, since the White River massacre, and several other bloody scenes, 
 the assertion is farther than ever from the facts. 
 
 The head men of the tribe are constantly watching the behavior 
 of the boys and young men. When they see one who is intelligent 
 and progressive, whose ideas are in conformity with the policy of the 
 nation, and who shows a capacity for carrying on their affairs with 
 credit and advantage, he is looked upon as a captain without farther 
 ceremony. From the captains the head chief is elected. Such a man 
 was young Ouray, and he at last became chief, with the consent of all 
 the tribe, altogether through his own merits and not because his father 
 was chief, for no hereditary honors are recognized. He first succeeded 
 Benito as war- chief in 1863, perhaps at the nomination and certainly 
 with the sanction of the United States Government, which had become 
 convinced of his ability during the negotiation of the treaty at that 
 time. This election and the terms of the treaty together so dissatis- 
 fied old Nuvava, head chief, that, with all his band, he left the South- 
 ern Utes and reported thereafter at the White River Agency. Sub- 
 sequently there was a split in his band, and some three hundred and 
 fifty, under the leadership of Peeah, went to Denver to receive their 
 supplies. It was this same rascal, Peeah, who later got us into trouble. 
 
 The day after Ouray was photographed was " issuing day " at the 
 Agency, and we were down bright and early to view it. Beginning at 
 sunrise, parties of Indians, with their wives and little ones, were to be 
 seen riding leisurely over the rolling plain up from the village about 
 six miles away. There was a wagon-road down there, but most of them 
 came a straighter way by the trails, half a dozen of which, like so many 
 cow-paths, ran side by side. So they poured in, until by nine o'clock 
 nearly the whole village was there — perhaps two thousand men, women, 
 and children. They loitered about the court -yard within the quad-
 
 CHIEFS— STATUESQUE AND OTHERWISE. 93 
 
 angle of the Agency, swarmed inside the buildings and at the trader's 
 store, and loafed in the stables. Finally, old Shavano, the war-captain 
 of the tribe — but, 'pon my word, he was the mildest looking, most grand- 
 fatherly savage I ever saw in my life !— appeared on the ridge-pole of 
 the government's storehouse, and struck an attitude of great dignity, 
 with his blanket impressively looped up about him, like a regular 
 bronze statue in a cocked-hat and feather. Whether we speak in loud 
 tones because we have acquired the habit of doing so through living 
 in the midst of the incessant racket of our manifold industries; and 
 whether, conversely, it is because the savage dwells in such mighty 
 silence, that he speaks in tones so moderate, I leave for your specula- 
 tion : but I know that one of the most noticeable traits in all the 
 dozens of Indian tribes I have met has been, that their conversation 
 was almost in whispers. I have often wondered how it was possible 
 for the person addressed to hear, yet he never failed to do so ; and 
 now, when Shavano gave out the directions for forming the array to 
 receive the annuity goods, he did it in a tone which I had to strain my 
 ears to catch even the sound of, yet which was understood in every 
 word by all the Utes far and near. So much sharper are savage ears 
 than civilized. Having referred to the captains, sub -chiefs, and head 
 chiefs, it may be a good place in which to explain their respective posi- 
 tions and duties, while the women and children, with much merriment, 
 are seating themselves in three large semicircles, one behind the other, 
 converging toward the storehouse door, where the Agent and his assist- 
 ants were about to dispense the goods. 
 
 When anything of national interest is to be deliberated, as the open- 
 ing of a war, notice is given and a general mass-meeting called of all 
 the men in the tribe. There all the pros and cons of 'the matter are 
 discussed and weighed against one another. The matter is then re- 
 ferred to a council of the aged and influential men of the tribe, many 
 of whom have some authority and are termed sub-chiefs, who render 
 a decision and arrange a mode of action, the execution of which be- 
 longs to the captains. In these deliberations no woman has any voice; 
 or if by chance the sage advice of any woman is heeded the source is 
 never recognized. When they go to war everything is in common. 
 All the plans, tactics, and strategy to be employed are thoroughly un- 
 derstood by each man, who, acting on this intimate knowledge of the 
 plans, looks out carefully that his own share of the work is well done. 
 Thus all details of organization are rendered unnecessary, and the act- 
 ual authority of the captains is so small as to amount to nothing. It
 
 5)4 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 had been learned from the experience of wars with Indians of the 
 plains that when much authority is delegated to one man he is likely 
 to abuse it for his own personal advantage ; and, moreover, that jeal- 
 ousy toward him is sure to arise. It was especially pressed upon me to 
 observe that the charge brought against them by those ignorant of their 
 customs, that there was no system in the conduct of their affairs, and 
 that they had no capability of organization, was untrue. On the con- 
 trary, their customs are uniform and universally respected, and they 
 exhibit in their leaders just as much capacity for government as do any 
 of the civilized nations of the earth. The only difference, the chief in- 
 sisted, is, that civilization presents greater complications. Poor old 
 Ouray — he is dead now, after an administration full of trouble ! Very 
 likely he wished his capacity for government a trifle greater, or his 
 " complications " less. 
 
 When all had been seated and were quiet, several of the older In- 
 dians came forward to help distribute the flour, beans, coffee, tobacco, 
 and whatever else was given out. But before it began Shavano (who 
 had remained lofty and statuesque on the ridge-pole) said something 
 which sent a little murmur around the circle and caused everybody to 
 turn their eyes upward, where I now descried Mr. Jackson and his as- 
 sistant perched on the roof of a second building, with their camera 
 aimed at the expectant crowd. Shavano held up a warning hand, as 
 though he were pronouncing a benediction ; and in an instant it was 
 over, and the distributing began, amid great excitement and unintelli- 
 gible but not unmelodious gabble. 
 
 But there was one man there who was displeased excessively at 
 this trick of the photographer, and proposed to put a stop to such 
 foolishness. Meanwhile, however, he had some fun on hand. 
 
 As soon as the goods had been pretty well given out the male In- 
 dians threw aside their blanket-robes, mounted their ponies, took rifles 
 and revolvers in hand, and gathered in groups about the great gates of 
 the corral. Then the gates opened, and, goaded by an onslaught of 
 frantic youngsters in the rear, out rushed a score or more of wild-eyed, 
 long-horned, sleek-hided Texan steers. They were received with ex- 
 cited yells by the redskins on horseback, and each group, selecting a 
 steer, at once improvised a mimic buffalo -hunt, their ponies entering 
 into the full zest of the chase. 
 
 The steers, indeed, were wilder than buffaloes, and dashed away at 
 high speed, surrounded by a little crowd of shrieking Indians, whose 
 fringes and bright blankets flashing in the sunlight, with the rapid
 
 PHOTOGRAPHY A BAD MEDICINE. 
 
 95 
 
 movements of the horses, made a very lively picture. It lasted only 
 a few moments, however, before the rifles and revolvers began to be 
 heard, and the agonized cattle dropped in their tracks, yielding up their 
 hides almost sooner than their souls. 
 
 This over (of course it was unphotographable), we attempted to take 
 some pictures of groups of redskins at the Agency, when opposition be- 
 gan to be evident ; and the murmurs grew so strong that when Mr. 
 Jackson came out with a second plate he found his camera surrounded 
 by a mounted guard of Indians, armed with lances, who not only kept 
 everybody away but threatened the destruction of the instrument. So 
 no more negatives were made that morning. They had a superstitious 
 reason for this behavior ; or at least they alleged one, though I have 
 always thought it merely a move for popularity among the malcontents 
 of the tribe by the wily Peeah. They said that to photograph a single 
 man was bad, but not necessarily fatal ; to photograph a squaw was 
 wrong and immodest ; but to take a picture of a group of Indians (un- 
 less of a whole town, for example, at long range) was the worst kind of 
 bad medicine. " Make heap Injun heap sick," they asserted. When 
 asked why, it was gathered that they believed that in order to produce 
 an exact likeness on the photographic plate some witchery must be 
 exercised by the sorcerer who hid his head so mysteriously under the 
 black cloth, which drew out of the "subject" enough of his actual soul 
 and substance to construct the semblance on the plate. This loss of 
 soul a brave warrior might not miss; but certainly a weak squaw had 
 no such strength to spare ; and great evils had been known to follow 
 the photographing of a dozen or so persons at once.
 
 96 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Undeterred by our bad-luck of this morning, we went down to 
 the camp on the day following, determined to make another effort, and 
 by flattery succeeded in getting several good general views, and even 
 pictures of Peeah himself and some of the other head men in their 
 ceremonial toggery of crown and long train of the feathers of the 
 golden eagle, which is the war-eagle of all Indians. 
 
 For several years the Utes have been supposed to live upon the 
 reservation, which embraces some 14,000,000 acres, in south-western Col- 
 orado, and is the largest Indian reservation in the country.* But the 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE INDIAN CAMP. 
 
 fact is that they are in its valleys only in the winter, roaming during 
 the summer all over the Territory, particularly in the park country 
 
 * This was written before the very recent sale and reduction of a large part of 
 the reservation in Colorado, and the consequent movement of the whole tribe 
 north-westward into the White River region.
 
 HOUSE-KEEPING OF THE UTES. 97 
 
 From about the ist of August until it is time for them to retire to 
 their winter-quarters in the Uncompahgre valley they keep near their 
 respective Agencies, and live on the rations which are dealt out to them 
 by the government. This is the best time to see them at home, for 
 then there are often sixty or eighty lodges in one camp. Their lodges 
 are all nowadays made of cotton cloth furnished by the government, 
 are conical in form, and supported on several slender poles meeting at 
 the top, where the cloth is so disposed as. to make a sort of flue or 
 guard, set by the wind, in order to cause a proper draught. A little, 
 low opening on one side makes a door, which is usually closed by a 
 flap of hide or an old blanket. The white cloth soon becomes be- 
 grimed with smoke at the top, which in time extends downward and 
 deepens, until you have a perfect gradation of color, from the white 
 base through ever deepening smoke-browns to the sooty blackness of 
 the apex, adding greatly to their beauty. Besides this discoloring, for 
 which their owners are not directly responsible, the lodges are often 
 painted in bright colors, particularly about the door-ways, and in a band 
 about the base; and usually there, will be one or two blue, yellow, or 
 striped lodges in a camp, giving a picturesque variety to the scene. 
 About each teepee (lodge) or group of teepees — for they cluster to- 
 gether here and there in no sort of order — you will ordinarily find sev- 
 eral little huts of evergreen branches, called wicky-ups ; fires, with queer 
 kettles hanging over them ; frames hung with skins in process of tan- 
 ning and softening; buffalo-robes staked on the ground to dry or to be 
 painted by the squaws at leisure times ; piles of all sorts of truck — In- 
 dian, Mexican, American, and nondescript — among which papooses play, 
 ponies stroll and entangle long lariats of braided raw-hide, dogs bark, 
 and indifferent warriors in gay suits smoke with stoical laziness. 
 
 Their utensils consist almost entirely of what they have bought 
 from the whites, iron and tin ware ; but some peculiarly Indian manu- 
 factures are still in use, as, for instance, gourd-shaped water-jars, holding 
 from two quarts to a gallon, made of close wicker-work, well pitched, 
 one of which, it is said, it takes a squaw four days to make. They have 
 little paint-pots, too, of black pottery, and stone pestles, but these things 
 are almost entirely superseded by civilized manufactures. The boys 
 practise with bows and arrows, and use them largely in getting small 
 game ; but the older ones are all well-armed with Sharp's and Ballard 
 rifles and the latest improved Winchester carbines. They have plenty 
 of cartridges, too, and always wear revolvers, so that a boyish game, 
 something like quoits, is about the only use they find for their arrows.
 
 98 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The noises which strike your ear are equally varied, running all the 
 way from the squealing of a poor little papoose strapped in its coffin- 
 like cradle, or the really melodious laughter of a squaw, to the hoarse 
 whinnies of a hundred horses and the ringing report of a revolver. The 
 one sound, though, which will attract your attention, arid which you 
 never fail to hear, is the monotonous droning of drums in the medicine- 
 man's tent, generally accompanied by the more monotonous chanting 
 of a series of notes in the minor key which is neither song nor howl nor 
 chant, and which could go on endlessly if it wasn't occasionally stop- 
 ped by a yelp from the leader. The young bucks enjoy this singing, 
 and swing their bodies in time with a seriousness of countenance that 
 is very funny to a white man. I have seen two different drums among 
 them ; one nothing more than buckskin tied tightly over the mouth of 
 a jar, and the other made of raw-hide stretched very tense over a broad 
 hoop, so that its shape was that of a sieve. 
 
 One of the little cradles mentioned seemed a trifle different from 
 the ordinary style, and I began to sketch it, as it stood up against one 
 of the lodge-poles, while the mother sat on the ground near by croon- 
 ing a low ditty, and sewing on a pair of moccasons. But the instant 
 she saw what I was about she snatched her infant up and set it out of 
 sight. I changed my position and tried again, and soon found myself 
 walking round and round the lodge after a highly alarmed squaw. It 
 struck me just then that I was acting an impertinence, but I had no 
 time to desist gracefully, for I found my arms pinioned to my side by 
 half a dozen sturdy young men, who crowded me so closely that I could 
 not make a stroke. I laughed and shut my book, but would not let 
 them take it ; and when one essayed to draw my revolver slyly from 
 its case I resented it most emphatically. 
 
 Just then it began to rain, and I accepted the hospitality of Peeah's 
 teepee, where we all of us sat around, on skins, until the shower was 
 over. The shelter was miserable, streams trickling down everywhere. 
 The squaws kept pretty quiet, as usual ; but Peeah talked a good deal, 
 and an old grandfather was very voluble. Peeah occupied the time in 
 making his toilet. From the depths of an otter-skin pouch, which was 
 his carry-all, he drew forth a small, round looking-glass with a tin back 
 and cover, and a little shallow box, hollowed out of a single piece of 
 wood, which contained vermilion. He was a short man, with a very 
 small head and face ; and as he squatted upon his haunches and grinned 
 facetiously at me over the top of the glass with his little piggish eyes, 
 he seemed more like a masquerading boy than an influential man.
 
 AN INDIAN HORSE-RACE. 101 
 
 Greasing the palms of his hands with a little tallow, he vigorously 
 smoothed down his jet-black hair until it was pasted to his diminutive 
 skull and shone as though varnished. Behind, his hair was plaited into 
 two braids, into which were entwined strips of otter-skin, thus lengthen- 
 ing the plaits until, partly hair and partly fur, they hung down to his 
 hips. These braids he did not disturb, but contented himself with 
 tinting the geometrically straight parting in the middle of his crown 
 with yellow-ochre. This done, he folded a bit of buckskin over the end 
 of his finger, dipped it in a vermilion paint, and began rubbing it upon 
 his cheeks, where two large red spots speedily ornamented his extraor- 
 dinarily dark complexion. To these he added some flourishes upon the 
 forehead, and two or three vertical dashes upon the chin. Then, with 
 a last critical smirk in the glass (the shower having now ceased), he re- 
 placed his toilet articles, gathered his Navajo blanket around his half- 
 naked shoulders, and stalked out of the lodge with the gait of a tragedy- 
 king. I followed, and made a bargain with him for his blanket, which 
 I bought for twelve dollars, cash down. 
 
 The tribe possessed (in 1874) some six thousand horses — and about 
 six hundred thousand dogs — fine stock, too, which they had largely 
 captured from the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, who in turn stole them 
 from Texas ranches and Mexican herds. They take immense pride in 
 this horse-wealth, and each manages to have a racer in his stud, on the 
 speed of which he will bet, not only his " bottom dollar," but his bed 
 and board, if he thinks there is the least chance of winning. I was 
 present at one of their races, and it was an exciting scene, I assure you. 
 The track is always a straight one, and the distance only a few hundred 
 yards. The owners bestride their own nags, and at a signal all start to- 
 gether and come flying down the track, arms outstretched or frantically 
 plying the three-lashed quirt of leather, heels digging every pony's ribs, 
 and mouths yelling like so many devils. Sometimes a horse won't stop 
 at the end, tearing over the prairie a regular runaway; but the specta- 
 tors only laugh, and the rider doesn't seem to care. 
 
 For the last few years the nation has been decreased in numbers, 
 probably, especially by the ravages of small-pox, which was purposely 
 communicated to them, the Indians believe (but it seems hardly cred- 
 ible), by some traders with whom the Utes were unwilling to deal. A 
 few Indians having taken the disease from the infected clothing sold 
 them, others were advised to be vaccinated, but were, instead, inoculated 
 with the disease with malice prepoisc — so the terrible story goes — by 
 unprincipled quacks in the towns south of them. The epidemic raged
 
 102 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 with fearful power, and hundreds of families were exterminated. It is 
 heart-rending to hear the account of it, reminding one too strongly of 
 the Plague of Athens. Their method of treatment was that panacea 
 for all aboriginal ills — the sweat-house. 
 
 The sweat-houses are a common object in all villages, and usually 
 are built close to the stream upon which the encampment is placed. 
 A shallow pit is scooped, a low hut of willow-bushes built over it, a 
 small fire kindled, and a number of stones set in the coals to heat. 
 When the stones are red-hot the naked man or woman who is to be 
 treated throws a blanket over the shoulders, pours water upon the hiss- 
 ing stones, and instantly squats over the steam. Perspiration follows 
 as a matter of course, and when it is most profuse the patient bursts 
 forth from the sweat-house and plunges into the cold river. This is 
 very good treatment, perhaps, for light fevers, or even rheumatism ; but 
 the result in small -pox is immediate death. Nevertheless, the prac- 
 tice went on ; and those who were too weak to try it were tom-tomed 
 to death by the insane noise and conjurings of the medicine-men. The 
 only wonder is that a redskin of them all survived the plague. 
 
 The southern neighbors of the Utes are the Navajos, a tribe of rest- 
 less, spirited people, who, though constantly wandering, and often at 
 war, still possess large herds and carry on certain manufactures, the 
 most noted of which is the production of those peculiarly excellent 
 blankets known as the " Navajo," for which they raise wool, dye, spin, 
 and weave it on looms nowadays furnished by the government, but for- 
 merly of their own contrivance. They make a good deal of pottery, 
 too, and seem the most industrial of any nomadic Indians of which I 
 know. The Navajos have seen much of the Spaniards, and have trans- 
 mitted to the Utes many notions thus imbibed, Navajo-Spanish color- 
 ing appearing everywhere in the language, customs, and ideas of the 
 latter. This tradition of the Creation, for example, seems too con- 
 formable to the Old Testament account to be received as altogether 
 original with the nation ; yet the old men aver that it is a Ute tradi- 
 tion — pure, so far as they know : 
 
 The world was created by one Power, they tell us, and existed until 
 it became too densely populated, when the Creator commanded one 
 man to build an ark, and collect in it a pair of every species of animal 
 from all parts of the earth. He did so, and remained safe through the 
 flood which speedily followed and destroyed all other life. " Noah " — 
 the Indian name of this individual I could not obtain — could converse 
 with each animal, and when the waters began to subside he sent out a
 
 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE UTES. 103 
 
 raven — at that time a white bird — strong of wing, to see whether the 
 storm was fairly over, and discover, if possible, any dry land. The 
 raven went, but delayed his anxiously-looked-for return so long that 
 "Noah" sent out after him a dove, which, quickly returning, brought 
 news that the raven, true to his nature, had forgotten his errand, and 
 was all this time gorging himself from the floating carcasses. Wroth 
 at this neglect, the dove was sent to bring the culprit back, who, for 
 his wickedness, was cursed, and changed from white to black. Soon 
 after this incident the ark rested, and the animals were sent forth. But 
 at this time the earth was almost entirely covered with water, and was 
 everywhere level. So, in order to get rid of it, the Creator commanded 
 the water to make highways for itself by casting up mountain chains 
 and digging valleys and passes through which to run into the general 
 ocean which still remained. In this ocean, which tradition described, 
 Ouray never believed, he explained, until, on his first visit East, he saw 
 the Atlantic. This flood they consider to have been the first and the 
 last which came upon the earth, but that the final destruction of the 
 world will be by fire, after which it will be peopled by the spirits of the 
 present inhabitants. So much exhibits to my mind the result of Jesuit 
 teaching; but as I cannot ascertain that any of these missionaries ever 
 visited the Utes, it must have reached them (so long ago that they have 
 forgotten it) through the Southern Indians, who had frequent communi- 
 cation with the Spanish priests. 
 
 Aside from such a tradition as this, their religious belief seems pecul- 
 iarly their own. They believe in one great ruler of the universe — om- 
 nipotent, omniscient, good — a personal God. This spirit is nameless to 
 them. They do not try to represent him to their minds by any con- 
 crete form or in any stated condition. But each man seeks some ob- 
 ject in nature which shall typify to his mind all that is pure and holy, 
 and exhibit to his best satisfaction the supremest excellence of which 
 he is able to conceive. This natural object, whatever it may be, he does 
 not hold sacred or to be worshipped in any sense as an idol, but only 
 seeks to glorify the Almighty and Good One through his delight in it. 
 
 Subordinate to the Good Spirit, they believe, is an evil spirit — a 
 spirit of malignant mischief — Mephistopheles, rather than Satan. Any- 
 thing human or animal that is red — as red hair — is supposed to belong 
 to him. His chief exertion seems to be to gain possession of the souls 
 of dying ones the instant they escape from the body. His foe and 
 watcher, who must conduct the freed soul safely to heaven, is Sin-6-wap, 
 the good angel, who is supposed to attend all persons when they die
 
 10-i KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and take charge of their souls. All this, of course, implies a hereafter 
 of rewards for good and evil, and that every one is responsible for his 
 own actions, which they hold. The way to heaven is straight and ac- 
 cessible to all good men. As the Good Spirit can pardon us all sins 
 but wilful murder, and as the evil spirit is never, or rarely, supposed to 
 be successful in his effort to steal souls from the good angel, the infer- 
 ence is that nearly everybody gets there. 
 
 The best of them regard the human race as of but one blood, and 
 that all nations will reach heaven alike; but many Indians think that 
 most other races are simply animals of a high order, and not men as 
 they are. 
 
 Such is their religious belief, taught them about the lodge-fire, by 
 their fathers and grandfathers, as soon as they can begin to understand, 
 and insisted upon by the medicine-men, but never formulated by priests, 
 for there are none such whatever, or expressed in set phrase of prayer 
 or adoration. Their minds are untrained, unenlightened by any ex- 
 change of ideas with better intellects, clouded and dimmed by mists 
 of superstition which it is impossible to clear away from the best of 
 them. 
 
 Some of their laws and customs are yet, apparently, untainted, as, 
 for instance, their laws of inheritance. During a man's lifetime, as fast 
 as any children are born to him he sets apart for each one certain prop- 
 erty — principally, of course, young live-stock — which grows up and ac- 
 cumulates with his increasing years, until the time comes for him to 
 use it, when it is ready for him. But the father retains whatever he 
 wishes for himself, to which the children have no right whatever. When 
 the old man nears death he can give away such of this, his own prop- 
 erty, as he wishes, but all that he does not give away is buried with him, 
 for fear that he may need it in the other world. When a man is dying 
 a constant noise and ceremony is kept up, to frighten away the evil 
 spirit and secure his soul to the good angel's charge. There is always 
 some man, usually the physician, to attend him, who, immediately upon 
 his death, designates several women (never men) who take charge of the 
 corpse, and in the night take it away and bury it secretly in some crev- 
 ice of rock in a lone cliff, or sometimes in a grave, taking great care 
 that the sepulchre is not accessible to wild beasts, and that no one else 
 knows where the body is buried. His arms, implements, and clothing 
 are buried with him, and his horses and dogs killed ; but no food is put 
 in the grave, and no human sacrifice is ever made or permitted. The 
 Indians are not positive that there will be any use for these worldly
 
 LOVE AND STARVATION. 105 
 
 things beyond the grave, but, for fear there may be, the provision seems 
 never to be neglected. 
 
 If a young man falls in love with a young maiden and they agree to 
 marry, they do so without farther ceremony, and go to house-keeping, 
 with or without the assistance of their parents, as happens. This is the 
 case when there is no obstacle. Should the young man's father object 
 to the alliance, the girl's parents consider it etiquette to object also, 
 and matters become complicated. If, however, the young fellow can 
 prevail upon his sweetheart's papa to give the girl up, and can get away 
 with her in spite of his own father, the old gentleman is supposed to 
 give in gracefully and contribute his blessing. Inasmuch as ample provi- 
 sion has been made for him from boyhood, the young buck rarely finds 
 himself in need of assistance to begin his married life. But if through 
 misfortune he is poor, help to start with is given him by both families, 
 unless he has behaved disrespectfully toward them, when he has no right 
 to expect favors. The greatest respect is exacted from one and all to- 
 ward those older or greater in authority than they. 
 
 The Utes are hospitable to strangers. If a poor man comes among 
 them and by his behavior gains their respect, he is furnished with a 
 horse and good outfit, which he is at liberty to use as he pleases so 
 long as he remains with them ; and when he chooses to leave he is 
 furnished the means for his journey. 
 
 The Utes in 1874 numbered something over three thousand all 
 told. They practise no industries, but are rich in horses and arms. 
 They are tall, straight men, chaste and honest. How brave they are 
 is open to discussion, but we know that they are pretty well scared 
 at the Arapahoes and Cheyennes. I was in their camp one night when 
 an attack by Comanches was apprehended. Scouts were out far and 
 wide, the warriors had their horses saddled, and the whole camp was up 
 all night, beating drums to keep up their courage. But no Comanches 
 came, for which I was rather sorry, but the Utes appeared greatly re- 
 lieved. 
 
 One niore incident, and then I leave Los Pinos. One morning, just 
 as we were sitting down to breakfast, a gaunt, white mule staggered 
 into our camp, bearing a man emaciated almost to death, and scarcely 
 able to sit in the saddle. An Indian trail came down the ravine, which 
 was separated from us by a row of thick bushes. Coming through the 
 bushes the man burst upon our camp suddenly. With an almost fright- 
 ened look in his sunken eyes, the poor fellow threw up his hands and 
 ejaculated, " Thank God !" with a heartfelt fervor rarely accompanying.
 
 106 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 those words. We helped him off his beast and offered him a seat at 
 our table. But, as though after all he was not safe, he muttered, " No 
 — I'll chew some mushrooms," taking one from his pocket. It was with 
 difficulty we prevailed upon him to taste better food, and then learned 
 his story. He lived sixty miles or so west of there, and had had some 
 horses stolen from him. He knew the thieves, and started in pursuit, 
 taking only a little provision and no matches. Following them, he for- 
 got his direction, failed to overtake them, ate up his food, and went 
 wandering about a desolate country, living wholly on mushrooms (trust- 
 ing to luck not to get poisoned ones) and a few acorns. He said the 
 fungi were "good raw, but he wished he'd had a fire to roast 'em, for 
 then they was bully." After a few days' rest at the Agency he went 
 back home, but whether he ever got his horses I don't know. 
 
 To lose one's way used to be a common occurrence among the 
 early wanderers in the Rocky Mountains, but now that the country is 
 better known the danger is proportionately decreased. I shall have a 
 little story of the sort of my own to tell presently.
 
 PROSPECTING AN "INDIGO LODE." 107 
 
 XIV. 
 
 From Los Pinos we followed a trail over the mountains into the 
 edge of Antelope Park — a magnificent valley, watered by the Rio 
 Grande — then cut across a high spur to a point above Wagon Wheel 
 Gap, and followed up the river through two days' journey, past splendid 
 cliffs of soft, volcanic rocks, tinted white and black, yellow, buff, deep 
 blue, light blue, and red. One of the men related a funny story of a 
 tender-foot who passed through here, with some miners, en route to the 
 San Juan silver region, where, also, we were then bound. When these 
 deep-blue trachyte walls came in view the tender-foot was told that 
 there was an extensive indigo lode, which capitalists had hitherto neg- 
 lected, because crazy after the silver beyond. He was so impressed 
 with this that he actually made a long detour and frightfully difficult 
 climb to examine the "indigo" stratum. He was a fair example of a 
 large portion of the drifting population of the new West, who, when 
 they fail — as, of course, they do — go back home and curse the country, 
 never learning their own ignorance and stupidity. 
 
 This trail to Baker's Park, then the centre of the San Juan moun- 
 tains and mining-district, led directly up the Rio Grande to its very 
 head -waters, on about the loftiest ridge of the Great Divide to be 
 found anywhere, and called for feats like that of Blondin ; while the 
 cold was intense, and deep drifts of snow impeded our progress. For 
 the last few miles the river itself was hidden from sight deep down in 
 a mighty cleft between the peaks, where, nevertheless, we could fre- 
 quently hear its rumbling as it rushed down the precipitous and rocky 
 defile. This was far above timber-line, and not even a bit of soil broke 
 the wide waste of crumbling trachyte which lay in vast slopes on the 
 sides of stupendous summits, or relieved the sternness of the black 
 basaltic cliffs around which the snow-storms beat and the drifts curled 
 in ineffectual rage. There is no possible desolation greater than these 
 lofty peaks show — fastnesses where winter is supreme and chaos retains 
 a foothold upon the earth — fragments of a primeval and Arctic world 
 dotting the fair expanse of tempered nature below.
 
 108 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The Rio Grande del Norte rises here, in a little pocket just under 
 the very apex of a peak whose name I forget, and the trail passes 
 around the springs and boggy ground whence it flows. It catches the 
 drainage of the snow-banks encircling a wide amphitheatre, and so is 
 well dowered at the start. Then a hundred small streams hasten to 
 recruit its force before the range — the Sierra Madre, Mother of Moun- 
 tains, of the old geographies — is left behind, and so it is a sturdy stream 
 
 TRAVELLING ABOVE THE SNOW-LINE. 
 
 that tears its way through the gates of columnar basalt at Irene canon, 
 and has worn down the noble passage through Wagon-wheel Gap. Per- 
 haps I weary you with this rhapsody over a river ; but I have a pecul- 
 iar admiration for this mighty Rio Grande, whose birth I have seen, 
 whose youth I have followed step by step even down to Santa Fe, 
 and whose death I have witnessed, in the dignity and solemnity and 
 slow movement of old age, all its frolics left behind, all its sparkle lost 
 in the hot deserts, only its depth and weight and solid power sent to 
 annihilation in the greatness of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 On this same high ridge, which for all intents and purposes of cli-
 
 WATER-FALLS OF SPRAY. 109 
 
 mate lies within the Arctic circle, and not two hundred yards distant, 
 are the similar sources of the Las Animas. But the sharp little crest 
 which lies between — a favorite play-ground for the lightning — is a part 
 of the Continental Divide, and separates Atlantic from Pacific drainage : 
 for the Las Animas is one of the strongest tributaries of the Rio San 
 Juan, and that of the Rio Colorado, which forces its way to the Gulf of 
 California through the tremendous canons that Major John W. Powell 
 has made us all familiar with. The matter of a few feet one side or 
 another up here, therefore, determines whether a snow-bank shall send 
 its liquid aid to the Gulf Stream or melt into the torrid seas of the 
 equatorial Pacific. 
 
 Down the trickling, reckless rill which later broadens and deepens 
 into the Rio Las Animas — River of Spirits — leads a trail almost as tum- 
 bling and impetuous as itself, along which none but a trained mountain 
 mule would even look ; and we dismount from our animals, letting them 
 go on alone, and pick our way after as best we can. It is worse than 
 Berthoud Pass. The woods are dense and the rocks high, so that Ave 
 cannot see out ; but when at last some sort of levelness and bottom 
 appears to be reached we find ourselves in a vast canon. There is 
 another way in here, by which we afterward crawled out. It was called 
 a wagon-road ; but the only means of using it is to take your wagon to 
 pieces and let it down several steep places by ropes. 
 
 The canon is called Cunningham's Gulch, and is a vast chasm in 
 the mountains, with walls in many places absolutely vertical for eight, 
 twelve, or even fifteen hundred feet in height, on top of which rest 
 peaks that pierce the clouds and gather almost ceaseless snows. From 
 these heights in melting weather, or after storms on the summits, come 
 dozens of little streams, which dash down to the brow of the precipice 
 and then leap off into space. Half of them fly to pieces and are lost 
 in spray before they get half-way down. Others have body enough to 
 hold their shape and paint a long, flashing, silver stripe upon the green- 
 ish-gray face of the crag. Others are broken by projecting points and 
 tumble upon shelves and ledges, where they cling ineffectually an in- 
 stant and then pitch off again with noise and foam, but nourish a few 
 twigs of hardy brush and tufts of herbs by their continual presence. 
 On a cold morning ice enough forms overhead to make little pent- 
 houses, from under which they spring on their final leap, and their 
 edges are fringed with icicles. Then, when the wind in the spruces 
 is still, you may hear their sharp and sibilant murmur plainly, and see 
 at once a dozen swollen water-falls, any one of which in height would
 
 110 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 dwarf Niagara to a mere mill-dam. The most beautiful of them all 
 could be seen to begin far back from the edge of the canon-wall, seem- 
 ingly on the very apex of the highest peak of the range, which had 
 been slightly nicked to guide its current. Of course there were greater 
 
 LOOKING FROM A QUARTZITE ROCK. 
 
 altitudes behind, and it was our peculiar point of view that gave that 
 strange appearance ; but we never could see it otherwise. 
 
 At one or two places it is possible to climb up, and there prospect- 
 ors went. Was ever any pinnacle too high, any hole too deep, for the 
 silver-seeker when he thought he saw a "prospect" there? Here their 
 climbing was wise, for good mines were found, and I had curiosity 
 enough to spend half a day in visiting them. The trail up was like the 
 stairway in Trinity spire ; but my little beast climbed it, and landed me 
 on a plateau at last, just at timber-line, where a family of miners lodged, 
 in a sort of niche, and had sunk their shafts and tunnels into the verita- 
 ble brow of the hoary old mountain. From their dooryard you had an 
 outlook over masses of chaotic heights which defy words to portray; and
 
 TRAIL TO A HIGH MINE IN THE SIERRA SAN JUAN.
 
 PERILOUS MINING-SITES. 113 
 
 if you fell over the front paling your useless carcass would bump and 
 roll and take flying leaps for a quarter of a mile, and there would not be 
 enough left of it down in the canon to afford the slimmest pretext for 
 a funeral, much less a eulogy. It makes me shudder now (though not 
 then) when I think how we skipped along those little nicked-out shelves 
 of foot-wide and slippery trails by which these aeronautic miners of the 
 "Highland Mary" went back and forth from their cabin to their tun- 
 nel. Sometimes the path would lead right across the bed of one of the 
 falling streams I have spoken of. Down below it had appeared only 
 a tiny gutter — a mere thread ; now we discovered its width to be fifty 
 feet, and its polished bed inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees or 
 more. The water slid down it as a thunder-bolt slides down a steel rod ; 
 and if you lost your footing and started there would be no stopping for 
 five hundred fathoms. 
 
 Cunningham Gulch — only one of a great many wild chasms in these 
 great San Juan mountains — leads down into Baker's Park — a little cir- 
 cular valley nestling among lofty walls of trachyte. Through it ran the 
 Las Animas and two creeks, along which are about two thousand acres 
 of available land. The park was named after Colonel "Jim" Baker, 
 who in 1862 brought a large party of gold-seekers in here, expecting to 
 find profitable gulch mining. But, disappointed, they were caught here 
 by winter, half froze to death, and the other half came within an ace 
 of hanging Baker for his pains. After that an occasional camper's fire 
 was the only indication of civilization until 1872, when silver was discov- 
 ered and a stampede hither occurred. 
 
 We did not camp directly down in the park, where the now flourish- 
 ing town and county seat of Silverton was then a map of squarely-laid- 
 out streets and a few half-built log-cabins, but chose a ledge five miles 
 above, opposite the older mining camp of Howardville. We had, and 
 witnessed, some stirring incidents in life here ; for the locality was a 
 good old-fashioned "h — 11 of a place," as "the boys" fondly spoke of it. 
 It is too late, and not within my purpose, to discuss the mineral charac- 
 teristics of the district, and a word or two only must content you in re- 
 gard to scenery. 
 
 The tops of all the mountains in this portion of the Territory are 
 trachytic in their character, and there are five thousand square miles of 
 this rock hereabouts, overlying gneisses and schists, with many intruded 
 quartzite peaks. In this group is included the highest land in the Ter- 
 ritory, as a whole, and one can see from almost any of the hoary sum- 
 mits within view a round dozen more — east, west, north, and south —
 
 114 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 reaching up to and beyond 14,000 feet. It is the roughest country I 
 ever saw, and I could go on endlessly with descriptions of scenery, any 
 single detail of which would be sufficiently astonishing. But the chief 
 interest to the world of all this is not the unspeakable grandeur which 
 
 BAKER S PARK. AND SULTAN MOUNTAIN. 
 
 oppresses you by its vastness, nor yet the fact that here is a geological 
 problem to solve which the student must discard many a cherished 
 precedent, and anticipate nothing ; but rather that here are veins of 
 crystalline rock, each one full of wealth. 
 
 With respect to the ore itself, it is found accompanying lead, zinc, 
 iron, copper, antimony, etc., and in iron and copper pyrites, and is en- 
 riched by gray copper and brittle silver. Different mines vary in char- 
 acter and adaptability. Those around Howardville, which is about the 
 centre of the district, are smelting ores; those in the Uncompahgre 
 region are fit for chlorodizing, and so on. Nevertheless, little can be 
 said with confidence beyond the developments already made ; but, so 
 far, there is promise of an almost boundless source of wealth to the 
 nation for years to come.
 
 DETECTING PRECIOUS ORES. 115 
 
 XV. 
 
 It used to puzzle me as a boy, when I heard of the marvellous 
 mines of gold and silver found in Australia, Africa, and the western 
 part of our own country, to understand how the discoverers knew when 
 they really had the precious metals. I had seen quartz with flakes 
 and nodules of yellow gold in it, which could not be mistaken ; and I 
 knew that on Silver Islet, in Lake Superior, and at a few other places, 
 silver appears in a white metallic shape equally unmistakable. But I 
 was told that " native " gold or silver, as this unmixed metal, recog- 
 nizable at a glance, is called, was rare ; that the usual form in which 
 it occurred was mixed with other metals and earths in a compound 
 called an " ore ;" and that this ore often looked as common and worth- 
 less to an inexperienced eye as any other rock. How, then, I used to 
 ask myself, do the miners know the rich earth from the poor, the " pay- 
 streak " from the " wall-rock," and how are they able to say exactly how 
 valuable this or that ore is ? 
 
 Since then I have learned enough to answer my own questions. 
 
 The man who digs the gold and silver, as a rule, does not know the 
 value of what he finds, but his experience teaches him that rocks of a 
 certain appearance, found in certain situations, are likely to be valuable. 
 Some gold can be seen in quartz and picked out with a penknife. 
 There is a small class of lazy men in the West who are content to do 
 no better than hunt about the ledges and " coyote " out the yellow 
 specks in this way, and now and then they strike a large nugget em- 
 bedded in the glistening quartz. But this is not the scientific and prof- 
 itable way of mining. 
 
 Quartz is a white, transparent or translucent rock, made up of crys- 
 tals. It occupies cracks that have been made in the earth's crust by 
 some of the forces which have acted upon the rocks in their cooling 
 from the state of heat in which all the foundation rocks of the world, 
 such as granite, gneiss, and the like, began their existence. The suppo- 
 sition is that the quartz has gradually been deposited in the cracks by
 
 116 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 water saturated with silica, of which quartz is composed ; and a crack 
 thus filled up is called a quartz "vein." From where I sat writing in 
 my camp, in Baker's Park, I could count perhaps fifty of these whitish 
 veins or " lodes " running up and down the facade of the opposite cliff, 
 and a mile away in any direction I could have counted fifty more, all 
 of them competent to carry gold or silver, or both, which was borne in 
 with the waters that deposited the silica. 
 
 When, in the course of the crumbling of a mountain by glaciers or 
 lightning, or the ordinary wear and tear of frost, sunlight, rains, and 
 the rest of the destructive agencies, quartz -veins carrying gold are 
 ground to pieces, the grains of gold are swept down in the beds of the 
 streams along the gulches, and mingle with the drifted pebbles. This 
 golden gravel forms what is known as a " bar," and the operation of 
 washing the gold out of the gravel is "placer-mining." Where a vein 
 appears upon the surface it is said to " outcrop," and it is the outcrop 
 that the prospector first hits upon. To an untrained eye this outcrop- 
 ping rock hardly looks like quartz in many cases ; perhaps it was im- 
 pure to begin with — impregnated with iron or some other foreign ma- 
 terial. The once white rock is yellow and rust-colored, and has be- 
 come honey-combed under the action of the weather, until it is alto- 
 gether changed in aspect. In such a decomposed quartz gold cannot 
 be seen with the eye, but must be detected by tests which shall cause 
 the gold, if any is there, to separate from the quartz and make an ex- 
 hibition of itself. 
 
 As for silver, it occurs in various different ores. Sometimes it is 
 found, like gold, in veins of quartz and other crystalline rocks ; some- 
 times saturating rocks lying in strata; sometimes, as at Leadville, Colo- 
 rado, mingled with other minerals in beds which usually occur between 
 stratified rocks underneath and volcanic overflows above, being derived 
 from the latter. Usually the silver is found closely associated with 
 copper or lead, and generally great quantities of iron are also present. 
 These minerals join to make silver ore in some shape or other, and form 
 a rock or earth having the peculiar appearance that attracts the atten- 
 tion of the prospector, who has seen such ores elsewhere, and notes the 
 resemblance. 
 
 Judging, therefore, that he has hit upon a deposit of rock contain- 
 ing gold or silver, the miner takes specimens to the one man who can 
 tell him whether he is right in his judgment, and how valuable his 
 specimens are. This man is the assayer. 
 
 The assayer, then, is an important man, and among the first to
 
 A MOUNTAIN ASSAYER AND HIS OUTFIT. 117 
 
 hasten to every new camp is an enterprising graduate from Freiburg 
 or some American school of mines, eager to put his newly acquired 
 learning to practical use. He is a mere boy, perhaps. His hands are 
 soft, his tongue unused to all the rough phrases and quaint slang of the 
 diggings, his frame so slight that one of those brawny pick-swingers 
 could hurl him over a cliff with a single hand ; but they are glad to see 
 him, and, however much they may laugh at his greenness in mountain 
 manners, hold in high respect his scientific ability, and wait with ill- 
 suppressed eagerness for his report upon the samples they have brought 
 to him for analysis, impatient to hear the word that shall pronounce 
 them rich men or send them out again, disappointed, to search still 
 longer for the glittering prize the rocks so effectually hide. 
 
 Our young assayer builds a rough cabin like the rest, and proceeds 
 at once to make himself a furnace. If he can get bricks, so much the 
 better; but I have seen assayers two hundred miles from a brick, and 
 resorting to stone and mud. His furnace is provided with a good 
 draught, and contains as its central feature an oven (called a "muffle"), 
 where the cupelling and scorifying is done, as I shall explain presently. 
 The muffle is a chamber of fire-clay, about eight inches wide and twenty 
 inches long, much like a section of flat-bottomed drain-pipe. Meanwhile 
 the young man has set some one at making charcoal out of poplar, for 
 his fuel, and by the time he is prepared to go to work this is ready for 
 him. 
 
 He has also brought with him a bucking-board or a mortar, upon 
 which to crush his ores ; an anvil, several dozens of scorifiers, a mould 
 and die for making cupels : tongs ; bottles of acid ; several scales of great 
 delicacy, kept under glass cases ; and some lesser tools. This is his out- 
 fit, and it makes a very small and cheap appearance in its rude quarters. 
 Many assayers in the towns, of course, have very elegant offices and 
 elaborate arrangements ; but these nabobs do not come into my story. 
 
 Now he is prepared to begin work, and hangs out a shingle. Before 
 long a miner comes in, bringing a salt-bag full of fragments of stone 
 and earth, and asks that its value be tested according to those scientific 
 methods which, when properly managed, admit of no mistake in what 
 they disclose. 
 
 The assayer first makes a careful record of the specimen and assures 
 himself that it is perfectly dried. If there is more ore than can well be 
 handled, it is then " sampled " by being sprinkled upon a sort of wide- 
 grooved gridiron, where a portion falls through and part remains. The 
 part remaining is then sprinkled over a smaller gridiron, and so on until
 
 IIS KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 a sufficiently small sample is left. This is to make sure that the por- 
 tion tested is a fair, average sample of the whole lot. 
 
 The next step is to reduce the sample to powder. This is done 
 either by pounding it with an iron pestle in an iron bowl or " mortar," 
 or by crushing it under the sliding, back -and -forth movement of a 
 heavy, round-faced "muller" of iron on an iron plate, the surface of 
 which is slightly roughened. The latter process is the favorite one, 
 and is termed "bucking the ore." The verb "to buck," whether of 
 Western origin or not, certainly has a comprehensive and what might 
 be termed a striking meaning. It signifies to resist determined oppo- 
 sition, and to resist it with pertinacity. A man bucks against the law 
 when he appeals his case to higher and higher courts; bucks against 
 piety when he is unmoved by a sturdy " revival ;" bucks at faro when 
 he sits down and gambles all night ; bucks ores when he crushes their 
 tough lumps and hard grains until they slide between his thumb and 
 finger like flour. 
 
 Fifteen to twenty minutes will usually suffice to produce a teacup- 
 ful of dust out of the hardest stones; but not until this dust will pass 
 through an eighty-mesh sieve, which is one almost as finely woven as a 
 lady's handkerchief, is the assayer satisfied to cease his hard labor. The 
 finer the dust, the more fusible or capable of wholly melting it is, and 
 upon its complete fusion depends the success of the assay as an accu- 
 rate test. 
 
 But the amount of ore which has been powdered is far too large to 
 be carried through the furnace, for that is its destination. The sheet of 
 paper that holds it, therefore, is taken to the balance-room, and perhaps 
 a twentieth of the whole, a thimbleful or so, is put into the ore-balance 
 against one-tenth of an assay ton, or two and nine-tenths grammes, the 
 precise weight being ascertained with the greatest care. This final 
 "sample" is now placed in a "scorifier" (a small shallow cup of fire- 
 clay or some other refractory material) and mixed with twenty to thirty 
 grammes, according to the quality of the ore, of chemically pure lead, 
 a portion of this test-lead being saved to be placed as a layer over the 
 surface of the rest, together with a few pieces of borax-glass, useful as 
 a flux. The scorifier is then placed in the arched muffle of his furnace, 
 where it is subjected to red heat, carefully though roughly regulated, 
 and is allowed to remain until a thorough fusion has taken place, part 
 of the test-lead having then become rusted or oxidized, forming of the 
 impurities a slag which covers the whole surface like a cake. In the 
 process which has brought this result about, the test-lead in melting has
 
 FUSING AND CUPELLATION. 119 
 
 sunk by its greater weight through the mineral contents of the cup, and 
 has collected all the gold and silver on its way, forming at the bottom 
 a globule or " button " composed of an alloy, or chemical mixture, of 
 lead and precious metals. 
 
 Usually the assayer has some idea of the character of the ore he is 
 at work upon, and knows pretty well whether there are both silver and 
 gold or only one in it. As a rule, also, the ores of silver are pretty free 
 from gold ; and if he is searching for silver, all he has to do is to sepa- 
 rate the lead and silver in the button to know what proportion of the 
 latter it contains. 
 
 The fusing operation just described having been completed, the sco- 
 rifier is taken out of the muffle and its molten contents poured into a 
 little deep mould. Several of these moulds are cast together into an 
 iron frame, and resemble very closely the house-keeper's "gem" mould, 
 whence issue the russet delights of our breakfast -tables. When the 
 molten material is poured into this mould the button falls to the bot- 
 tom, and is covered by the glassy slag, which when cool is easily de- 
 tached from it by a blow of the hammer on the anvil. 
 
 This done the button is ready for " cupellation," and is placed in a 
 cupel, which has previously been heated to redness in the muffle. The 
 "cupels" are flat cups of about an inch diameter and a third of an inch 
 in height, which are pressed out of white bone-ash by means of a brass 
 mould and hand-die, and may thus be made by the assayer himself as 
 fast as required. This cupel and the button having been deposited in 
 the muffle, the action of the heat upon the button causes a rapid change 
 in the character of the lead contained in it, a portion of which passes up 
 the flue in fumes of the most noxious properties; but the greater part 
 is absorbed by the bone-ash of the cupel, leaving the gold and silver free 
 in the shape of a more or less minute shining globule in the bottom of 
 the cup. A quarter of an hour or so is occupied by this operation, and 
 the instant the last trace of lead is gone (and the assayer knows it by 
 the " blick," or appearance of rainbow colors, over the surface, caused by 
 the rapid alternation of the red and yellow oxides of lead) the cupel is 
 taken from the furnace and is allowed to cool gradually. After this the 
 globule is weighed upon balances of such precision that they will accu- 
 rately determine the tenth of a milligramme, which, in round figures, is 
 about one three-hundred-thousandth of an ounce. Pluck an eye-winker, 
 lay it in one of these pans, and the beam of the scale will sink under its 
 weight ! 
 
 It remains now to calculate, from the weight of the silver pin-head
 
 120 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 remaining as the last memento of the ore-sample which had been so 
 thoroughly subdivided, the number of ounces of precious metal to the 
 ton of crude ore represented. This involves a pretty bit of mathemat- 
 ics, which, though intricate, I hope to make plainly understood. 
 
 The "assay ton" is the unit of the system of weight in testing for 
 silver and gold. An assay ton is arbitrarily assumed to be 29,166 
 grammes, which is the number of troy ounces in a ton of 2000 pounds 
 avoirdupois. Therefore one milligramme has the same relation to an 
 assay ton as one troy ounce has to the avoirdupois ton. Consequently, 
 having found by weight how many milligrammes of silver remain from 
 the assay (the sample having been determined before the test, you re- 
 member, to be exactly one-tenth of an assay ton), you know just how 
 many ounces of silver there are to the ton of ore, since the two ex- 
 actly correspond. The tenth of an assay ton of a certain ore, for in- 
 stance, is put through the furnace, and yields six milligrammes, which is 
 sixty milligrammes to the assay ton. As the relation of the milligramme 
 to the assay ton is precisely that of the relation of the troy ounce to the 
 avoirdupois ton, a simple proportion shows that the ore carries an aver- 
 age of sixty ounces of precious metal in every ton mined. 
 
 Should any gold be suspected to exist in the button, the " parting " 
 of it from the silver is accomplished by the process of " inquartation." 
 This consists in adding a considerable quantity of silver and re-fusing 
 in a cupel, in order to separate the particles of gold, so that the silver 
 can be acted upon by nitric acid, which is used because it is powerful 
 enough to dissolve all the silver away. The fusing having been fin- 
 ished, the metal is placed in a little porcelain pan filled with nitric 
 acid, and cautiously heated over a spirit-lamp until all the silver has 
 disappeared. Then the acid is thrown away, and the gold is saved by 
 decantation, as the chemists say, which amounts to a miniature "pan- 
 ning out." The gold remaining in the little pan seems like a black 
 dust — black because the grains are so minute that the eye is unable to 
 perceive that any light is reflected from them, for it is the reflection 
 of the light that causes gold in larger quantities to gleam yellow. If 
 you put it under the microscope you will find that this dust of gold is 
 not really dust in separate grains, but a connected, lace-like net-work of 
 gold wires, finer than any gossamer, and exceedingly beautiful. It is 
 the golden skeleton of the button left behind by the acid, which has 
 dissolved all the silver away from it. The last step of the work is to 
 anneal this gold -lace into a little lump, when it is weighed, and its 
 amount, and the value of the ore it represents, is announced.
 
 THE SCIENCE OF SMELTING. 
 
 121 
 
 Most of the tests, however, are of ores known to be valuable, but 
 the exact worth of which it is desired to ascertain. When ore is to be 
 smelted, also, in order to be cast into bullion, the assayer must first de- 
 termine the proportions of the different minerals it contains in order to 
 know how much lime and iron and coke to mix with it, that the opera- 
 tion may succeed. 
 
 There is plenty of use for the scientific man and his furnace in a 
 prosperous mining camp, therefore, and his business is a profitable, 
 pleasant, and healthy one, so long as he preserves himself against in- 
 haling the lead fumes that his fire-tests set free from the metals. 
 
 SEEN FROM AN ASSAYER S WINDOW.
 
 122 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 It happened that everybody went off on a side-trip the next morn- 
 ing after our arrival, except Dr. F. M. Endlich and myself. With us 
 remained a young Cheyenne packer, as general servant, and our little 
 French cook. Ugly rumors were abroad, and daily growing thicker, 
 that the Indians south of us were on the war-path — had burnt ranches, 
 driven in herdsmen, hunters, and prospectors, and were intending to 
 raid this very valley and camp. Each report confirmed these sangui- 
 nary rumors, and everybody began to believe that they must at least 
 be partly true. Discussing the matter about our camp-fire, it appeared 
 that Bob, the packer, was extremely anxious that the redskins should 
 appear, and that he had vowed to perform miracles of valor in resist- 
 ance and vengeance. His courage and cunning in Indian warfare, he 
 assured us, were boundless. The cook, on the other hand, frankly said 
 he was afraid ; and though he thought he should feel obliged to defend 
 his pots and pans, if it came to "the scratch," yet he hadn't lost any 
 Indians, consequently searching for none, and would rather they stayed 
 on the other side of the mountains. 
 
 Well, that night, as usual, we went to bed at nine o'clock or so. 
 The camp, as I have mentioned, was fixed on a wooded bluff or terrace 
 about a hundred feet higher than the level of the narrow valley, where 
 stood the miscellaneous assemblage of houses, huts, tents, and half- 
 buried kennels called Howardville. To get up and down from the 
 village to our camp was only practicable by a winding sort of road, 
 narrow and steep. Almost on the edge of the bluff, near the top of 
 this roadway, Endlich and I made down our beds, while Bob and 
 Charley slept some distance away at the cargo. 
 
 I suppose I had been soundly asleep for two hours, when I heard 
 the most diabolical shrieking and yelling, with a rattling and popping 
 of rifles and revolvers, as though I had suddenly been dropped into the 
 heart of the battle of Gettysburg or Chancellorsville, minus the artillery. 
 At the same instant I opened my eyes, and there stood Bob, half-dressed,
 
 A MIDNIGHT RAID. 123 
 
 his face so blanched with fear that I could detect its paleness in the wan 
 starlight. Trembling so that he could scarcely articulate, he stammered 
 out, " They've come ! They're killing 'em all down there ! Oh-h-h !" 
 and with that he disappeared into the bushes. 
 
 Well, it did look that way. A most infernal racket came up out of 
 that gulch, which was hidden from our sight, and volley after volley 
 assailed our ears. Endlich and I got our arms, and hastened to the 
 brow of the bluff, where we could command the approach ; but there 
 before us was the little Frenchman, with his old carbine, as polite and 
 unobtrusive as ever, about as much disturbed as he would have been 
 to find a chipmunk in his bag of hominy. Then, all at once, the noise 
 ceased — not a yell nor a pistol-shot reached our ears. It was remark- 
 able how suddenly the whole massacre, or whatever the thing was, had 
 been put a stop to ; and we really felt the dead silence to be more omi- 
 nous than the noise had been, for we could form no idea of its import. 
 Was everybody stone-dead? After an hour or so of perfectly quiet 
 vigil, however, we became tired of this midnight masquerading as war- 
 riors, went back to our blankets, and compared notes. He had stopped 
 in dressing to lace and tie completely a pair of high-ankled shoes (over 
 the nuisance of which he had wasted expletives every morning), but 
 was quite unconscious that he had done so till he proceeded to take 
 them off. As for myself, I had carefully spread out my blankets be- 
 fore going away, for I had said to myself, " After this scrimmage is 
 over I shall want a warm nest to come back to for my morning's nap." 
 But poor Bob — the valiant, the boastful, the Falstaff of the party — 
 shivered the night away in the bushes, far up the side of the mountain, 
 and didn't sleep at all. 
 
 Next day came the explanation, disclosing a typical phase of Rocky 
 Mountain life. It appeared that, a fortnight before, a gentleman had 
 brought to the camp several thousands of dollars in cash, for the pur- 
 pose of buying interests in the mines. Ready money was very scarce 
 in this district at that time, and greatly needed to develop valuable 
 property. The coming of this capitalist was, therefore, hailed with joy, 
 and undoubtedly good bargains were at once offered. But day after 
 day he held off and would not buy. This over- cautious course dis- 
 gusted the miners, and they made up their mind to free the community 
 of so objectionable a person. He and his money (which they might 
 easily have stolen) were safe enough from harm, only he must "go." 
 Hints failing, they sent some good talkers to fill the old man's ears full 
 of Indian rumors, and then a lot of them disguised themselves as In-
 
 124 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 dians, and made a sham attack upon his half-tent, half-hut of a house, 
 with all the yelling and firing that we had heard. The scare was effect, 
 ual. The old man was frightened nearly out of his wits, and fled to the 
 woods. Then, having got their hand in, the boys continued the fun till 
 everybody was roused out. Next a raid upon us was proposed, but, 
 fortunately, was not carried out. If we had seen blanketed forms 
 climbing the road to our camp there would certainly have been one 
 dead mock- Indian; and after that, probably, there would have been 
 three dead surveyors. 
 
 With the exception of our rapid run southward, when Mr. Jackson 
 and myself photographed and brought to light, for the first time,* the 
 wonderful ruins of the Cliff-dwellers of the Mancos, Hovenweep, and 
 neighboring canons (the story of which cannot well be told hero, we 
 had no other adventures of note before or during our speedy return to 
 civilization, except one, down on the Mesa Verde, personal to myself, 
 which is related in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 * The first publication of this matter was my letter to the New York Tribune, 
 printed November 3, 1874,
 
 1877.
 
 STARTING ON A NEW EXCURSION. 127 
 
 ATEHORt«AlSC« 
 
 Uft taffeta 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Time was when a traveller must begin his tale by an account, at 
 the very least, of the parting with his lachrymose relatives at the farm- 
 house, and then continue through several chapters with the small inci- 
 dents of his journey, however long or well travelled. Readers now 
 won't stand such dallying. Behold me, therefore, at Rawlins, Wyo- 
 ming, a station on the Union Pacific Railway half-way between the ter- 
 rors of Cheyenne and the horrors of Ogden. This was in 1877, when I 
 was attached to the division of the United States Geological Survey for 
 Primary Triangulation, in charge of Mr. A. D. Wilson — may the fates be 
 kind to him ! 
 
 Rawlins stands upon the edge of the infamous Bitter Root* coun- 
 try — a spot without a rival for miserableness until you come to Death 
 Valley or the Sand Hills of Idaho. Nevertheless, here is where we 
 rendezvoused for an excursion up into the almost wholly unknown 
 region lying south of the Sweetwater river. The less said concerning 
 Rawlins the better. I need not describe the outfit of a camping party, 
 with a pack-train of mules ; and so we are quickly ready to mount and 
 be off to where (we hope) sage-brush will be less abundant, and rattle- 
 snakes farther between. 
 
 Moreover, I shall make this part of the tale an itinerary, although 
 such a journal is only one step higher than a diary, and a diary is every 
 sensible man's abomination. Yet I think I must try the itinerary for 
 once, because the fact is, I am sending to the printer almost unchanged 
 the identical manuscript of my note-book. It was written on the spot, 
 in the roughest of libraries, when the mules were hobbled, supper was 
 over, and the brier-wood was glowing. If it is a topsy-turvy sort of a 
 record, you must remember that, like other Topsys, it wasn't made, but 
 
 * Colonel Fremont (" Narrative," p. 163) says this name was given to this stream 
 by the Shoshonee and Utah (Ute) Indians, " from a great abundance in its valley of 
 a plant which affords them one of their favorite roots."
 
 128 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 grew as we marched along, making our triangles and collecting our in- 
 formation. 
 
 June ii.— Twelve miles from Rawlins to-day, and the present writ- 
 ing is being done under an enormous cottonwood, in deadly fear that 
 the mosquitoes may find the scribe out. An insignificant little rill purls 
 along over black sand in a crevice three feet wide and ten feet deep, 
 and a dense growth of shrubbery lines its edges. The valley is known 
 as Brown's Hole, and it is said — but I cannot vouch for the truth — that 
 Smith's Hill and Jones's Creek are within neighborly distance. Whether 
 or not Robinson is mentioned in the illustrious nomenclature of this dis- 
 trict I am not informed. 
 
 Leaving Rawlins on our march northward, the road led us at once 
 up into the bluffs and over an extensive grazing region, the absence 
 of sage-brush being gratefully noticeable. The soil is made up of small 
 angular fragments of broken sandstone, and the surface of all this re- 
 gion (outside of the lofty ranges) consists of a series of grassy slopes, 
 from one to five miles long, rising smoothly toward the west, and ter- 
 minating in a precipitous cliff of exposed sandstone, at the bottom of 
 which, perhaps, is a rill of water, and then begins the slope of another 
 grassy hill-side. The faces of the cliff have been worn more or less into 
 dry fiords and promontories, and in some places have been quite cut 
 through. But for many miles, frequently, the rock rises perpendicularly 
 one or two hundred feet, nowhere affording a chance for a horse to get 
 up or down, unless he be endowed with the volatility of Don Quixote's 
 steed. It usually happens, too, that some of the strata in the face of 
 the bluff will be harder than the rest. These will withstand longest 
 the wear and tear of the " elements," and the result is that the cliff will 
 have a series of horizontal shelves running in and out of all its sinuosi- 
 ties of front along the entire length. 
 
 Seen from a commanding point the landscape fashioned by this 
 geology is very peculiar. If you are standing on the dividing ridge, so 
 as to look at both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes, you will perceive at 
 once that all the cliffs face you, and behind each recedes a grassy slope. 
 This is true on both sides of the Divide. The reason is patent. After 
 the sandstones had been laid down the mountains were slowly elevated, 
 carrying the sandstones resting against their sides and over their lower 
 portions up with them. Then the edges of the uplifted strata were 
 eroded away little by little, until now you see in the cliffs only the worn 
 edges of the ancient beds. Sometimes there is only a slight outcrop, 
 appearing like a stone fence running across the bluish plain ; and often
 
 PICTURES ALONG THE ROAD. 129 
 
 the cliffs show thick red sandstones, and resemble vast brick walls go- 
 ing to ruin. 
 
 There is very little life on these uplands. I saw several antelopes 
 as they hurried away from the approach of our noisy pack-train, and 
 watched them as they paused on the edge of a distant cliff, alert and 
 graceful, silhouetted against the soft sky. A few birds — not many — 
 were seen, and our mules shied once at a rattlesnake that glided out 
 of our path in a hurry, his tail sounding the rasping alarm as he went. 
 The mules are terribly afraid of these reptiles, which are abundant all 
 through here, giving their name to a range of rocky hills a few miles 
 east of this point. Marvellous stories are told of their abundance about 
 Fort Steele, and we killed some at our last camp, where we lived in 
 constant dread of their coming to sleep with us. The natives, neverthe- 
 less, affect a great " despige," as Mrs. Gamp would say, for them, and 
 seem rarely to suffer from their presence. The species is that known as 
 Crotalus durissus. 
 
 Half-way to this Brown's Hole, where we are encamped, and which 
 is the first water, we crossed a little ridge, and could look back. The 
 foreground was a grayish-green plain, intersected by ridges of yellowish 
 rock, dappled with the moving shadows of clouds, and dotted here and 
 there with herds of cattle. In the middle distance were higher hills 
 and broken bluffs, and the horizon was full of far-away mountains, the 
 Medicine Bow range on the left, and the Grand Encampment group on 
 the right. Except the broad dome of Elk mountain all were simply 
 masses of blue, details of form being lost in the distance ; and over the 
 serrated outline of the lesser front ranges gleamed the solid snows of 
 the crowning heights behind. Looking forward we saw spread below 
 us a broad alkali plain, with many zinc -colored ponds and glistening 
 white patches of soda ; and, on the other side of it, the short range of 
 the Seminole mountains, very noble at this distance of twenty miles. 
 
 Coming into camp this afternoon I had my first adventure. My 
 riding animal is Texas Jack, a big, black, obstinate mule, with a passion 
 for kicking. I wanted he should go a certain way, and he refused, for 
 no good reason that I could see. I spurred him. He jumped, struck 
 on a loose bank, and fell heavily. I managed to kick free from the 
 stirrup, and get some sort of control over my flight, as I was hurled 
 from the saddle into the briers and sage-brush, but could not get out of 
 the way before he stepped on my foot. It made me cry out lustily; 
 but the steel shank of my spur had borne the weight, and my foot was 
 only a little lamed. I got out of that with commendable agility. I am
 
 130 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 sorry. I have labored with that mule, have tried to persuade him of 
 the errors of his ways and correct his manners, and this is the result. 
 I am about discouraged, and I sometimes have dreary suspicions that 
 there is not enough moral character in a mule to pay for the expendi- 
 ture of much missionary labor. Quien sabe f 
 
 The camp to-night, as I have said, is in a grove of ancient cotton- 
 wood-trees, under which grows a dense underbrush, hiding the ravine 
 along the bottom of which a trickling rill of pure water secretes itself. 
 Close up to this long, narrow line of miniature woodland, crowding and 
 elbowing it almost over the very brink of the ravine, presses the gaunt, 
 vagabondish sage-brush ; and we have hard work to grub away a suffi- 
 cient space to pitch our tents and pile our cargo. After tea we cross 
 the ravine and search a high plateau on the other side for moss agates 
 and tinted pink-and-white flints. Of the former we get no first-class 
 specimens, but an abundance of beautiful flakes of the latter, and plenty 
 of a poor kind of opal. Some antelopes come pretty close, but we fail 
 to get one, which is no matter, since we have brought down a fine buck 
 
 THE CARGO AND ITS CARRIERS. 
 
 during the day, and have plenty of its flesh. I try to shoot an owl, also, 
 that excites my curiosity ; but in the twilight he flies briskly away. At 
 last we make up our beds on the ground, down by the cargo, and sleep 
 soundly under the chilly stars. 
 
 June 12. — Twenty-five miles to-day — and hard ortes, too; but the 
 dreaded plain foreseen yesterday is passed, and we are at the foot of 
 the mountains. Sunrise saw us entering upon our march over a trail
 
 ANTELOPES AND MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 131 
 
 dry and dusty with the saline exudation from the soil, that parched our 
 lips and irritated our eyes under the blazing sun. Through the marvel- 
 lously clear air it seemed only a pleasant before -breakfast walk across 
 this heated valley to the bald bluffs on the other side. But at noon 
 these landmarks seemed hardly nearer, and the sun was well down the 
 west before we stood in their shadow. Even then our work was by no 
 means done — the mountains were still " on the other side." The sandy 
 valley we had crossed was level, and supported a slim growth of sage- 
 brush, buffalo-grass, cacti, and some gaudy flowers — two sorts of poppy, 
 a mustard, many different wild peas, sunflowers, white asters, and curi- 
 ous blossoms I did not know. Dozens of antelopes had crossed our 
 path during the morning ; sage-hens and jack-rabbits had whirled and 
 scudded from before us continually ; here, on the very top of the crag, 
 were a group of mountain sheep, colorless statues against the sky ; and 
 a deer bounded away as we came around the foot of the hill. 
 
 They were fine fellows, those seven sheep ! The bluff was, perhaps, 
 four hundred feet high, with a vertical face, and they stood upon its 
 very edge, motionless, an old ram in the front, with immense coiled 
 horns that doubled the size of his head. They were out of range ; but 
 we watched them with our field-glasses until, alarmed, they took them- 
 selves out of sight. In the remoter portions of the Rocky Mountains 
 this splendid animal, which used always to be called the " big-horn," is 
 still found in considerable numbers ; and it is so retiring in its habits, 
 loves such inaccessible places, and is so well fitted by its endurance and 
 agility to escape from its enemies among the cliffs and canons of its na- 
 tive heights, that it is not likely soon to suffer extermination. At the 
 same time, places which knew it once know it no more, and civilization 
 is gradually circumscribing its range and reducing its numbers. It is a 
 sheep in anatomy and appearance, but its habits are more those of a 
 goat, for it will climb to points where wolves even dare not follow, and 
 make leaps from pinnacle to pinnacle, or gallop away over the loose 
 rock on the side of a mountain, with an ease that might well make a 
 chamois envious. This seems very wonderful when we look at their 
 ovine, heavy form, great weight (for the rams sometimes weigh three 
 hundred pounds), and the enormous horns coiled at the side of the 
 head. It was these that gave the sheep the appropriate common name, 
 "big-horn;" and it used to be believed that they could throw them- 
 selves down from tremendous heights, alighting on their horns without 
 injury. This was a fable, of course, arising from an account of the mar- 
 vellous leaps they really do make, alighting on their feet. In early sum-
 
 132 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 mcr the old hair is yellowish brown, but their new coats in fall and win- 
 ter are bluish white, and they are then very noble-looking game. In 
 early morning and about sunset they descend to the grassy plateaus to 
 graze, but during the middle of the day keep among the snow-banks, in 
 small flocks, when they are exceedingly war)'. The day you kill one is 
 a good day to date from. 
 
 Leaving this bluff, the rest of our way lay through a sea of loose 
 sand — drifting dunes and ridges formed by the wind — sometimes brown 
 with the scant grass of the region, often for a mile at a time perfectly 
 naked, and ribbed by the wind as a shelving beach is ripple-marked 
 under the waves. The horses sank to their knees, and the rays of the 
 afternoon sun were reflected with a painful glare. 
 
 But in forsaking the sheep-crags we by no means left the game be- 
 hind us. Just as we turned, an old buck blacktail got up far ahead and 
 made off. Antelopes became more abundant and less shy than ever; 
 hares were started every few rods, and sage-hens lifted their little heads 
 above the brush to gaze at us, entirely fearless of harm. 
 
 Approaching, finally, the foot of the much -desired mountains, we 
 came upon some little duck-ponds of blue water, fed by springs whose 
 soft banks were pitted with fresh hoof-prints of elks. An elk's track 
 looks very much like that of a cow, except that it is considerably small- 
 er, more pointed, and neater. Thus put upon the qui vive, we quickly 
 caught sight of a troop of them, far away over the white ridges, trotting 
 slowly away like a party of mounted Indians. It was too late, and they 
 were too far distant, to think of following. Had we not felt so confident 
 of meeting many more of them, we might have been more zealous ; but 
 we knew they were abundant in the region to which we were bound. 
 Later, indeed, we did get a shot at a stupid old cow, whose curiosity 
 got the better of her discretion. But the whistle of a rifle-ball past her 
 ears put a flee into them, and she acted on the suggestion at a pace 
 which defied pursuit from our jaded animals. 
 
 This was at the farther edge of the desert, and we were soon rising 
 out of the level of the old lake-bed up toward its rocky and ancient 
 shores, now scantily clothed with long coarse grass and groves of pop- 
 lar and willow shrubs. The line of dense timber showed where a stream 
 came down from the mountains, and thither we made our way just as 
 the sun was setting. Turning from the open plain into the grove, as 
 we approached the spot selected for our camp a crash occurred in the 
 underbrush, and the huge form of an elk appeared for an instant to our 
 startled eyes, and was gone before anybody could shoot. A few rods
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF A POPLAR GROVE. 135 
 
 beyond we camped in a dense grove of tall white-barked poplars, by a 
 little stream whose channel was so sunken in mossy and fern-clothed 
 banks as to make it almost subterranean. The bright water was soon 
 set boiling, and our bacon and antelope steaks were greedily disposed 
 of, even though unaccompanied by the elk-flesh we had hoped for. 
 
 This grove was the home of a colony of Swainson's buzzards — hawks 
 not very different in habits and appearance from our common Eastern 
 "redtail" or "hen-hawk." They had built their rude nests of sticks, in 
 the tops of the trees, from ten to thirty feet above the ground, and kept 
 up a continual cawing and screaming of fright and protest at our incur- 
 sion into their domain. The females that were sitting stood it out and 
 preserved the warmth of their eggs, but the males were shy of coming 
 near. The eggs were splashed with bright brown and yellowish tints 
 like our redtail's ; but they varied considerably. I saw bluish-white, en- 
 tirely unspotted ones in the same nest with those plentifully blotched 
 with deep reddish brown. Considering the number of hawks there, the 
 absence of all other birds except some blackbirds was not surprising. 
 
 But I found another specimen of natural history in the shape of an 
 elk calf only a few days old, which I nearly stepped on in wandering 
 • about through the brush, looking for snails. It was crouching in per- 
 fect quiet, and made little resistance when I picked it up in my arms 
 and carried it to our fireside. Of course it was ungainly and awkward 
 on its legs. Its bright bay coat was spotted all over like that of a 
 young deer-fawn, and it was the stupidest animal I have seen in a long 
 time. By-the-way, when everybody knows and acknowledges the elk as 
 a deer, why apply a different set of words? Couldn't we say buck elk 
 as well as " bull " elk, and doe instead of " cow, in speaking of this spe- 
 cies as well as another? Then the young would be fawns, not " calves," 
 which is not only needless but wrong, for calf and cow and bull are bo- 
 vine, not cervine, terms. 
 
 This youngster was all instinct and no training. He well knew that 
 if anything came near, his cue was to lie perfectly quiet. He copied 
 the traditional ostrich whenever any one approached where he was tied 
 and buried his head in the grass. Now and then, however, his longing 
 to see his mother (probably the same elk we had startled as we came in) 
 got the better of his prudence, and he began to bleat and squeal lustily, 
 crouching hastily down after each outcry as though frightened at his 
 own noise. In half an hour he grew very tame, and we watched him 
 with amusement until bed-time, when Harry and I took him back to his 
 lair, whence his mother led him away during the night.
 
 loG KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 June 13. — To-day has been one of climbing, for we ascended the 
 highest peak of the group of mountains at whose foot we are camped. 
 It is a range about a dozen miles in length and 10,000 feet in greatest 
 height, thus rising only about twenty-five hundred feet above the plain. 
 It lies in an east and west direction, directly north of Rawlins, from 
 which it is about thirty-five miles distant. The name is said to com- 
 memorate a visit made by a delegation of Florida Indians (Seminoles) 
 searching for a home. We know that the Cherokees once came out 
 here, and a few Seminoles, who are neighbors and kinsmen of the Cher- 
 okees, might have been with them. Although holding quartz veins, this 
 range does not seem to show any prospect of containing reasonably 
 paying gold mines. A spur from the eastern end, however, is the scene 
 of small diggings which are said to have proved highly satisfactory. 
 
 The ascent of the mountain was very difficult. We packed the 
 theodolite, etc., on a strong little mule named Molly, and rode up as far 
 as we could — perhaps two-thirds of the way— through birch and pine 
 trees that had been extensively killed by fires. A cloud, dense and well 
 defined, hid the summit, and, after we rose into it, shut out from our view 
 everything except the near foreground. But as we got higher the sun 
 rose sufficiently to look over into the canon, when suddenly the heavy 
 fog was luminous with yellow light, and began to break away from the 
 tree-tops and roll out over the plain. As it slowly moved away there 
 loomed up right beside us, as though advancing to our overwhelming, a 
 mighty perpendicular wall of rock that towered into pinnacles painted 
 by the sun, and shining hundreds of feet over our heads. Opposite this 
 side of the mountain rose a steep, wooded slope, ending aloft in black 
 and broken ledges of granite, which glistened with dew and gleamed 
 like polished bronze. They looked very beautiful ; but when we had 
 tied our mules, distributed Molly's load among us, and had begun to 
 trudge a mile up, and up, and up over those black and jagged ledges, 
 and through the soft snow-banks which lav between, the delight gradu-
 
 CLIMBING SEMINOLE TEAK. 
 
 1:37 
 
 ally subsided, and we were very sincerely glad to get to the top. It did 
 seem as though we should never attain it ! Peak after peak was scaled, 
 only to find another beyond. Mountain-climbing is no fun. It attacks 
 your endurance, your wind- — tests your "bottom," as turfmen would 
 say — in a way that nothing else I know of equals. This is particularly 
 true of high mountains, where the thinness of the air makes it doubly 
 difficult to fill your lungs, and you cannot run ten steps without painful 
 panting. The coming down was about as bad in this case, and, under 
 our cumbrous loads, was somewhat dangerous, since we had to keep on 
 the high granite crests, because of the depth of the snow below, where 
 ordinarily it would be smooth travelling. 
 
 "A STRONG LITTLE MULE NAMED MOLLY." 
 
 The view from the top of the mountain, where the theodolite was 
 placed on a cap-stone of glistening green granite (orthoclase, I believe, 
 it is termed), was very extended. At first the fog, swinging out from 
 the mountain, hung like a curtain below us ; but the sun pierced through 
 the masses of white fleece, the wind tore them asunder, and the whole 
 drapery of the mist speedily vanished. Then we sighted eastward to 
 the Elk mountains, sixty-five miles away ; to the massive, snowy Medi- 
 cine Bow, behind it : to the Elkhead range, in Colorado, south of Snake 
 
 10
 
 138 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 river ; — sighted southward to Pilot Butte, and Yellow Butte, and Black 
 Butte, scores of miles distant from us. North of these, on our western 
 horizon, a hundred and twenty-five miles westward, we gazed toward 
 where rose up the magnificent wall of the Wind River range, capped 
 with unblemished snow, and studded with peaks whose summits tow- 
 ered two miles and a half above the sea. 
 
 A glimpse northward was caught of the far-away, indistinct Bighorn 
 mountains, and north-eastward lofty hills showed themselves, isolated 
 and cone-shaped, "like solid stacks of hay;" but these were all on the 
 horizon. From the flanks of the pile of mossy and ancient rocks that 
 formed our pedestal (and lay like some sleepy leviathan, with roughened, 
 barnacle-grown back half-submerged) on every side stretched away the 
 green and rolling plains. Here and there in this level expanse rose 
 little island -like "bumps" of ragged, primeval rocks, where the pines 
 grew thick, and the elk and mountain sheep hid. It was easy to see 
 that all the dusty plain, with its heated sand-dunes, that we crossed the 
 day before yesterday, was only the bed of an old lake ; but beyond its 
 ancient banks, looking northward, lay the fertile valley of the Sweet- 
 water ; and yet beyond this stretched the immeasurable plains of Wy- 
 oming. Here are the future pastures for millions of cattle, and they 
 are sure to be occupied. Here are water, grass, shelter, and natural 
 boundaries serving to restrict the wandering of the cattle to join the 
 herds of the Atlantic slope. No better ranges could be found any- 
 where than these plains afford. 
 
 Coming down from the mountains, after three hours of successful 
 triangulation — where we were alternately broiled in a burning sun and 
 chilled by a freezing wind — we aroused two or three herds of elks, the 
 last within a hundred yards of the camp-fire ; but we were not prepared 
 for the chase. When we got into camp, however, Harry was found to 
 be skinning one that he had just shot, and the venison was quickly 
 frying. Its " sizzle " seemed the sweetest sound, and its odor the most 
 elk-cellent savor, that ever saluted the senses of weary travellers. 
 
 June 14. — Breakfasting at sunrise, the frost still glittering on the 
 grass, we were packed up within an hour, and marching westward over 
 the foot-hills. For ten miles we tramped across these ridges through 
 the most beautiful grazing region I have yet seen. The grass was 
 thick and tall, and some of it headed out. Every depression had its 
 little stream of pure cold water. At the foot of the range, which was 
 protected from northern winds, were plenty of trees for shade to cat- 
 tle and for building-timber. Out on the plain were the sand-ridges
 
 PLEASANT MEADOWS AND FEARLESS GAME. 139 
 
 (always free from snow), and the "soda" lakes offering pure salt ; while 
 every valley was a jewel of a site for a ranch. This fine country ex- 
 tends all through northern Wyoming, and it would, no doubt, have been 
 of far greater advantage to the Union Pacific Railroad had it followed 
 up the North Platte to the Sweetwater river, and down it to South 
 Pass, instead of running the line through the desolate tract occupied, 
 simply because along that route it could be finished a few months 
 earlier. Perhaps it is better as it is, however, since the fertile grass- 
 region is now open to immigration, untrammelled by railway claims. 
 Fear of Indians has kept back occupation thus far, but now this has 
 passed away. 
 
 It was a constant delight to ride across the green ridges at the foot 
 of the mountains. They were dotted with gaudy flowers, growing in 
 such profusion as to throw great patches of color upon the hill-side, 
 and a faint sweet smell of tender grasses and myriads of wild blossoms 
 was wafted to us upon each breeze. Then we were entertained by the 
 unceasing company of big game. Antelopes were always in sight, and 
 we might easily have shot a score. They would stand in twos and threes, 
 gaze at us a little while, and then trot off, pausing every now and then 
 to look back ; or, frightened, would arch their necks and prance away 
 in that swift, stiff-legged gait peculiar to them. Many were fawns. Ev- 
 ery now and then we would start small bands of elk, or an elk cow and 
 her calf, out of the bushes of some little valley as we came over the 
 hill, and these would make no haste to get out of harm's way, seeming 
 not to understand that we were to be feared. Many others were seen 
 at a distance, for the gulches leading up into the mountains were full 
 of them, as also of deer; but we did not fire a shot, not needing the 
 flesh. 
 
 Several of the small willow-embowered creeks we forded were ob- 
 structed at frequent intervals by beaver-dams ; and in one valley we 
 surprised two large yellow wildcats that cantered off to some thickets 
 near by, where the crows began to plague them, cawing vociferously. 
 No buffaloes were seen, although they occasionally wander near the 
 spot where we are now encamped, nor any signs of the presence of 
 bears, which is something to be wondered at. Small game — sage-fowl 
 (and their broods), hares, etc. — were as abundant as ever ; and of course 
 that sneaking bag of bones, the coyote, who, when he runs, simply 
 makes a streak along the ground, was lurking about all the bluffs. 
 
 The last half of the twenty-mile march was rather hard and monot- 
 onous. There was no trail — better than that made by elks — and we
 
 140 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 had to pick our way over a long series of barren hills of marl, up a 
 narrow gulch where the sage-brush was so dense and tall as to be dif- 
 ficult to ride through, then over the wind-swept top of a high bluff, 
 and up again to our camp in a willow-grove near the summit of Whis- 
 key Peak. 
 
 We have got " high " on whiskey, so to speak ; but we had water 
 in it. Just as all the mules were unpacked the mountain became en- 
 veloped in heavy clouds, and we had only time to protect our goods 
 with canvas when the snow and hail burst upon us. Dinner was cook- 
 ing, and the process went on to a successful end; but the sleet drove 
 between our teeth with every mouthful, and one couldn't keep his cof- 
 fee hot long enough to drink it, except when the coals from the fire 
 were driven into the cup by some eddy of the storm. Nevertheless we 
 ate our fill, and enjoyed it too. All this time the sun was shining, for 
 through the white veil of snow we could see the blue sky out over the 
 valley; but the mountain was dark as ink; and when an especially 
 fierce blast would smite us we would look at the battered summit and 
 say, " Supposing — ?" for we knew we were getting only the switching 
 of the storm's tail. 
 
 The Seminole mountains are separated from contiguous groups at 
 their western extremity by a deep valley called Whiskey Gap. This is 
 one of the passes from the Atlantic to the Pacific slope, but it has never 
 been much in favor. A wagon-road from Rawlins to the Sweetwater 
 mining-camps passes through it, and some ox-teams went by to-day. 
 The western wall of the Gap rises into a shapely peak of glacier drift, 
 grass-mantled to its very apex, close to which we have our bivouac. 
 An icy wind still sweeps across, and we retain our cavalry overcoats, 
 albeit the sun shines, and a rainbow dyes the western heaven ; but rain 
 is falling all around the horizon, as though a deluge were pouring over 
 the eaves of the sky. Seminole Peak, where we had our hard climb 
 yesterday, stands out blue and beautiful, but its allurement for me is 
 gone. I have been there, and fully appreciate 
 
 " 'T is distance lends enchantment to the view, 
 And robes the mountain in its azure hue."
 
 MAKING A STATION." 
 
 141 
 
 XIX. 
 
 June 15. — The night was wet and cold, but the morning broke clear 
 and frosty, and, after an early breakfast, some of us rode up to the top 
 of Whiskey Peak, to make a topographical station. It was an excellent 
 point for the purpose, because of its isolation, although not as high as 
 timber-line even. It generally happens that from a summit you can 
 
 TOPOGRAPHERS AT WORK. 
 
 look at most in only three directions, because of neighboring heights 
 cutting off the view, but the whole horizon was open from this sta- 
 tion, and on every side the country lay spread out before us like a map 
 in an area two hundred miles in diameter. We were thus enabled to 
 take the bearings of Seminole Peak, Rattlesnake Peak, Elk Mountain, 
 Mount Steele, Mount Rawlins, Hart's Peak, Separation Peak, the Grand 
 
 10*
 
 142 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Encampment group, Black, Pilot, and Yellow buttes ; the whole mag- 
 nificent Wind River range, with its snowy, resplendent peaks ; the hills 
 along Owl creek and those along Powder river ; behind them the hoary 
 heads of the far-away Bighorns ; and, lastly — for I began in the east 
 and have followed around the circle — Laramie Peak, away on the other 
 side of Laramie plains. Charming could not have enjoyed a better 
 
 occasion than this for his line : 
 
 " Sierras long 
 In archipelagoes of mountain sky." 
 
 On a clear day the whole visible earth is mapped out before the 
 observer who stands on such a mountain-top. All the features of the 
 landscape take their proper place, and their true relations to each other 
 are perceived. You see at once how closely these apparently isolated 
 ridges are connected into systems, broken now, but perfectly apparent 
 ages ago, could you have looked upon them then. It suggests the 
 slow modifications that the surface of the earth is constantly undergo- 
 ing. You comprehend at a glance that the winding creeks must run 
 just the way they do, inexplicable though it seems as you follow their 
 gorges, because the hills are placed in a manner that precludes any 
 other channels. Indeed, a skilful man can tell where the great rivers 
 run, and construct a copy of the whole drainage scheme of the country, 
 without seeing a single drop of water. Tracing your late pathway 
 across the previously unknown region, you can easily suggest improve- 
 ments. This hill might have been ascended so much more easily a 
 little farther to the eastward ; that miry spot avoided by going over 
 the low ridge just west of it; that plain crossed in a far straighter line, 
 if only you had known just what to steer for. The bluff that hid the 
 mountain so long, as you marched past, is a very small affair now, sur- 
 passed by many other insignificant hills ; and the weary circle of the 
 lake you thought so large hardly makes a spot in the broad picture. 
 You profit by the opportunity to look ahead, and take a sketch, or 
 a mental memorandum of to-morrow's course. To gaze from a high 
 mountain is to travel, and it tends to rid a man of his egotism. 
 
 The finest weather is in October. Then the air is still, the dry 
 ground gives up no mists, and the mountains on the very edge of the 
 world stand in serene and leisurely content, with cool and freshly-blue 
 brows. At that season only are clear clays, for in summer there is 
 ever a purplish haze upon the horizon, as ethereal as the scenery of 
 dreams, obliterating all features except the outline of the crests of the 
 ranges, and even those broad contours are bereft of all jutting points,
 
 THE HEART OF THE ROCKIES. 143 
 
 and toned down to great smooth lines. On the horizon, in a bright, 
 cloudless day, the sky is white, or faintly tinted like the inside of a 
 shell ; but as there is an imperceptible gradation in the atmosphere 
 from the hazy purple of the horizon's dark mountain-wall to the radiant 
 air next you, so is there a fine opposite deepening of tint from the 
 opalescent white behind the peaks up to a depth of perfect azure over- 
 head that is beyond all dreams of sky-color. It is such solid, opaque 
 blue — yet luminous to ineffable depths — as I have never seen from the 
 lowlands. It is an all-day study to note the varying effects of the sun- 
 light, changing, reflected, and refracted, upon the world viewed from a 
 mountain's summit. Snow is visible at an enormous distance, no mat- 
 ter what its background. Tennyson knew this when he wrote that 
 perfect bit of Alpine description : 
 
 " Some blue peaks in the distance rose, 
 And white against the cold white sky 
 Shone out their crowning snows." 
 
 June 17. — Our camp at Whiskey Peak was just east of the Conti- 
 nental Divide — the backbone of the continent, or water-shed between 
 the two oceans. We crossed it through a grassy depression, hardly no- 
 ticing the fact, but a very large part of the Rocky Mountains were in 
 view. It is hardly decided as yet among geographers, by -the- way, 
 what ultimately shall be defined as the main range, and what shall be 
 considered subsidiary groups and spurs ; that is, it remains to be de- 
 termined just where the sinuous dividing ridge between the Atlantic 
 and Pacific shall be drawn. Considerations of geography and geology 
 are both to be looked at ; and it is quite possible that there may arise 
 irreconcilable differences between these two sets of facts ; so that two 
 " divides " may result — a geologic and also a geographic one — just as 
 the true north and south line fails to coincide with the magnetic me- 
 ridian. In that case it will probably happen that the divergence will 
 be greatest north of Colorado, the geologists holding that their divide 
 trends eastward, while the geographers will claim the actual water-shed 
 here at the west. 
 
 Unlike the Andes, the Rocky Mountains are broken into a series of 
 groups, ranges, and cross-ranges of about equal altitude, and connected 
 by high plateaus. It is only in a few places that they present the or- 
 derly rank seen in the front range in Colorado, between Pike's Peak 
 and the Wyoming line, where they face the plains. Elsewhere they 
 stand in confused masses, for the most part.
 
 144 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The origin of the name, also, is a matter of inquiry. The first ap- 
 proach to the term Rocky Mountains is said to be found in Bellion's 
 Map of North America, published in Charlevoix's "History of New- 
 France," in 1743, where they are called Montagues des Pierres Brillants. 
 The word Rocky Mountains first appears on a map in " Morse's Amer- 
 ican Geography," dated 1794; while in the text of the edition of 
 1789 they are still called the Shining Mountains. The name, however, 
 seems to have been firmly established in the time of Lewis and Clarke, 
 whose trail, by-the-bye, we are almost following through this portion of 
 the country. It is probable that both "Rocky" and "Shining" are 
 translations of Indian words learned by the early map-makers from 
 trappers. Most of the names of the lesser ranges have this origin, or, at 
 least, were named by the old trappers employed by the fur companies 
 years and years ago. Witness Saguache, Uncompahgre, Uinta, YVah- 
 satch, Medicine Bow, Shoshonee, Wyoming, for Indian terms. The ear- 
 ly trappers and explorers at the North were mostly Frenchmen, while 
 those at the South were Spaniards. Both left their language in desig- 
 nating the geography of the new regions they visited. Every town in 
 New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California begins with a San; every 
 old fort north of the fortieth parallel was called after some Saint. 
 
 Some of these primitive names we have since translated. Powder 
 river, so often mentioned of late in despatches from the Indian fighters, 
 was first known as Cache la Poudre. Half the Indian tribes have lost 
 their own names under the titles given them by the French traders or 
 Spanish priests. Such cases are the Gros Ventre and Nez Perce tribes 
 of the North-w r est, and the Pimas and Cocopas of the Gila valley, in Ar- 
 izona. The early appellations almost always had some special signifi- 
 cance, and are worthy of respect, but when the gold-miners began to 
 overrun the mountains and tack a name to every spot where they camp- 
 ed, their designations became frivolous and inadequate. We shall be 
 sorry and ashamed, some of these days, that the most glorious spots on 
 the American continent are demeaned by names so trivial. Who would 
 be willing to change Yosemite to Smith's Hole? Yet equally shocking 
 christenings have taken place everywhere. The largest rivers on the 
 Western Slope, draining all these mountains, are simply the Green, Blue, 
 White, Snake, and Grand ; and the great artery they go to swell is only 
 the Red river — Rio Colorado. In the North you find worse names — 
 Stinking-water river, Bad river, Crazy-woman's fork, No-Wood creek, 
 Bitter creek, Horse, and Goose, and Wolf, and so on, for beautiful, 
 plenteous streams. But worst of all is the habit lately introduced of
 
 ON THE SWEETWATER PLAINS. 
 
 145 
 
 naming noble mountains, reaching up into an ever-living purity, after 
 politicians whose schemings and tricks a coyote would scorn to avail 
 himself of. Is there such a paucity of adjectives in our language? The 
 Chinese go to the opposite extreme in their flowery nomenclature ; but 
 that is better than calling a peak, whence your eye may take in ten 
 thousand square miles of unexcelled scenery, after a dram of whiskey ! 
 
 THE SWEETWATER PLAINS. 
 
 From Camp 4 to 5 the road led over sage-grown ridges along the 
 southern foot of the Sweetwater hills, the direction being westward, 
 and the distance about fifteen miles. Elk in small bands, several ac- 
 companied by young calves, were visible all along, and antelopes were 
 constantly in sight, so unconcerned that they would not even get upon 
 their feet as we rode by. On one of the hills an old buffalo bull was 
 grazing all alone, and our hunters started after him. But our hopes of 
 seeing a chase were baffled, for the old fellow carried his heavy mop 
 and long goatee up the bluff and over its top at such a rate as made 
 the catching of him highly unprofitable labor. He was one that might 
 have sustained a noble part in such a head-to-head struggle with an 
 elk as Mr. William Cary has so graphically depicted in his well-known 
 paintings. 
 
 The camp that evening was made toward sunset in a little grassy
 
 140 KNOCKING ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 glade on the bank of a creek hidden in bushes, by a path where the 
 deer come down to drink of the pure cold water. The willow branches 
 •were all rubbed bare and the new twigs gnawed off by elks. Just above 
 us was a beaver dam, and there were small trout in the stream ; but 
 our luck in catching them was limited. 
 
 I do not know when I have seen so many small birds in one place 
 since I left the States, particularly warblers and fly-catchers. As I lay 
 idly under one of the bushes a tiny warbler, all lemon-yellow, except 
 some reddish streaks on the sides and breast, alighted on the branches 
 within reach of my arm, not seeing me, and began to warble its delicate 
 song. It was an old acquaintance, the common summer yellow -bird 
 that builds its nest in your lilac-bush ; it did not seem to recognize me 
 at first, but, a moment later, espying me, stopped in the middle of a bar 
 and darted off. Other birds came, many of them strangers, with sweet 
 music and soft phit of pretty wings ; and at last I saw a dandy of a spar- 
 row (the white-crowned, Zonotrichia leucophrys\ whose plumage is bright 
 chestnut-brown above, marked with black and ash-color, and a satiny 
 white below, and whose black cap is set off by heavy zigzag bars of 
 white from the base of the pink bill back over the head, and above each 
 eye — I saw this gay fellow enter an archway of dead grass by the side 
 of the brook. I knew it was its home, and, creeping near, almost caught 
 the bird on its nest ; but it eluded my hand and flew to a branch near 
 by, chirping loudly, like the clicking of a stiff gun-lock. That was its 
 alarm-call, and its mate was soon by its side, full of anxiety. The nest 
 was carefully woven of grass — coarse stalks outside, and fine blades 
 within, and was warmly lined with elk's hair. It was sunk in among 
 the grass-roots, and so snugly concealed in the long nodding tufts* — for 
 the bird had made a sort of tunnel underneath the grass by which to 
 enter — that hardly a weasel, much less a hawk, would have discovered 
 it. There was one egg, greenish-white, dotted — profusely at the great 
 end, and thinly at the sharper end — with a pepper-and-salt of brown and 
 red. This single egg was all the nest contained ; but when I looked 
 again at sunrise the next morning a second one was by it — the 
 mother-bird had done her day's work early. 
 
 How circumspect the birds are ! I had my eye on the sparrow, as it 
 flitted about the bush in well-affected unconcern, uttering a simple re- 
 frain and seeming not to mind me, for half an hour before it got cour^ 
 age to slip into its nest, to see if all was safe. Try to force a secret from 
 
 * See p. 38.
 
 A '-■ ■ 
 
 
 
 |f^r/* 
 
 
 r 
 
 tf!p 
 
 -V 
 
 /' «r 
 
 :;.;: 
 
 
 JC7N 
 
 

 
 A CONFLAGRATION IN CAMP. 151 
 
 a bird, and you are sure of failure : have patience to keep perfectly still, 
 and he will show you his inmost heart. There was no end of them 
 about that day, mainly sparrows — sweet singers ; but the golden-mouth- 
 ed leader of the choir was the mountain mockingbird {Oreoscoptcs mon- 
 tamis), whose versatile fluting is heard morning and evening on these 
 plains as he rejoices over his happy home in the sage-bush. He is a rel- 
 ative of the Southern mockingbird, and also of the brown thrasher of 
 Northern orchards. Probably his melody is not equal to that given by 
 either of those musicians, but it has a wild sweetness in it, as he readily 
 runs the scale of all the other bird-songs of the plains, and his music is 
 so varied that you never tire of it. I hear this pleasant voice, like a ves- 
 per hymn, long after the twilight has melted into darkness and the per- 
 former is hidden from view ; and now that moonlight has come again I 
 shall hope that it may mingle with my dreams, attuning them to its 
 tender melody. 
 
 There is something new and peculiar about each successive camp 
 which stamps it individually upon the memory. I shall always remem- 
 ber Camp No. I as our starting-point ; No. 2, because there my mule 
 fell and stepped on me ; No. 3 was the scene of the climb to Seminole 
 Peak, and the place where we caught the calf-elk; Camp 4, for the 
 storm and the wide outlook; Camp 5, on account of the fire and the 
 stampede of the mules ; Camp No. 6, because of the lack of water ; 
 Camp 7, bad lands, coyotes, and the patching of my trousers — a spec- 
 tacle for gods and men ! 
 
 The fire at Camp 5 caught in the sage-brush and bushes along the 
 creek from the cook's fire, while our backs were turned, and spread with 
 such extraordinary rapidity that we had an hour's hard fight to save 
 our goods. Many and many a camp outfit has been burned on these 
 plains in the same way. The sage-brush is as inflammable as tinder, the 
 living shoots burning as readily as the dead stems, and with surprising 
 heat, making most excellent fuel. 
 
 Between the Seminole and Rattlesnake mountains and Camp Stam- 
 baugh, and from the rugged hills south of the Sweetwater river (which 
 takes its source at the southern end of the Wind River mountains, and 
 flows easterly to the North Platte), southward to the Union Pacific 
 Railroad, stretches an expanse of rolling plain, interrupted by no moun- 
 tains deserving the name, covered with good grass, and tolerably well 
 watered. It is through this country that we have been passing for the 
 last week. 
 
 As we marched westward from the Continental Divide the soil be-
 
 152 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 came more dry, the country more rough, many of the valleys taking 
 the form of great basins surrounded by precipitous hills of glacial drift, 
 sandstone, or marl, which showed steep cliffs of rock or earth, and gave 
 rise to very few springs. For three days before reaching here it was 
 with difficulty we found good water to camp by at night, and what we 
 did rind was scant in quantity. The grass, however, is good for cattle, 
 and in the driest portion there are large lakes here and there, which 
 have been supplied by springs. This area, a tract about one hundred 
 and seventy-five miles long by one hundred wide, contains no settle- 
 ments, those northward being the little mining- camps of St. Man's 
 Atlantic City, and others on the Sweetwater; South Pass City, in South 
 Pass ; and Camp Stambaugh ; and those on the south being the sparse 
 stations along the railway. Our route took us to this place by the way 
 of Yellow Butte, a prominent point twenty-five miles south, whence we 
 came directly hither in one day's hide. At Yellow Butte we struck 
 "bad lands," by which is meant hills of marl or clay, carved into cubic, 
 isolated bluffs, or worn into fantastic ridges and pinnacles, by running 
 water and frost. They are utterly destitute of any vegetation, except 
 some sage-brush along the plains scattered among them, and the neigh- 
 borhood is cut into miniature canons, with perpendicular walls of mud, 
 by the torrents which the violent spring storms cause. The earth is gul- 
 lied by rains and cracked by the baking sun ; worn full of sink-holes, 
 whence the drainage of the plains finds its way to the streams (dry three- 
 fourths of the year) through subterranean passages; and abounds in ex- 
 cavations made by water in the sides of the bluffs. These holes and 
 crannies are the chosen haunts of wolves, whose long-drawn and lugu- 
 brious howls resounded in our ears all night, more to our disgust than 
 terror. There were both coyotes and big gray wolves, and they sub- 
 sisted mainly upon the fawns of antelopes; but the coyotes often have 
 a hard tussle to get the little one, for the mother will fight fearlessly. 
 We witnessed one coyote doing his level best to get away from the 
 sharp fore-hoofs of a doe whose fawn he had been after. How effect- 
 ually these sharp hoofs may be used as weapons against another enemy 
 — the rattlesnake— the opposite woodcut well portrays. 
 
 These bad lands are rather picturesque in their desolation. The 
 bluffs are abrupt, and generally domed ; some, however, are perfectly 
 square and flat on top ; while one near our camp was a perfect man- 
 sard-roofed cottage, dormer-windows and all, and another was round, 
 flaring above, and concave on the summit. The earth, as I mentioned, 
 is cretaceous marl, in differently colored layers— yellowish-white, blue.

 
 FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING: 
 
 155 
 
 lead-color, and red — so that some of the round, pillar-like bluffs look- 
 like a huge — I was going to say lady's stocking ; but I won't. " Huge " 
 is a wrong adjective in such a simile. 
 
 All this time the beckoning heights of the grand Wind River range, 
 "hull-down" in the northern horizon, showed us mighty spars and 
 splendid breadths of snowy canvas cutting their way steadily through 
 the clouds — 
 
 " Like some vast fleet, 
 
 Sailing through rain and sleet ; 
 
 Through winter's cold and summer's heat. 
 
 " Ships of the line, each one, 
 Ye to the westward run, 
 Always before the gale, 
 Under a press of sail, 
 With weight of metal all untold." 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 19 ■ 
 
 I 
 
 & 
 
 w
 
 [56 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XX. 
 
 THOUGH it had been in sight for many days, our introduction to 
 the range at last was abrupt, since only one day's long march (on the 
 last of June) carried us out clear of the dusty plains, past vast gate- 
 ways of water-worn granite, up through the rough foot-hills, and fairly 
 toward the summit. The mountain was nameless then, but now it 
 figures on the maps as Wind River Peak, and it is the southernmost, 
 and almost the highest, mountain of the whole magnificent series. 
 
 Every one who has spent long periods of time in the wilderness 
 understands, notwithstanding a halting-ground may become dirty and 
 bedraggled, so that a change is agreeable, how a strange familiarity yet 
 attaches even to a bit of brook and mountain side; and, knowing there 
 is no better representation of home within many hundred miles, how 
 easily it is given that name. " Let us wander where we will;" says Tho- 
 reau, " the universe is built round about us, and we are central still." 
 Nowhere did this home- like feeling assert itself more (and with less 
 good reason) than to this first mountain camp high up at the very 
 sources of the great Sweetwater — perhaps because we invaded angry 
 solitudes, and boldly held our own in spite of every effort on the part 
 of the well-roused spirits of the place. The trees there were all pines, 
 and stood thickly, but were not of great size, though straight and tall. 
 Many lay at full length upon the ground, for they had but shallow root- 
 hold among the bowlders; and the very first night the forest treated us 
 to an exhibition of its power to injure — a hint, perhaps, that we would 
 better not violate its sacred shades by our presence and consume its 
 royal timber in our paltry camp-fire. " When I want fire," the forest 
 seemed to say, " I rub my limbs together, and the flames sweep for 
 miles through my oily cones and dry tops, that love the blaze !" The 
 trunks began to fall all around us — dozens at a time — while the air 
 was full of tremendous sounds of concussion and the screams of rend- 
 ing fibres. But not one of those mighty bolts harmed us, beyond the 
 crushing of a single tent ; and when the hurricane was over we found
 
 ALPINE EXPLORATION. 157 
 
 our fire-wood close at hand, ready cut, so profiting by the anger of the 
 resentful gods. 
 
 The object of making this camp just here — the most elevated point 
 to which the mule-train could be led — was to ascend the peak and make 
 topographical observations from its summit. 
 
 This peak, as I have said, had long been our guiding-point — a per- 
 fect cone with apex as sharp as a pencil -point, and of such unblem- 
 ished shining white that even the telescope failed to show any bare 
 ground. It was therefore with some doubts of the success of the mor- 
 row's venture that we gathered round the fire the night before, where 
 chilling winds, freighted with snow, swept down from the frosty heights 
 around us, and even the splashing of the water in the tumbling torrent, 
 struggling on its way to the peaceful plains, had an icy ring. 
 
 But when we unrolled from our stiffened blankets in the gray of the 
 next dawning the sky was clear, giving deceitful promise of a fair day. 
 A solid breakfast soon eaten, Mr. Wilson, Harry, and myself were early 
 in the saddle, with a sure-footed little mule to carry the instruments. 
 
 It had been observed when approaching the range that a deep de- 
 pression separated the peaks here, and at its head we hoped to discover 
 the easiest place of access. How soon it would be necessary to dis- 
 mount and take to our legs was entirely problematic ; but resolving not 
 to do so until absolutely necessary, the animals were pushed on over 
 the most discouraging region that ever a mule bore a man, among 
 rocks, and woods, and bogs ; over ridges and through gullies, always up- 
 ward, until at the end of about seven miles we came out above tim- 
 ber and square against an enormous wall of broken blocks of stone, 
 which threw an impassable barrier across the canon into which the 
 valley had here contracted. 
 
 Here, then, we unsaddled, and, tying the animals, distributed the 
 pack-mule's load between us, as at Seminole Peak, one taking the the- 
 odolite, another the folding tripod upon which it is mounted, the third 
 the tripod-head, and so began our climb, the character or limit of which 
 we could only conjecture. 
 
 At first there was little trouble. We turned westward up a long 
 canon filled with snow for the most part, and after a hundred yards of 
 fallen rocks were crept over we walked easily for a mile or more upon 
 an ice -bridge, hearing underneath the gurgling of the torrent which 
 flowed out to make the Sweetwater river. The air was not uncomfort- 
 able, the ascent gradual, and our eyes, not yet pained by the glare, were 
 delighted with the scene. On the right towered white heights, thou-
 
 158 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 sands of feet in altitude ; on the left were cliffs of granite, from whose 
 top you might drop a stone almost as far as you could fire a pistol-ball 
 up Fifth Avenue. In the full light of the sun the face of this prodigious 
 precipice shone salmon-white, dappled with the shadows that its protu- 
 berances cast, streaked with black lines of dripping water and glistening 
 with icicles ; but its chief and marvellous beauty was the manner in 
 which the pinnacles of its crest struck up into the lambent azure — no! 
 not azure, something deeper, more intense, and pathetic. If indigo 
 could be rid of its hardness and made to look like a bluebird's back, 
 that would be nearer the hue of this wondrous sky. 
 
 So we plodded on over the crisp snow, one behind the other, wast- 
 ing no breath in talking, up through the great spruces, up among the 
 dwarfed trees and bushes that were beaten close to the ground by inces- 
 sant tempests, out beyond these and over successive ridges till we were 
 far above all vegetation except the mosses and grasses hidden under the 
 heaps of hard snow. We had come a mile and a half, had climbed fif- 
 teen hundred feet, and had only just caught sight of our destination. 
 It stood on the opposite side of a great basin, rimmed by ragged ridges, 
 and by snowy summits whose bases sloped to a common centre where a 
 patch of black ice concealed a Stygian lake. There was no help for it 
 but to go down as deep as the level from which we had first started 
 into the bottom of this devil's punch-bowl, and begin the ascent anew 
 from the lake. I thought of facilis descensus Averni (and fitter circum- 
 stances for its verification could not be found in the upper world), but 
 it failed to prove itself true. What with hard falls on the ice and mis- 
 steps among the sharp rocks, the descensus was decidedly difficilis, yet 
 it was play compared to what came afterward. The lake was traversed 
 at last, however, and we struck across a long slope of snow studded 
 with trees whose trunks were thick and gnarled, but of no great height. 
 The drifts of snow were here from ten to twenty feet deep, yet they all 
 must speedily melt and be carried away. We had been asking whence 
 the Sweetwater, Popo-Agie, and other rivers that seemed to have no 
 tributaries, received their large volumes of water. We wondered no 
 longer. Millions of cubic yards of snow remained to be melted, though 
 it was now the beginning of July, the Sweetwater feeding upon great 
 banks at the head of the canon we first came up. The Popo-Agie 
 (pronounced Poposhia) drains this circular valley into the Wind river, 
 which itself flows into the Bighorn, and thence into the Missouri. 
 
 The groves being passed, and the vast snow-fields on the side of the 
 mountain stretching ahead, the real work begins, for the sun now soft-
 
 A MOUNTAIN TEMPEST. 159 
 
 ens the snow so that sometimes you will sink to the waist or crush 
 through a treacherous ice -bridge into the cold water of a mountain 
 brook. The previous exertions begin to be felt, the load you carry 
 weighs you down, the wind blows steadily, and the air seems charged 
 with spicules of ice piercing the skin like needles. But you walk on — 
 head down — teeth clenched — saving every step — never stopping. It is 
 three hours since you left the mules, and you have walked four miles 
 through the snow and over jagged and slippery rocks. At the last 
 clump of stunted trees rooted in a sheltered nook you halt three min- 
 utes to build a fire by a prostrate log, and thus provide a hospice for 
 your return. 
 
 Then you start in for the last mile to the summit, which seems 
 scarcely nearer through the transparent air than when you first saw it. 
 Mechanically your eye receives the pictures that successively present 
 themselves : the walls of granite rising on each side in grim uprightness 
 and frowning at your intrusion ; the long dark canon, cutting the east- 
 ern wall, through which the snow-banks drain away ; the alabaster peaks, 
 lifting their heads to the sky in silent grandeur — eternal thrones of re- 
 pose ; the cerulean canopy ; the flocks of little clouds that seem to have 
 been frightened from the crags, as sea-gulls are startled into the air at 
 one's coming. You do not strive to see these things, or record them in 
 your mind, as you struggle on ; only afterward you remember them. 
 
 Now you are all lungs and feet. The " ever-living purity of the air" 
 is becoming a terror. You gasp instead of breathe ; your tortured eyes 
 are painting dancing rainbows on the snow; your ears are singing with 
 the rush of the cold wind — but stop not ! The slope grows steeper — 
 dig your toes in and go on ! Your legs are becoming brittle and your 
 knees unjointed — stand firm ! You slip and fall on the glazed surface — 
 scramble up, and take a firmer hold ! Your breath grows short ; your 
 mouth and throat are parched until your tongue protrudes ; your stom- 
 ach rebels; your nerves are failing to direct your muscles; your head 
 swims and a pall of darkness settles upon your mind — rouse yourself ! 
 A few more steps — a last leap — you fall — but on the summit ! 
 
 This is mountain climbing. 
 
 After all this labor it was hard to find that nothing could be done. 
 The wind that day blew a gale; the cold was so intense that fingers 
 would freeze in ten minutes; and a heavy snow-storm came up the 
 mountain with us to hide the landscape under its thick veil. It was 
 capricious polar weather, and back we ran, slid or tumbled through snow 
 and ice, like traversing Arctic floes with Kane or Franklin, and ate our
 
 160 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 (very) cold lunch by the big fire we had built at our hospice, while the 
 thick gale howled about the strong, dark, desolate mountain overhead, 
 and drove a flock of stiffened snow-birds to the warmth of our smoke. 
 We were in a frigid zone, and I fancy the Arctic regions have little 
 worse to offer a man, except their wearying continuity. The mile of 
 up-hill work, where we had descended from the "rim" of the "punch- 
 bowl " to the lake, still remained — a very hard tug for tired legs and 
 toes, weary of prehensile service — and after that another mile and a half 
 of tramping through the snow to the mules. 
 
 Now those precious beings, anticipating our coming, had prepared a 
 fine joke ; but, to add hypocrisy to treason, they welcomed us with so- 
 norous brayings of joy. Then waiting until we were close by, and could 
 well see the fun of it, those facetious mules started off on a run, having 
 broken their ropes, pulled them away from the fastenings, or bitten 
 them in two. Their sense of humor, however, made them wait a little 
 too long, so that we caught all but one and trounced them well ; the 
 hunter walked the seven miles to camp. 
 
 There was some of the hardest work done in the history of the 
 Survey from the head-quarters of this camp ; but one night, when the 
 snow drifted steadily down on our beds as we lay in quiet, I was not so 
 tired but that I lay awake for hours, stowing away in the coffers of my 
 memory the fast-crowding impressions; and perhaps it was those hours 
 of reflection that fixed all the details of the wild timber-line camp so 
 firmly in my mind. 
 
 What a sombre world that of the pine-woods is! None of the 
 cheerfulness of the ash and maple groves — the alternation of sunlight 
 and changing shadow, rustling leaves and fragrant shrubbery under- 
 neath, variety of foliage and bark on which to rest the jaded eye, 
 exciting curiosity and delight : only the straight, upright trunks ; the 
 colorless, dusty ground ; the dense masses of dead green, each mass a 
 repetition of another ; the scraggy skeletons of dead trees, all their bare 
 limbs drooping in lamentation. The sound of the wind in the pines 
 is equally grewsome. If the breeze be light, you hear a low, melan- 
 choly monody; if stronger, a hushed kind of sighing; when the hur- 
 ricane lays his hand upon them the groaning trees wail out in awful 
 agony, and, racked beyond endurance, cast themselves headlong to the 
 stony ground. At such times each particular fibre of the pine's body 
 seems resonant with pain, and the straining branches literally shriek. 
 This is not mere fancy, but something quite different from anything to 
 be observed in hard-wood forests. There the tempest roars; here it
 
 MELANCHOLY WOODS AND BLITHE BROOKS. 101 
 
 howls. I do not think the idea of the Banshee spirits could have 
 arisen elsewhere than among the pines ; nor that any mythology grow- 
 ing up among people inhabiting these forests could have omitted such 
 supernatural beings from its theogony. 
 
 But do not conclude that the gloom of the pine-woods clouded our 
 spirits. So many trees had fallen where our tents were pitched that 
 the sunshine peered down there, and at night the moon looked in upon 
 us, rising weirdly over a vista of dead and lonely tree-tops. Then, too, 
 the brook was always singing in our ears — absolutely singing! The 
 sound of the incessant tumble of the water and boiling of the eddies 
 made a heavy undertone, like the surf of the sea ; but the breaking of 
 the current over the higher rocks and the leaping of the foam down 
 the cataracts produced a distinctly musical sound — a mystical ringing 
 of sweet-toned bells. There is no mistaking this metallic melody, this 
 clashing of tiny cymbals, and it must be this miniature blithe harmo- 
 ny that fine ears have heard on the beach in summer where the surf 
 breaks gently. 
 
 But these are drowsy fancies, and one night of such sleepless dream- 
 ing is about all a healthy man can afford out of a whole trip ; and if he 
 is not a healthy man he ought not to go into the Wind River moun- 
 tains at all.
 
 162 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 OUR next objective point was Fremont's Peak, about fifteen miles 
 northward in an air-line. As we were not provided with balloons, how- 
 ever, we had to take a circuitous route on terra fir ma along the base of 
 the range, and found it a three days' journey. It would be idle to de- 
 tail all the particulars of those marches. The snow and sleet in which 
 we started gave place to rain as we got lower down, and by the time 
 the groves of quaking-asp that fill all the slopes between the outer foot- 
 hills were left behind this also ceased, leaving us only a cold wind to 
 contend with. Our way led us northward over sage-brush plains, part 
 of the time following a wagon-road almost as old as the emigrant trail, 
 and called "Lander's cut-off;" but it is said that, like most of the at- 
 tempted short-cuts along the overland route, it saves nothing " in the 
 long run." It was a very dim road, but the marks of wagon -wheels 
 last a long time in this region ; and, besides, occasional hunters and 
 prospectors take their teams over it, thus keeping it visible. Did it 
 ever occur to you, reader, how these roads are made? Certainly they 
 are not laid out by engineers. They all follow old Indian trails, and 
 the Indians simply straightened out the paths made by the game in 
 their seasonal movements from one district to another. Fremont gets 
 the credit of the "discovery" of the South Pass, and that old trapper 
 and hero, Jim Bridger, has a pass named after him down by the rail- 
 road ; but, in truth, the buffaloes guided both of them there and were 
 the real finders. 
 
 The next day we left the road, it turning too far eastward to suit 
 us on its way across the settlements in the lower part of Idaho and on 
 to Salt Lake City, but were helped in travelling by striking a poor trail, 
 which saved us some dodging about among the sage. 
 
 A trail is not a road ; it is not even a path sometimes. As the 
 word indicates, it is the mark left on the ground by something dragged, 
 as lodge-poles, which the Indians fasten to the saddles of the horses 
 their squaws ride when travelling, allowing the ends to drag on the
 
 FOLLOWING THE TRAIL. 163 
 
 ground. Having picked out a road once, they will naturally follow the 
 scratching or trails of the poles the next time they go that way, to 
 avoid the trouble of exploring a new road, and so a route will become 
 fixed. In an open country like this, where one can see for a hun- 
 dred miles, and steer by sky-cutting peaks, there is little need of trails, 
 and thus few exist. But in such a mountainous region as Colorado 
 the best ways about the rugged backs of the ridges have been learned 
 from the elks and marked by Indian trails from time immemorial, and 
 the Survey has found it exceedingly convenient to follow them. Some 
 are very plain, but the best marked of any are those which wind up 
 and down the declivities of those Alpine peaks in the San Juan region 
 of Colorado, and south of it across that plateau called the Mesa Verde. 
 There water is so scarce, and the country is so cut up by canons utterly 
 impassable, that it is unsafe to leave the trail ; and some of these paths, 
 by thousands of years of constant use, have been worn deep into the 
 rock. But this plainness of trail is rare. Ordinarily it is a mere direc- 
 tion, an assurance to the mind that you are going somewhere, if only 
 over into the next valley. Yet it is fascinating to follow the slender, 
 wavering line winding between the rocks or among the trees ; and if 
 you set spurs to your fancy you may ride round the world on a moun- 
 tain trail. 
 
 Anent this matter, the reader will, perhaps, pardon a digression 
 which carries him southward into the dxy table-lands on the border of 
 New Mexico. 
 
 If any one proposes to himself a tour of observation of the very worst 
 portions of these United States, let him not neglect the Mesa Verde. 
 It lies in the extreme south-western corner of Colorado, among the few 
 streams that struggle down from the splendid Sierra de la Plata to feed 
 the Rio San Juan. As the traveller marches down one of these sunken 
 water-courses he sees that the Indian trail takes that particular route 
 because it is impracticable for it to go elsewhere ; and he finds himself 
 descending an incline into the earth, as it were, the walls of a seemingly 
 interminable canon rising higher and higher on each side of him as he 
 advances. Nor is this impression very wide of the truth ; only after a 
 time one finds that he has reached the end of his incline, and for fifty 
 miles or more rides in the bottom of a remarkable gorge. 
 
 The Mesa Verde— which is Spanish for " green table," and a name, 
 no doubt, given by some one who saw it in early spring, for at no other 
 time does it appear verdant — is a somewhat irregular table-land, com- 
 prising an area of about seven hundred square miles, and formed of
 
 lG-i KNOCKING ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 an extensive series of nearly horizontal sedimentary (cretaceous) rocks, 
 of which the surrounding country has been denuded. These beds are 
 sandstones and shales of varying degrees of hardness, generally with 
 the softer shales underneath. When the erosive agent — a mountain 
 stream, for example — reaches these underlying soft beds, they are car- 
 ried away far faster than the firmer rocks above, which are thus under- 
 mined and fall in large fragments, leaving vertical exposures. The 
 cations have in this way worn to a great depth, and are all of the same 
 sort — V-shaped at the bottom, where the slopes of crumbling debris 
 have formed steep taluses, crowned by perpendicular cliffs, sometimes 
 many hundreds of feet in height. Such canons— dry, except at the 
 time of the spring freshets, when vast volumes of water tear their way 
 through the yielding soil — intersect the Mesa in all directions; and, 
 as almost invariably it is out of the question to get down into or up 
 out of the gorges with a horse, and nearly as impossible for a man on 
 foot, while there is the utmost scarcity of water, it becomes of the 
 greatest importance to adhere carefully to the Indian trails, some of 
 which have been travelled for thousands of years, and are worn deep 
 into the sandstone. The southern boundary of the Mesa is defined 
 quite as sharply as the borders of the canons by a sinuous scarp of 
 vertical white cliffs, whose bases are buried in steep slopes of fallen 
 fragments, overgrown with scattered gray shrubbery. And south and 
 west of it stretch repulsive plains of dry and thirsty sand, whose dreary 
 waste is diversified only by jagged buttes and the splintered remains 
 of volcanic dikes. Through it all ramifies an endless labyrinth of can- 
 ons and arroyas, with scarcely a living stream. 
 
 However interesting or uninteresting this geographical description 
 may have proved, it is important as preface to the adventure I am about 
 to relate, in order that you may appreciate the peculiar discomfort of 
 the situation. We had been travelling for over a fortnight across this 
 desert, and were then returning by a new route. We had circled about 
 rapidly, and one day our guide drew on a leaf of my note-book a rude 
 little map in explanation of our devious track. On the morning of' one 
 of our last day's marches, before reaching the coveted mountains and 
 green woods, I decided to stop behind to examine some ruined pueblos 
 of the ancient inhabitants of the region — in whose history I was much 
 interested, and which lay somewhat off our trail, adjoining a fountain 
 called Aztec Springs — expecting to overtake the party before they 
 encamped some twenty-five miles eastward. I was told that another 
 trail crossed the one I was to return to, not far from where I should
 
 LOSING THE TRAIL. 
 
 105 
 
 strike it, upon which I was to turn off ; and I understood that this was 
 much the plainer trail of the two at their forking. 
 
 It was perhaps eight o'clock when I started back from the ruins, find- 
 ing the old trail without difficulty, and looking for the branch road. A 
 ride of two or three miles brought me to a stagnant pool in a rocky 
 
 A CANON IN THE MESA VERDE. 
 
 basin, where both my horse and myself were very glad of a drink, and 
 where I filled my pint flask with the warm, muddy water. This done, 
 we went on at a jog-trot. The trail seemed to bear rather too far to 
 the north, and I kept my eyes fixed upon the ground, expecting every 
 moment to see a path diverge to the eastward ; but none appeared, and 
 after a while I got down and examined the trail. It was evident that a
 
 166 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 large number of animals had been over it recently, though the ground 
 was too hard to give much information about them. But I made up 
 my mind that the tracks must be those of our train, and went on across 
 the table -land — for the top of the plateau had now been reached — 
 where the coarse grass and herbage were scorched and withered under 
 the fervid summer sun, and the harsh foliage of the scrubby junipers 
 and pifion pines had become almost copper-colored through drought 
 and dust. Enduring the heat as well as I was able, and observing every 
 little incident, in order to derive therefrom any comfort or encourage- 
 ment possible, I jogged on alone across the arid plateau, somewhat un- 
 easy at the steady northward trend of the trail, but scarcely suspecting 
 that the footprints I was following so confidently were those of Indian 
 ponies, and that long before I came to the pool in the rocks (now left 
 miles behind) the path of my companions had branched off, making lit- 
 tle show in the shifting sand of the yellow plain. About noon I halted 
 in a grove of thick cedars, and ate a small luncheon, saved from my 
 " break-o'-day " breakfast, while my horse nibbled for an hour. 
 
 I had travelled on again only a short distance when the trail sudden- 
 ly brought me out of a chapparal jungle upon the edge of an exceeding- 
 ly steep and long hill-side, densely grown with currant and berry bushes, 
 dwarf oaks, and various shrubs. At the foot spread a beautiful valley, 
 where the tall fresh grass waved in the cooling breeze, and a sparkling 
 river wound its way with swift and noisy current. Beyond the river 
 stretched a landscape of hill and dale, deliciously green to my strained 
 eyes, and dotted with groves of patriarchal spruces, outcropping crags 
 of inky basalt, and pretty thickets where birds congregated. It was an 
 attractive contrast to the lava-blasted deserts behind ; yet I was not 
 wholly glad to see it, for the pleasant vale, with the strange blue moun- 
 tains, snow-peaked, beyond, admonished me that I was astray. From 
 this lofty point I commanded a wide view, and paused to study the to- 
 pography and fix upon my memory the shape of the prominent summits. 
 One point only I thought I recognized as being in the direction where I 
 supposed my comrades to be. It was my single landmark ; and fixing 
 the bearings well in my mind, I descended the zigzag path to the river, 
 where horse and rider hastened to plunge their lips into the grateful 
 flood. Then picketing my tired animal in the midst of sweet grass, 
 and stretching myself in the shade, I applied myself to severe practice 
 in the art of making correct deductions from doubtful premises. 
 
 It was certain that I had wandered out of my way, and probably had 
 travelled twenty-five miles that morning. This was one side of a trian-
 
 LOST AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS. 167 
 
 gle ; the right trail was another side ; the length and direction of the 
 third side thus became the problem. This warm and fertile river-bot- 
 tom, where fuel was abundant, pure snow-water inexhaustible, and game 
 and fish in plenty, seemed to be a central point for Indians. The re- 
 mains of many of their bivouacs were scattered here and there among 
 the tall cottomvoods, and one of their long, straight race-courses was 
 plainly marked on a level flat, where the grass was not allowed a chance 
 to grow. Four trails diverged nearly to the cardinal points, and the 
 question was, which one of them to take. Of course, I might go back 
 to Aztec Springs, my starting-point of the morning, and make a more 
 careful scrutiny for the right trail, but I disliked doing this until driven 
 by grim necessity. 
 
 Before my half-hour's rest was over I had determined to take the 
 trail that crossed the river and led toward the mountains, and I did so. 
 It was a beautiful district — picturesque, home-like, and sunny. I spurred 
 into a short, fierce gallop, swung my hat, and shouted with the exhilara- 
 tion of the scene. Then misgivings seized me. From a little eminence 
 I had caught sight of rocks ahead that made me fear that the lovely 
 park would soon come to an end, and I should find myself toiling among 
 the jagged fragments of one of those old volcanic eruptions so frequent- 
 ly met with throughout this region. I therefore turned my horse's head 
 slowly round, conscious, by a sort of intuition, that I was again wrong, 
 and that danger lay in that direction. Afterward I learned that that 
 path would have taken me to the Rio Dolores — River of Sadness ! 
 
 It was not a particularly pleasant predicament to be in. I had no 
 food, or gun to shoot it with. My only protection in a country full of 
 grizzlies, mountain lions, and wolves was the revolver and knife in my 
 belt. Moreover, I knew that if ever I left that river there was small 
 chance of finding a drop of water nearer than the mountains scores and 
 scores of miles away, with a horse already jaded to carry me. I al- 
 most decided to toss up a cent between going clear back where I 
 started from — which argued thirty-six hours more of hard and, at best, 
 doubtful work, with no better food than pinon-nuts — and the other al- 
 ternative of following hard after the band of Indians whose tracks had 
 beguiled me ; for now I readily perceived, by the almost warm ashes 
 of the fires scattered all about, and by a dozen other signs, that it was 
 a wandering company of Southern Utes that I had been unconsciously 
 pursuing with such eagerness. I could travel faster than they would 
 be likely to ; yet overtaking them was not an agreeable prospect, leav- 
 ing out of view any distasteful features of association with Indians,
 
 108 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 since they were then on the verge of open hostility; and, if they did 
 not choose to take my life, I was tolerably certain they would assume 
 proprietary rights over my horse and personal effects, none of which I 
 had yet grown tired of possessing. 
 
 Thus, with more seriousness than before, I stood halting between 
 the horns of this evil dilemma, when I bethought me of the rough 
 little map in my note-book — I have it yet. It required much ingenuity 
 and hard thinking to get at my probable position and the assumed po- 
 sition of the train, for neither of those points nor any trails were indi- 
 cated ; but the meagre sketch hinted at the existence of a stream some- 
 whore in the vicinity of the one I was then resting beside, and con- 
 vinced me, with the aid of what woodcraft I could bring to bear on 
 the subject, that my true plan of escape was to follow the trail that 
 led up the river. 
 
 Before I started I wrote a brief epistle on a leaf of my note-book, 
 setting forth who the writer was, his business and destination, his pres- 
 ent situation, and the course he was about to take, with a word of 
 remembrance to friends at home on the far-away shore of New Eng- 
 land. This inscription was pinned up against the bark of a prominent 
 cottonwood, where it would be most likely to be seen, should any of 
 my party come in search of me after a few days. I wonder what wan- 
 dering trapper or prospector has found that letter, and what he thought ; 
 or whether Indians tore it down in wanton destructivenes, as is their 
 wont ; or whether it was snatched from its fastening by some breeze 
 and wafted into the river! At any rate, I never heard from it. Then 
 I pulled up a hole or two in my belt, as a compromise with an empty 
 stomach, tightened my steed's girths, and swung myself into the saddle. 
 
 It was fully three o'clock in the afternoon now ; and, feeling the 
 need of urgent haste, I kept my horse upon the lope wherever the 
 ground permitted, and before long found myself leaving behind the 
 clear current of the stream, the green shrubs, soft sward, and willow 
 thickets, and slowly mounting again to the table-land, where the medic- 
 inal scent of the sage-brush came to my nostrils instead of the sweet- 
 ness of flowers, and the prickly leaves of cedar and piiion scratched my 
 face as I dashed by. I realized that the delightful valley was a sort 
 of oasis, supported by the constant river, and it was no marvel that it 
 was a favorite resort of the nomadic aborigines. 
 
 Now came into view again some of the heights sighted before ; and 
 I felt so strongly that they were trustworthy guides, that I resolved to 
 steer by them, abandoning the trail, should it materially diverge from
 
 A NIGHT IN THE BURNED WOODS. 169 
 
 its present eastward direction. This would be really a serious thing to 
 do. Even if I had felt perfectly safe in undertaking to travel across 
 this wretched country — sure that impassable chasms would not yawn 
 unexpectedly at my feet, forbidding farther progress — I still should for- 
 sake much comfort in abandoning the path ; for, as I said before, even 
 though it be scarcely more than a suggestion, a trail is a happy promise 
 to the anxious heart that you are going someivhere, and are not aimlessly 
 wandering in a circle. Therefore I devoutly hoped my present slender 
 and wavering guide would not fail to lead toward the desired point. 
 
 The farther I advanced the worse the road became. Instead of a 
 level plain ahead, overgrown with a continuous low thicket of sage- 
 brush and grease -wood, there now appeared a range of rough hills, 
 whose declivities bristled with little, dead, scrubby trees, blackened and 
 maimed by a fire which recently had swept through and killed them. 
 The sun was setting by this time, and the first of these hills was not 
 surmounted before the gloom had become so thick as to render invisi- 
 ble the trail already much obliterated by the conflagration. 
 
 Fearful of losing it irretrievably, I saw that I must stop and save 
 the remaining moments of twilight for gathering fuel. 
 
 A large stock of wood was collected with no little pains, and when 
 it became too dark to collect more I built my fire, using as kindling 
 some bits of cloth, corn-husks, and so forth, from the old Indian camp 
 at the river, and lighting the mass with a shot from my revolver. Then 
 I spread my thick Navajo saddle-blanket in the light of the fire ; and, 
 throwing my army coat across my shoulders, lounged down, with the 
 saddle for a pillow. I wasn't sleepy, so rested, watching acorns roast- 
 ing upon the coals ; but they proved not good. Buckskin, poor fellow ! 
 hadn't a blade of grass to solace himself, and soon tired of browsing 
 oak-brush. 
 
 The darkness became intense — a solid wall around my fire — and 
 occasional gusts of wind rattled the dry branches. Once a far-away 
 coyote sent to my ears very faintly his "yip-yip-yuea-h ;" and a moment 
 afterward an owl called musically from the next ridge. I do not remem- 
 ber that I occupied myself with any particular thoughts. This thing 
 and that flitted through my brain in an inconsequential manner, for 
 my head was resting as well as my body, and I was too old a camper 
 to feel any special dread of the loneliness, or the objectless fear that 
 sometimes troubles inexperienced persons. 
 
 I was a little hungry, but, all things considered, might have found it 
 hard to complain, had I not been tormented by thirst. 
 
 12
 
 17" KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The soil in these burnt woods had been reduced to ashes, and rose 
 in a cloud at every step. The breathing of this was bad enough after 
 my long abstinence and fatigue ; but add to it the swallowing of much 
 hot smoke in kindling my fire, and you have cause for misery almost 
 unendurable. 
 
 I had the pint of water in my saddle-bags, but more than one sweet 
 swallow dared not take ; for when I should find another flaskful was 
 something I hesitated to think about. I chewed some bitter oak leaves 
 as an effort at relief, whittled a bullet out of a pistol-cartridge to roll 
 about in my mouth, and pretty soon fell asleep. 
 
 Suddenly there seemed to penetrate my slumbers a shrill, wavering 
 echo, as of a long-drawn, distressful cry. It brought me to my feet, 
 wide-awake in an instant, for I knew very well what it was — the scream 
 of the puma ! Rut a more present danger threatened — the tree, against 
 which was built the fire, had burnt nearly through and was toppling, 
 ready to fall upon me. The mountain lion at once became, to my 
 mind, a guardian angel sent with warning of my peril ; and it was none 
 too soon, for I had only time to snatch my saddle away, when the tree 
 came down with a tremendous crash and burst of sparks directly upon 
 the spot where I had been soundly sleeping an instant before. Yet, 
 now that no harm was done, I found a blessing even in the fall of the 
 tree, for here was plenty of wood at hand. Raking up the fire, I listened 
 for a repetition of the puma's mournful voice; but it did not come, and 
 finally I got drowsy and went to sleep again. 
 
 The next thing that interrupted my slumber was the plunging of 
 Buckskin. Sitting up quickly, I heard a scurrying in the bushes, and 
 caught sight of two green eyes. That meant wolves ; not sneaking 
 little coyotes, no worse than Indian dogs, but the great gray fellows 
 you read about — wolves as big as a mastiff, hunting in packs, and as 
 fierce as the utmost development of a savage lupine nature can make 
 them. To secure my terrified horse was my first concern. I ran with 
 all haste across the little space that intervened, but had not reached 
 him when a wolf leaped out, and the horse gave a great jump, which I 
 thought must surely break his lariat. But fortunately the rope held, 
 and, snatching my revolver from my belt, I broke the brute's leg and 
 sent him off to the somewhat abashed pack limping and howling. 
 Quieting my horse as well as I could, I brought him close to the fire 
 and tied him firmly, whereupon he approached as near to me as his 
 tether would allow. He was badly frightened and very lonesome. It 
 occurred to me to put the saddle on his back, but I concluded it was
 
 ATTACKED BY GRAY WOLVES. 171 
 
 hardly worth while, fancying that the greatest danger had been avert- 
 ed in escaping the loss of my horse, which would have been an irrep- 
 arable disaster, and that so long as the blaze could be kept up I might 
 feel at ease ; however, I did choose a convenient tree as a house of 
 refuge if worst came to worst. Then I heaped high upon my watch- 
 fire the crackling and redolent limbs of cedar, lighting up the dead for- 
 est until all the scarred old trees held out their gaunt, dismantled arms 
 and bony hands to warm them at the blaze. How the wolves gave 
 tongue at that ! I could see them moving spectrally here and there 
 as the arrows of light shot far into the circle of darkness, and judged 
 there might be ten or a dozen ; but their lugubrious, reverberating, 
 angry howls multiplied themselves until it seemed as though a regiment 
 of wolfish fiends had corralled me and were yelling their triumph. It 
 banished sleep, and I sat there wondering whether they would dare 
 charge while the red cedar kept consuming with such fragrance and 
 lively scintillation, thanking my stars that I had had sense enough to 
 collect a good supply of fuel, and finally the wolves went off in full 
 cry and all together. Then, wrapped in my Navajo, for the third time 
 I sought " tired nature's sweet restorer." 
 
 In an instant I was in San Francisco with a party of jovial friends, 
 each free-handed. We entered a restaurant where fountains were leap- 
 ing among the emerald fronds of tropical plants, the rainbows in their 
 spray reflected from services of costly silver and rare porcelain. We 
 seated ourselves at a sumptuous table, and one called out gayly, " Well, 
 gentlemen, what will you choose as appetizers before our feast?" Some 
 said hock, others champagne; a dark-faced man, aguardiente; a lucky 
 miner, cognac. I answered, " Oh ! please, please give me a cup of wa- 
 ter!" Aroused, by my own piteous cry, I opened my eyes upon the 
 faint new light of a dawning day. 
 
 Little remains to tell. By the time the saddle was fastened on my 
 horse — who looked as though he had made a worse night of it than I 
 had — it was light enough to hunt for the trail ; but the search proved 
 utterly fruitless, and I was obliged to trust to my previous calculations 
 and strike straight across the country, steering eastward, not by a star, 
 but the nearest thing to it — a snow-crested mountain-top, where rested 
 now the golden slipper of "jocund day." Mile after mile did we climb 
 those rugged hills blasted by the breath of fire, and cross those deceit- 
 ful valleys, where a dozen times I dug deep holes for water in the sandy 
 "wash" at the bottom ; for though I still had resolution enough to save 
 the supply in my flask, my throat was parched till I could scarcely speak
 
 172 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 to my horse, and did not know how much longer I could resist. It was 
 always hot and dusty and rough ; but after a while the country became 
 more open and grassy, and little by little we got out of the burnt dis- 
 trict and could go faster. A rolling, tree-dotted park came now, and I 
 think nothing ever discouraged me more than to rise to the crest of 
 each of those rapidly succeeding waves of land only to sec another 
 ridge ahead. But toward noon the glad surprise of the last one was 
 reached, and beyond it we saw the glancing wavelets of a clear, cold 
 brook. "Did we run?" Wouldn't you? And when he had drunk his 
 fill my horse held up his head and uttered a shrill neigh. I took it to 
 be his way of giving thanks, until speedily there came back an answer 
 — an equine welcome ; for camp and home were not a hundred yards 
 away. 
 
 Curiously enough, the pleasant valley I had strayed into had long 
 ago been named by trappers Lost Canon.
 
 SHOOTING MULE-DEER ON THE SANDY. 173 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Having reached the southern branch of the Sandy river, one of 
 the main tributaries of the Green, and which consists of three branches 
 originating in the Wind River mountains, we camped opposite some 
 great meadows, through which the river wound in a tortuous course 
 nourishing dense thickets of willows. The river was deep, cold, and 
 rapid, but not more than fifty feet wide. It was inhabited by beavers, 
 and we saw a few trout. The bottoms embraced several thousand acres 
 of the best grass, and if the willows were burned enormous quantities 
 of good hay might be harvested. The adjacent hills furnished fine 
 timber, and it cannot be long before cattle ranches will be scattered all 
 over these broad valleys. Indeed, we saw one herd of cattle feeding, 
 which we supposed to belong to some ranchmen living down near the 
 mouth of the stream. 
 
 The mules having been unpacked, Harry took his gun and saun- 
 tered out after game, for we were eating our last elk steaks. I suppose 
 he had not gone a hundred yards before we heard the crack of his rifle, 
 and then his voice calling for help to bring in his capture, a fine young 
 doe blacktail, or mule-deer {Cervus macrotis), as some of my friends will 
 tell me is the proper name, reserving "black-tail" to the north-western 
 variety — C. columbianus. The evening was chilly, and we made a big 
 fire of that best of wood, dead quaking- asp, around which we sat as 
 darkness gathered close, watching the deer-ribs roast to the right turn, 
 and listening to Harry Yount's tales of hunter-life as he had experi- 
 enced it in this very region. 
 
 From May to September, as everybody knows, it is not possible to 
 do profitable hunting, or " shooting," as my English friends would in- 
 sist was the right word — but I use Harry's phrase and in the Ameri- 
 can sense. The hair is being shed and replaced on all the game, so 
 that the coats of the valuable fur-bearers are useless ; the females of 
 the deer are isolated, caring for their young, and the males are hidden, 
 renewing their horns ; while the flesh of all animals is in a lean and 
 
 12*
 
 174 KNOCKING "ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 inferior condition. During these months, therefore, Yount would go 
 "prospecting," work in the silver-mines, become an amateur "bull- 
 whacker" on some freight-train of ox-teams, or enlist as hunter and 
 muleteer for one or the other of the parties of the Survey. But as 
 soon as the September frosts begin, when the first flurries of snow 
 whiten for a day or two the far-away gleaming summits, then Harry 
 prepares to bid good-bye to civilization. 
 
 These autumnal weeks are the most beautiful of the whole year 
 in the Rocky Mountains. The air is clear and bracing, without the 
 warmth of July noondays or the dampness of August nights. The 
 flies are gone, the streams are fordable, and the snow has disappeared, 
 leaving the upland bogs firm. Young grouse and sage-hens are full- 
 grown and whirring, the fawns are able to keep pace with their parents, 
 and the fattening deer are aggregating into herds and slowly moving to 
 their winter resorts. The elk and blacktail bucks now strut out upon 
 some projecting crag, or move into the centre of a valley, calling in 
 loud, clear greeting an invitation to the does to flock to their standard, 
 and a challenge to rival bucks to meet in deadly tournament. 
 
 "Ah," says Harry, "it's finer music to listen to that old bull-elk 
 squealing up at the head of the canon than to hear the Prussian band !" 
 
 It is better music. It arouses all the poetry of the hunter's nature 
 — and he possesses not a little. Then he will creep up within range, 
 perhaps cleverly imitating the sonorous whistle to draw the foolishly 
 proud buck on, drop on one knee, and fire, planting his bullet behind 
 the fore-shoulder. Harry always carries two light rods, tied together 
 near one end, in the fork of which he rests his heavy rifle. His misses 
 are rare ; but I think that his general success in shooting is due less to 
 his accurate marksmanship than to his perfect knowledge of the ways 
 of the game. He is a student of the science of hunting. He has 
 learned, for instance, how to impose upon the confidence of the timid 
 pronghorn, by exciting its curiosity; knows that the white-tailed deer 
 must be sought in their runways low down among the watercourses 
 (whence they are sometimes called " willow -deer "), and the blacktail 
 higher up among the aspen-groves; watches the "black brush" to see 
 whether deer have been browsing upon it lately; tells you that wapiti 
 have been there that morning, because he sees that the plaintain-leaves 
 have been nibbled; judges by the half-emptied pine-cones that grouse 
 have been picking at them, and therefore may be looked for. These 
 evidences of the presence of animals are classed as "signs" and "doin's," 
 and it is a hunter's business to know how to interpret them properly.
 
 HARRY'S HUNTING ADVENTURES. 177 
 
 In the early autumn Yount will shoot a wagon-load of game at a 
 time, camping for a few days not far from market, and bringing his ven- 
 ison into Laramie, Cheyenne, or Sydney, for sale ; but when winter seri- 
 ously threatens, Harry puts into his wagon a small tent, some buffalo- 
 robes and blankets, a bake-oven, frying-pan, coffee-mill and kettle, some 
 copper pails, plates, etc. ; his score or so of steel traps, axe, some boards 
 to do his skinning on, half a box of candles, plenty of fixed ammunition 
 for his breech-loading rifles, and, with Texas led behind, starts off to the 
 mountains alone for six months of winter residence. 
 
 His provisions consist of flour and coffee (browned and ground by 
 himself), a little bacon, some beans and hominy, sugar, salt, pepper, and 
 a few pounds of dried fruit, or perhaps some cans of preserved vegeta- 
 bles and sauce. This is not bad fare, and is luxury beside his larder of 
 twenty years ago, when for weeks and weeks he would have nothing 
 but meat and dried berries to eat, with sage-tea, camas-root and spruce- 
 gum for variety. He takes also a little whiskey for emergencies, and a 
 vast quantity of tobacco, to be the solace of his solitary hours. 
 
 Thus, all alone generally, though sometimes a chum joins him, Harry 
 drives off to the chosen spot in the foot-hills, where he counts upon the 
 game centring during the winter, or where there seems to be an oppor- 
 tunity for profitably setting his traps ; and, fixing his camp in some shel- 
 tered spot, with wood plenty and water accessible, he lives a hermit's 
 life through the " long and dreary winter." The weather allows him to 
 tramp about most of the time, and what he shoots too far away, or too 
 late to get to camp, he can bury in the snow, sure against decay. 
 
 Thrilling tales could be recited of the adventures of these mountain 
 men, who are abroad at this season almost as regularly as in the sum- 
 mer. Some, like Harry, are hunting in the foot-hill valleys, where the 
 game hides until the spring grass sprouts ; some are driving freight-wag- 
 ons between frontier towns and military posts; others working in army 
 pack-trains ; many herding on elevated plains, where the snow does not 
 lie long enough on the grass to starve the cattle. Most of them are 
 ignorant of how to take proper care of themselves, and, secure in the 
 pride of their toughness, are reckless of exposure. • It happens too fre- 
 quently, therefore, that they are crushed in snow-slides, starved by be- 
 ing weather-bound far from help, or are frozen to death. Not a year 
 ago a company of freighters were stopped on their way from Fort Lara- 
 mie to Cheyenne by a hurricane of snow. They wrapped themselves up 
 as well as they could, and built fires in the wagons unavailingly, since 
 the bottoms of the boxes would burn through before the men could eet
 
 L78 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 warm. When the storm was over they were all found dead, with the 
 horses frozen stiff in the traces. If a prospector conceives an idea that 
 at a certain locality in the mountains) gold will be found, often he will 
 become so eager to realize his dream that he will not wait for spring to 
 clear the trails, but in the dead of winter will start alone into the heart 
 of the range, carrying the whole furniture of his camp, his tools, and 
 his provisions, on a single pack-mule. Very likely he is never heard of 
 again ; and when, a year or two afterward, some hunter finds a skeleton 
 with a skillet, pick, and shovel beside it, he discovers all any one will 
 ever know of the prospector's " strike." Perhaps he became snow-blind, 
 and starved to death ; or was snowed-in in some canon until his scant 
 supply of flour and bacon was exhausted. It maybe Indians murdered 
 him ; possibly he slipped over a cliff, or broke through some treacher- 
 ous snow-bridge into a crevasse — at any rate, the wolves pick his bones, 
 and the last claim staked for him is six feet long by two feet wide ! 
 
 Our hero — a very cautious man — told us at the camp-fire one night 
 how narrowly he escaped being smothered in a snow-storm in April a 
 few years ago. He was trapping beavers along one of the tributaries of 
 the Platte, flowing through bluffs about sixty miles east of Cheyenne. 
 April is always an extremely disagreeable and dangerous month on the 
 plains, but it is not often that heavy falls of snow occur. Yount estab- 
 lished his camp upon the edge of a small stream frequented by these 
 animals, and placed his tent a little way up the bank in a steep gully, 
 since it was almost the only spot free from snow, and at the same time 
 out of reach of freshets. He had provisions for some days, a shovel, etc., 
 and plenty of bedding. One evening it began to snow pretty hard, but 
 he went to sleep without any special apprehension. In the morning he 
 found a gale blowing, and the snow falling in blinding fury. All that 
 day it continued, through that night, and until almost noon of the sec- 
 ond day — forty hours. He had no chance to cook any food, and so ate 
 nothing; but he and his dog lay in the blankets, and kept as warm as 
 they could. The prospect of being entirely drifted under and smother- 
 ed to death was so imminent during the second night that Harry once 
 wrapped his legs in -blankets, and started to fight his way out with a 
 board as his weapon, but decided to wait a little longer, and managed 
 to live until the gale ceased. Then he cut his way out at the top of the 
 tent, climbed over to the bare ground above, dug his kitchen out of an- 
 other drift, and lighted a fire. His next move was to cut loose his tent 
 from the frozen earth and take it to the high ground, preferring the 
 chances of an Indian attack to risking: another burial.
 
 WINTER IN THE MOUNTAINS. 179 
 
 The previous 
 winter — 1874, I think — 
 was an extraordinarily 
 cold one. Harry was 
 hunting through the hills 
 near Fort Laramie, and 
 had fixed his camp in a 
 canon called Goshen's 
 Hole. Heavy snow 
 came, with intense cold, and for forty- 
 five days the hardy hunter was weather- 
 bound, but this time he was in the timber 
 and otherwise sheltered, so that he did 
 not seriously suffer. Near his camp was 
 a round, fiat-topped butte, where the wind 
 blew the snow off the grass as fast as it 
 fell. Here there was always an abun- 
 dance of black-tailed deer and other game, 
 
 rendered tame by privation, so that he had plenty of meat. At first 
 Harry shot many of these, burying their bodies in the snow, but the 
 wolves speedily found his caches, melted the snow by some means, and 
 dug out all the carcasses; so he gave it up, and killed only enough 
 deer for his own use. Wolves were exceedingly plenty, and had hard 
 work to live, while large numbers of white men and Indians were 
 
 A UL'NTEK S BLOCKADE.
 
 180 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 frozen to death during that " cold spell," which has rarely been equal- 
 led there. 
 
 Our next day's march was a long one, and the wind was very cold. 
 We were passing over a rolling, sage-brush country and sandy soil, with 
 bowlders dispersed throughout it; and an incessant cloud of dust was 
 kicked up by the mules. Three or four times we descended deep val- 
 leys and crossed considerable streams flowing from the mountains that 
 were not at all easy to ford. Their sunken course was defined for miles 
 by the rows of tall hemlocks that lined their banks, and whose topmost 
 twigs were about level with the surrounding country. 
 
 It was on this morning that we met a couple of trappers going into 
 the settlements with their peltries. They carried their "plunder" on 
 four or five ponies, all of which began to make friends with our mules, 
 and were received with kicks and squeals innumerable. Nevertheless, 
 it was hard to part the two sets of animals and make each train go its 
 own way. These roughly dressed, bearded men, with their Indian 
 ponies loaded down with uncouth materials lashed on in uncivilized 
 fashion, made a picture very much in keeping with the wild landscape 
 and ever to be remembered. They had been camping in the mountains 
 all winter, and were now going in to sell the products of their hunt, 
 and probably to spend all their hard earnings in a series of sprees. We 
 gave them letters to mail at Camp Stambaugh, offering compensation 
 for the trouble ; but they refused to accept anything, resenting it al- 
 most as an indignity, with the explanation that they were " neither 
 wealthy nor hard up." 
 
 The sage-brush thinned out somewhat as we approached New Fork, 
 another large affluent of the Green, and the goodness of the grass and 
 rapidity of its growth excited the attention of every one. It was al- 
 ready curing into hay as it stood, though half buried in snow. Flowers 
 were blooming in profusion everywhere, birds were singing gayly to their 
 mates sitting at home in the bushes, and yet all about us glistened the 
 glacial fields of the uplands, and the wind made us shiver under our 
 overcoats, as though it were January instead of June. 
 
 It being impracticable to carry a pack train farther into the moun- 
 tains toward Fremont's Peak than the outlet of a large stream, tribu- 
 tary to the New Fork of the Green river, the camp was fixed there to 
 wait while a small and unencumbered party made the ascent. Fre- 
 mont's Peak being in the very heart of the Wind River range, hav- 
 ing often been sighted from every side except the north, and com-
 
 FREMONT'S PEAK. 181 
 
 manding a view of a wide extent of country, was considered one of the 
 most useful geodetic points in Wyoming, and it was therefore especially 
 desirable to get good observations from it. Accordingly, on the morn- 
 ing of July 2, water having frozen thickly in all the little pools the night 
 before, Mr. Wilson, Harry Yount, and the writer started on a side-trip 
 to the summit, taking two pack-mules — one to carry the theodolite and 
 other instruments, and a second for the bedding and "grub," which lat- 
 ter is the corner-stone of all scientific work in this country. We par- 
 ticularly observed the features of the landscape as we went along, for 
 a peculiar interest attaches to this mountain, by name one of the most 
 widely known in the West, and yet perhaps at that time the most ut- 
 terly unknown of any. Even its position has been confused, and the 
 latest map of this part of the world (that accompanying " Captain 
 Jones's Reconnoissance of North-western Wyoming "), made in 1873, 
 puts Fremont's name upon the peak several miles south of here, which 
 we ascended the other day, and which the people near here have called 
 Wind River Peak; or possibly Captain Jones meant another high point 
 still farther south — ascended the day after the former, and named At- 
 lantic Peak, from the fact that it gives all its waters to the Atlantic 
 ocean, while the other heights of the range contribute to the Pacific, 
 on the west, as well as to the Atlantic, on the east. This latter is the 
 southernmost peak of the range. At any rate, whichever of the snowy 
 tops was meant, the existing maps are wrong in putting the name " Fre- 
 mont" upon any other mountain than this one in the centre of the 
 range; and it is difficult to understand how the mistake could have 
 been made, had the map-makers taken the trouble to read General Fre- 
 mont's own description of his explorations here thirty-five years ago, 
 when, in 1842, he conducted a governmental expedition from the Mis- 
 souri river to Oregon. Fremont says he marched from the South pass to 
 the Sandy river and camped, and thence to the New Fork, and camped, 
 and thence two days up the New Fork, beyond a lake, when he camped 
 as near to the mountain as he could get, and thence climbed it on foot, 
 enduring immense hardships, and being justly proud of the undertaking 
 ever since. Somebody has told me (whether his book says so, I am not 
 sure) that, either by accident or design, the brass cover of his telescope 
 was left there, and remained as a monument "even unto this day." It 
 is doubtful, however, whether, if really he did leave such an article 
 there, it could be found after the storms and thunder-bolts of thirty- 
 five wintry years had striven to obliterate it ; at least we could find 
 nothing of the kind.
 
 182 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Getting above 
 the thickets of the 
 ravine where the 
 camp was, we fol- 
 lowed — always upward and 
 north-eastward in general 
 direction — a ridge of gran- 
 ite bowlders which had 
 been shoved out and heap- 
 ed there by glaciers, and 
 was covered with sage- 
 brush. From it we could 
 look southward over the 
 wide plain of the Green 
 River basin, and westward 
 across to the blue wall of the Wahsatch, capped and streaked and spot- 
 ted with snow. Northward the crests of Mount Leidy, and one or two 
 more of the higher summits of the Gros Ventre mountains, were just 
 visible above the wooded foot-hills which in other directions limited the 
 
 A TRIBUTARY OF THE GREEN RIVER.
 
 RIVERS, LAKES, AND BEAVER-DAMS. 1S3 
 
 outlook. Right and left of us, wherever we could look down into a val- 
 ley, there in the bottom would be a lake — sometimes round, like a blue 
 eye ; sometimes long and straight, with regular edges ; sometimes wind- 
 ing in and out between the hills like a long, still river. The water was 
 deep, and reflected the light in different and varying ultramarine ; or if 
 it was shaded, receiving only reflected light, the glassy surface seemed 
 like polished iron, and suggested some Titan's shield — under which who 
 knows but the giant may be buried? 
 
 Once our course — for we followed no track — led us for half a mile 
 along the sinuous crest of a high narrow ridge connecting two hill-tops 
 as by a causeway, where we could at once look out upon the world of 
 plains below and up to the old white heads so far above us, where the 
 clouds were playing hide-and-seek among the crags. On one hand 
 our ridge-side dipped into a deep valley filled with immense quaking- 
 asp groves and thickets of birch and good grass ; on the other, to a 
 lake fed from the snow-banks above, through half a dozen turbulent 
 torrents, as we could see by gleams of white foam through the black 
 spruces. 
 
 This lake overflowed into that next below it, and so on through a 
 narrow stream filled with beaver-dams ; and the dams were so close to- 
 gether that the river was terraced, as it were, into a series of circular 
 ponds, framed in vivid green, and touching one another like a chain of 
 gems. The beaver is still abundant here, and trappers are beginning to 
 find it out ; and now that the Indians are no longer troublesome, every 
 one of these lakes will soon float their canoes and echo to the crack of 
 their rifles. Beaver will not be their only game. Most of the other 
 fur-bearing animals are to be found in good numbers, and there is any 
 quantity of elks, deer, bears, and possibly an occasional buffalo and 
 moose, with ducks and trout for the kitchen. 
 
 But the mules had been jogging on, and, catching a last glimpse of 
 an inky lake past an eagle whose broad back is scarcely blacker than 
 the water as he sails smoothly below us, we entered the forest. At first 
 we rode at a canter between the trees over a firm pavement of pine- 
 needles ; but after a mile or so, all the time ascending, the trunks be- 
 gan to stand closer together, and blocks of granite to obstruct the 
 way, with boggy hollows between, so that we must slowly wind about. 
 This increased until the wet spots became ponds, with mounds of 
 soft snow about their edges, while the bowlders grew into cliffs to be 
 climbed, and the defiles between them were choked with fallen timber. 
 After that there was no fun. We jumped trees and struggled through
 
 1S4 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 bogs ancl floundered in snow, and scrambled up and down piles of 
 broken rocks, until we were ready to give up again and again. But, 
 wriggling on, after a while we came to what seemed almost the last 
 gorge, and, getting down to this with a great deal of labor through the 
 deep rotten snow and fallen timber, we skirted the border of a lake, 
 stepping gingerly on the half-frozen ground, and found a fine camping- 
 place on a little bluff, where there was a decent amount of grass for the 
 plucky mules. We were eight hours on the road, and perhaps a dozen 
 miles from the main camp in a straight line, but had probably tramped 
 twice that distance in getting to our present point. 
 
 The sky was lowering, and the chilly wind blew as though it pre- 
 saged a storm. We built our fire quickly between two great pines, 
 whose thick tops joined overhead, and hurried our dinner, which con- 
 sisted of two loaves of very nice crisp bread, moulded in a small milk- 
 pan, then hardened a little by being held over the fire in the frying-pan, 
 and finally baked equally on both sides by being propped up in front 
 of the fire on a bit of stick. Then we had two elk-steaks apiece and a 
 rasher of breakfast bacon for relish, together with coffee (no milk) and 
 stewed plums from California. After dinner we heated some water in 
 the frying-pan, washed our dishes, hobbled the mules, put more fruit 
 a-stewing for breakfast, baked some new bread, smoked our pipes, and 
 fell to talking about bears, since signs of their frequent presence were 
 very observable everywhere in this neighborhood. 
 
 " Harry, did you ever actually see a grizzly bear?" 
 
 Preposterous question! Much like tossing a red rag to a bull. He 
 is lying with length and breadth full unfolded in the ease of well- 
 earned rest, his broad sombrero pushed back until the yellow blaze 
 lights up his brown face with strong and ruddy light, like some por- 
 trait by Rubens. There is grief and astonishment in his eye as he 
 repeats, 
 
 " Did I ever sec a grizzly ! Well, I allow it was only two year ago 
 my horse Tex and me was corralled by seven of 'em in Colorado ! It 
 was on White river, in September. I'd been out and shot a blacktail, 
 and was a-bringin' the quarters into camp tied behind the saddle, an' I 
 spose the bears smelt 'em ; for all at wunst there was the damnedest 
 rustlin' round ! and I knowed what it was. But we couldn't sl^r a step 
 — was just stuck in them bushes, an' had to fight. Texas stood still, 
 and I says to myself, 'Just you come out where I can see, and I'll give 
 one dose anyhow !' But they got scared, or suthin', and went off up 
 the hill. There was seven of 'em, young and old, and all right up on
 
 "DISCRETION THE BETTER PART OF VALOR." 185 
 
 end. Well, I didn't fool away no time gettin' out o' that, now, you may 
 bet your life ! 
 
 " It was that same trip," Harry continued, " when we was down in 
 the Grand River canon, that we had some fun with a bear ; but he was 
 a cinnamon — not so big as a reg'lar grizzly, but big enough for me. I 
 was skinnin' a mountain sheep right in camp, when the nigger cook, 
 George, hollered out, ' Jee-rusalem ! see dat ba' !' An' I looked round, 
 and here come a cinnamon pitchin' down the mountain right on top of 
 us. 'Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?' yells Shep Madeira, and 
 runs and jumps on the old Preacher bell-horse and gits, while George 
 picks up the shovel — first thing he could catch — and runs and jumps 
 into Grand river. My gun wasn't close by me, but I got it purty quick 
 and pecked the bear a couple o' times, and he was the deadest cinna- 
 mon I about ever seen. But Shep and the Preacher horse was a devil 
 of a time gettin' back !" 
 
 "That reminds me," laughed Mr. Wilson, "of a funny thing that 
 happened once in Nevada. Coming back from a mountain one day, we 
 surprised a bear and shot at him, but missed him, and he ran off very 
 lively. We followed along and chased him right through camp. There 
 were only a Mexican and the cook there, and they, seeing the bear run 
 by, started after — the Mexican on the horse with an old army pistol, 
 and the cook on foot with nothing but his rolling-pin. The bear got 
 away, but what the fellow proposed to do with the rolling-pin was more 
 than I or he could tell. Emmons and I did run a bear down on the 
 plains once, though, and killed him with our revolvers." 
 
 That called to Harry's memory an outfit he was with once, where a 
 Mexican saw a bear not far from camp, and having shot at it, started 
 after on a mule. Now a mule will nearly jump out of his skin at sight 
 or smell of Bruin, and the Mexican must have known it ; but he rode 
 hotly after the grizzly all the same, along the steep side of the moun- 
 tain. It was supposed he must have met him, for when the mule rushed 
 back to camp riderless and they went to look for the Mexican, they 
 found him down in the canon, where his mule had probably thrown 
 him, with his brains dashed out against a rock. 
 
 " Well," rejoined Harry — for none of the rest of us offered any far- 
 ther experiences, though our chief might have detailed many — " I've 
 seen lots of fellers terrible anxious to shoot a grizzly — till they seed 
 one. There was a little feller from California named Charlie Millen. 
 Charlie was crazy to slay a bear, and one day one of the men came in 
 and said that a terrible big grizzly was down in the canon. So Millen 
 
 13
 
 18G KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 he gets his gun and starts after that bear red-hot. He got on his trail, 
 and followed along till he come to some bushes, and was a-goin' through 
 'em, when all at wunst he come right on the grizzly lying down right in 
 the trail, with his head on a log. He wasn't more'n ten feet away, and 
 Charlie just gave one look, and then he lit out for camp. He'd had 
 enough grizzly just seein' them eyes. 
 
 " Then there was another feller I knowed — a sailor. He thought 
 he was the devil at shootin' bears, and was spilin' for a chance to try. 
 Well, one day I saw some signs, and told him I 'lowed if he'd go down 
 in the willows he'd get a shot. So off he goes, and pretty soon we 
 heerd a devil of a hollerin', and there was that sailor up a tree ! He'd 
 wounded a cinnamon, and she came for him, and before he could shin 
 up the little cottonwood damned if she didn't claw the whole seat out 
 o' that snoozer's breeches. He didn't want any more grizzly in his'n 
 neither !" 
 
 So the stories go on, as easily as the smoke rises upward and drifts 
 away across the face of the moon. Finally the coffee is well browned, 
 the pipes are out, the camp-fire sinks into embers and then into ashes; 
 darkness and stillness reign in the mountains, and each story teller and 
 story listener is only a gray mound of blankets and fur. 
 
 The gray of the morning found our camp awake, and the smoke of 
 our fire warmed the wings of the earliest birds — and there were plenty 
 to be warmed around this frozen lake, with tuneful throats, too. Before 
 sunrise, therefore, in order to get the clear morning light on the land- 
 scape and take advantage of the unmelted crust of the snow, the long 
 climb was begun. 
 
 First there was a tedious tramp of three miles over the roughest of 
 rocks, where living timber grew thick and dead logs lay thicker, with 
 snow and bogs between. This was enough to tire a strong man out, 
 yet it was only the preface. Above the last tree stretched two thou- 
 sand five hundred feet (half a mile) of snow, lying at as steep an angle 
 as gravitation would allow, and relieved only by black ridges of rough 
 rock ; nevertheless the climb was not a perilous one, requiring only 
 steady, muscle -straining, breath -exhausting work, and three hours of 
 this did it. 
 
 The summit proved to be a ridge two or three hundred feet long, 
 on which lay a deep bank of snow. On what seemed the most advan- 
 tageous part of this ridge the instrument was planted, and, the weather 
 being favorable, although naturally cold and windy, a good set of observa- 
 tions were secured with speed. No traces of General Fremont's visit were
 
 IMMENSITY AND POWER OF GEOGONIC AGENCIES. 187 
 
 to be found ; but had there been any — which is uncertain — the deep 
 snow would have hidden them. All material being buried, the building 
 of a monument was out of the question ; and the return, although not 
 by any means easy, was so much more quickly accomplished that the 
 camp was reached by noon. Then the furniture of our house — for a 
 night's lodging-place in this utter wilderness has the semblance and re- 
 ceives the regard of a house — was packed on our mules and in our sad- 
 dle-pockets, our hot and hasty lunch was eaten, and the march taken 
 up for the main camp in the valley by one o'clock. The snow we had 
 driven our mules over the day before was too soft to hold them now, 
 and they floundered so in the very first drift, actually rolling over and 
 over in the slush, that we had to go ahead and tramp a road through 
 for long distances. But this was ended at last ; and, following our 
 trail back with less difficulty than we had made it, the main camp was 
 reached in the early evening, and we sat down to our supper of fried 
 trout with eminent satisfaction. 
 
 This ends our special exploration of the Wind River range, and I 
 wish to give some general facts ascertained about it before going far- 
 ther, for these magnificent elevations are almost entirely unknown, or 
 misunderstood, and are attracting much attention and inquiry at pres- 
 ent throughout the West. Beginning at the Sweetwater river, in longi- 
 tude 109 and latitude 42 ° 15', approximately, the range extends north- 
 ward to Union pass, the whole length being about seventy-five miles 
 in a straight line. Although well defined on each side it is the greatest 
 mass of mountains in Wyoming Territory, and contains the highest 
 peaks, unless the Bighorn mountains should prove far more imposing 
 than they look. The Wind River is really a double range of peaks side 
 by side for the whole distance, but at frequent intervals a mountain or 
 lofty " saddle " will stand between the two ranges, connecting them 
 into a series of circles of peaks. I know of no range which might so 
 properly be termed a chain as this, whose mighty links are defined by 
 walls of towering rock and hollowed into tremendous depths. To look 
 from a summit into one of these amphitheatres scattered from end to 
 end of the interior of the range is to pause in amazement at the thought 
 of the immensity and power of the agencies that have worked together 
 to shape these masses. By what inconceivable fires was this adamant 
 forged, and with what unspeakable throes of nature was it cast up, and 
 through what patient labor of winter and summer, glacier and lightning, 
 was it fashioned into its present form ? Conjecture long may busy it- 
 self, and science ponder well, before the history of these monuments
 
 188 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 of the infancy of the globe is made plain to us. To try to think of 
 when these rocks were new is to begin to understand in what very 
 ancient times we live. 
 
 But, to resume a more literal treatment of my theme, it is enough 
 to say that these interior, cliff-hemmed valleys are very grand. Each 
 one is a vast hole, the bottom occupied by a lake, frozen during four- 
 fifths of the year, and having no apparent outlet or draining through a 
 narrow cleft to form a river below. Seen from above these lakes look 
 black, except when covered with snow, and from them the land ascends 
 in masses of solid rock and slopes of splintered debris to the high peaks 
 or to the top of the talus, or the boundary wall, which often has a verti- 
 cal face of a thousand, fifteen hundred, or two thousand feet. Within 
 these canons some trees may grow, perhaps, along the edge of the lake, 
 but scraggily, and showing that they have a hard time of it, and you 
 may creep down into most of the basins and creep out again, but hav- 
 ing done it once you will not care to repeat the feat. I know this from 
 experience. 
 
 The inside walls of all the mountains, as I have already indicated, 
 are for the most part nearly vertical from immense heights, but their 
 outsides show a series of slopes divided into great ridges and buttresses 
 by glacier-cut canons, and propped up by foot-hills of unusually rough 
 aspect. Nowhere in the West is the prodigious effect of ice in shaping 
 mountain ranges more manifest than in this chain. The paths of old 
 glaciers, and the gigantic furrows they have ploughed, are visible all the 
 way to the desolation-scarred summits, while rank behind rank of the 
 outer foot-hills, and the plains far beyond them, are moraines of gravel 
 shoved up under the prows of the glaciers, deposited along their sides, 
 or rolled out from beneath their blue arches by the rivers which their 
 melting fed. In many cases these banks of gravel and bowlders remain 
 as they were heaped up by ice, but more often they are changed from 
 their original form, and owe their present appearance to the action of 
 water subsequent not only to the retreat of the great continental ice- 
 sheet at the close of the glacial epoch, but also after the disappearance 
 of the local glaciers which remained for thousands of years, no doubt, 
 in this stronghold of cold, but gradually succumbed to the increasing 
 warmth of the air as the progress toward the present continued. What 
 now are canons these local glaciers filled full of slowly but steadily 
 moving ice, thousands of feet thick, whose under surfaces, shod with a 
 rasp of granite blocks frozen in, filed deeper and deeper the vast grooves 
 in which they slid, pushing the chips out ahead of their advancing front,
 
 AMELIORATIVE CHANGES DURING PAST AGES. 189 
 
 and spreading them far and wide by torrents of water poured from be- 
 neath them. Each year, as the change from the frigid to a warmer 
 climate went on, the winters would be shorter and less severe, the snow 
 less and less in amount, affording the glaciers less nourishment and cur- 
 tailing their growth. Each summer, therefore, the ridge pushed up by the 
 advance of the ice during the previous winter would be a little behind 
 the ridge made by the larger growth of the previous year ; and thus 
 a succession of ridges of rolled fragments and soil would be left lying 
 across the valleys from the outermost edge of the mountains up toward 
 the summits. The canons, vacated by the glaciers when at last the 
 milder climate would no longer allow of their formation, would then 
 become the channels for the drainage of the vast depths of snow which 
 at that time covered the range ; and how broad those great streams 
 of melted snow were, is plain from these wide beds cut down the side of 
 every mountain. But the warmth of the climate of this latitude con- 
 tinued to increase, less snow to fall annually, and the volume of water 
 to decrease in proportion, until now the largest outlets of the greatest 
 snow-banks are mere rills meandering among the pebbles of ancient 
 channels far within the terraced margins of the old flood. The Green 
 river of to-day, compared with the Green river ten thousand years ago 
 — and the general course is the same now as then — is as a scratch of 
 my pen down the page on which I write. 
 
 Viewed from the west, and I fancy equally from the plains which 
 spread from its eastern base, the Wind River range fills the horizon 
 with a tumult of lofty mountains. I am warned by the fate of many 
 before me not to attempt any set description of this chaos. There are 
 domes and pyramids, cones and pinnacles, and mighty slabs on edge 
 like the curbing of a continent, nowhere standing in orderly rank, one 
 behind the other, but everywhere between the eastern and western 
 foot-hills tossed in white crests and ridges irregularly, like the foam- 
 ing and curling tops of the bewildered waves in a chopped sea. They 
 seem ready at any instant to break into new combinations of dome and 
 peak, yet stand forever the same. It is what Thoreau called " tumultu- 
 ous silence." They seem ever stormy. Our experience among them 
 I have detailed — it was like February all the time, though our almanacs 
 pointed to midsummer. Since we have left these canons we have seen 
 the tempests marching among them back and forth, mustering upon the 
 high summits and charging down the valleys. This stormy climate, the 
 quantity of snow they hold, the lateness of the season before it begins 
 to melt, the new appearance of the cliffs, the scantiness of the soil and
 
 L90 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 size of the rivers, the young look of the forests, all point to the conclu- 
 sion that, geologically speaking, it was only a short time ago when the 
 ice held full sway among these remarkable mountains, and when winter 
 was never absent from their fastnesses. Old Boreas even now is loath 
 to leave this castle. 
 
 THE WIND RIVERS. 
 
 There is no range of mountains in this country, and perhaps none 
 in the world, that support so large a drainage. From the southern 
 slope flows the Sweetwater, a river two hundred and fifty miles long, and 
 the largest affluent of the Platte. Near it half a dozen large streams 
 find their way out of the cafions and unite to form the Wind river, 
 which empties into the Bighorn river one hundred and fifty miles 
 north, receiving many small streams by the way, while the Bighorn 
 itself takes its origin there. Then the western slope feeds, through in- 
 numerable creeks, the Green river, which heads at the northern end of 
 the range and gets water enough to flow two thousand miles to the 
 Gulf of California. But this is not all. Rising at Union Peak, the 
 northernmost of the Wind River mountains, and divided from the Green 
 by a line of hills, the Snake river starts on its long voyage southward
 
 IMMENSITY OF THE RIVER-COURSES AND SUPPLY. 191 
 
 through Wyoming and Idaho, and thence flows north-westward into 
 Oregon to make the Columbia. Clark's Fork of the Columbia, the Yel- 
 lowstone, the Gros Ventre, and innumerable minor watercourses also owe 
 their strength to these generous reservoirs. The amount of snow that 
 is stored up here, to be slowly dealt out, can be appreciated when it is 
 considered how many thousands of miles its meltings run ; and it is 
 not difficult to understand why the neighborhood of such an abode of 
 cold, in the midst of wide and heated plains, should be a scene of al- 
 most perpetual storm. It is the head-quarters of meteorology f on this 
 side of the world, and this single group of mountains saves Wyoming 
 from being what old geographers used to have it — a great American 
 desert. 
 
 The mountains of this chain consist altogether of granite, this prime- 
 val rock being manifested in all its forms, with more or less gneiss. At 
 the northern end high bluffs of sandstone and limestone are tipped up 
 against the granite overlying it. Of course, veins of quartz intersect 
 the granite in every direction, and in endless variety of character, shape, 
 and condition. Our men, familiar with the appearance of all sorts of 
 American auriferous quartz, could duplicate every kind they had ever 
 seen in the specimens chipped from the leads or found in the " washes " 
 of rolled gravel. There were veins of pure shining crystals, adhering 
 sharply to their granite walls, or lying between granite on one side and 
 gneiss on the other ; veins of opaque green quartz ; veins of decom- 
 posed quartz, red as cinnabar ; veins dark brown ; veins ochre-yellow ; 
 veins of all manner of mineral -bearing rock, with the coarser metals 
 sticking out of them.
 
 192 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 It was the morning of the Fourth of July when we struck our tents 
 at the base of Fremont's Peak and bid good-bye to the Wind Rivers — 
 those haughty Highland chieftains, impassive as their granite thrones, 
 bonneted with cloud and kilted with snow, awaking one another with 
 clan-cries of thunder and flashing claymores of lightning about their 
 wrinkled brows — leaving them with little regret, for they have not been 
 gracious, but rather have sought to oppress with their majesty and 
 power. So we clattered gayly through the bright river, scaring shoals 
 of young trout precipitately to their deep holes, and wound our way out 
 to the plains or gravel-hills, which latter gradually became less and less 
 in height, dwindled into the terraces that mark the lessening of the 
 Green river from its ancient breadth, and finally were lost in the level 
 of the sage-brush plain, where, in the bottoms, there was much alkali 
 and spots of soft ground. But for the most part, for mile after mile, 
 the surface was as firm and level and smooth as a lawn ; nor was there 
 any sage to trip over, but short, tough marsh-grass, among which black- 
 birds bred, clamorous curlews circled, whistling to one another in clear, 
 loud signals, and snipe peeped as they scuttled away from our ap- 
 proach. This was too good to last, and we had plenty of worse be- 
 fore we encamped that night on a branch of the river and smoked our 
 very last cigar in commemoration of Independence Day. The weather 
 seemed delightfully warm after the Arctic experiences of the previous 
 month ; and not only did we not put up our tents, preferring, like Cori- 
 olanus, to make our beds under the canopy, but took a refreshing bath 
 in the rapid brook. Among the willow-bushes here innumerable birds 
 nestled in happy confidence — among the rest several fish-hawks, whose 
 huge domiciles were within reach of my hand, and our ornithological 
 man was kept busy. 
 
 This is the upper extremity of the Green River basin, which may 
 properly be said to extend southward as far as Southern Utah, being 
 bounded on the east by the Wind River mountains, the Sweetwater
 
 THE UPPER LIMIT OF THE GREEN RIVER BASIN. 
 
 19J 
 
 hills, the buttes south of Yellow Butte, and the Uintah mountains, in 
 Colorado and Eastern Utah. Its western drainage is from the Wah- 
 satch mountains, dividing it from the waters of Snake river and from 
 the Salt Lake basin. At this latitude the valley varies from ten to 
 fifty miles wide, and is barricaded at the north by the Gros Ventre 
 
 
 THE FIELD-LAliORATORY OF AN ORNITHOLOGIST. 
 
 hills, among which the Green river rises, finding exit close beside the 
 Snake fiver, through Union Pass. But the Green river flows fifteen 
 hundred miles to make the Rio Colorado, while the Snake finds its 
 way far to the north and pours through the canons of the Columbia 
 into the North Pacific, enclosing between them a triangle having all 
 California and Oregon for its base.
 
 194 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 It is too cold up here to raise any crops, but there is magnificent 
 grass for cattle; and if the sage-brush were burnt off there would be 
 ten times as much more. Still it would be hard to winter herds here, 
 although a hundred miles lower down it could be done on sheltered 
 ranges. Nothing but the usurpation of the ground by dwarf willows 
 prevents thousands of acres of good hay from growing naturally on all 
 these bottoms. The willows are easily eradicated, nevertheless, and the 
 hay will follow. Perhaps oats and barley could be made to ripen also. 
 
 Starting almost at sunrise on the morning of the 5th, we continued 
 our northward march over the same plains-country and under a cloud- 
 less sky. It was warm, truly, but not sultry. The temperature often 
 rises as high here in midsummer as in New York, but you do not feel 
 the heat so much. The direct rays of the sun are scorching, but the 
 air is not murky; and if you get in the shade you are comfortable in a 
 very short time. No one is ever sunstruck here, and "hardly ever" in 
 California, where the thermometer sometimes indicates 120 degrees. We 
 carried canteens of water, but those who drank scarcely once from morn- 
 ing till night suffered the least from thirst. The mountains toward which 
 we were wending our way were the Gros Ventre hills, a range of no 
 great altitude, stretching east and west from the upper end of the Wind 
 Rivers over to the Snake river — forty miles or more. Few of the sum- 
 mits reach above timber-line, yet all bore considerable snow and were 
 clothed with forests. First entering groves of aspen-trees of unusually 
 large size, and abounding in underbrush of various shrubs and plants, 
 with high grass in all the glades, we soon passed them, and began to 
 climb ridges of quartz-gravel, wooded to the top, sometimes finding a 
 game-trail to follow, but oftener working our way through as best we 
 might. 
 
 Everything showed a rapid and luxuriant growth. The foliage was 
 all green, weeds were high, flowers in a profusion of bloom. Many spe- 
 cies which are small out on the plains grow taller and larger here ; the 
 ground was sodden, and where we had to cross depressions there was 
 danger of miring. Meantime we kept getting higher and higher, and 
 at last could see over, and behold ! north and west of us stretched a 
 great park, fenced in by snowy mountains, embroidered with streams, 
 and diversified by low hills and green valleys, groups of light quaking- 
 asp, dense groves of pine and spruce, purple patches of sage-brush, and 
 sunny bits of prairie where antelopes were disporting. Yet the en- 
 trance to this happy valley so eluded our grasp that we were all day 
 wandering about in a dense spruce forest, and only got down at night
 
 DISCOMFORTS AND DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED. 195 
 
 in time to startle two sand-hill cranes from the fen in which they lived, 
 setting them flying in a crazy manner about our heads, croaking in a 
 guttural, rattling cry like a hoarse frog, and to camp on the opposite 
 hill-side among hosts of mosquitoes that preyed upon us incessantly, in 
 spite both of pitchy smudges and of the midnight chill. 
 
 The following morning we were glad to get away, but had little 
 respite from the mosquitoes and flies. We steered for the highest 
 promontory ahead, called Wyoming Peak, and went down some terrible 
 hills at the foot of it. We could not ride down, or at least we would 
 not risk it, and at home would have thought it almost impossible to 
 ivalk where the loaded mules picked their way after Mr. Wilson through 
 the unbroken woods, jumping trees, crushing through bushes, squeezing 
 between trees, and pushing the gravel ahead of them at every descend- 
 ing step. Even the insects deserted us here. They couldn't stick on 
 the mules' backs at such an angle. This done, and a number of other 
 difficulties surmounted without accident, we crossed a torrent of sudsy 
 water, and began to climb through the woods, where fallen timber was 
 thick, up to the open plateaus above, and at last camped at the limit of 
 tree growth — perhaps 10,500 feet above the sea — in the last grove of 
 dwarf spruces. Enough of the day remained to make the topographical 
 sightings wished for from the peak, and this was done satisfactorily. 
 These hills consist of upheaved edges and gullied-out ridges of sand- 
 stone and limestone strata, the latter being above. From their north- 
 ern slope the Green river originates and flows out to the south, around 
 their eastern end, instead of rising east of Union Peak, among the Wind 
 River mountains, as had been supposed. Near the head of the Green 
 are the springs of the Gros Ventre river, which flows westward a hun- 
 dred miles or so, and becomes one of the largest tributaries of the 
 Snake. This river and the hills, which do not rise more than 12,500 
 feet at the highest, are named after the Gros Ventre Indians, a tribe 
 that once inhabited the Upper Missouri, and were famous in the time 
 of Lewis and Clarke. They were gradually driven back and killed off, 
 until the remnant is now in Dakota. Beyond the Gros Ventre a very 
 mountainous country extends to the Yellowstone Park, which itself is 
 by no means small. From the western termination of the Gros Ventre 
 hills there stretches southward an unnamed range of mountains, whose 
 summits rise far above timber-line and hold much snow. It is really a 
 continuation of the Wahsatch, and perhaps ought not to receive any 
 separate name ; nevertheless it is well isolated from the rest of that 
 chain, which is ill -defined at best. It is this range that makes the
 
 196 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 western wall of the Green River valley, and toward a high point near 
 its northern end we directed our next day's long and tiresome march. 
 
 But one word about our camping-place on the mountain. The site 
 was a ledge, or hill-top, just under the edge of the crowning bluff, and 
 the easily crumbling sandstone had formed a deep soil. Wherever the 
 snow was gone we saw that this soil was thrown up into innumerable 
 ridges by the moles, which had tunnelled under the snow in every 
 direction. Instead of "making a mountain out of a mole-hill," these 
 little miners had been making mole -hills out of the mountain. The 
 least current of water running from the drifts carried away this loosened 
 earth, and thus the soil to a depth of several inches is yearly stripped 
 off the height and contributed to the valley. Blind moles are level- 
 ling the Rocky Mountains! Getting down without extraordinary dif- 
 ficulty into the gulch, through which a fair -sized stream, called Fall 
 river by the trappers, made its way out into the park we had seen on 
 the previous day, we rode along its banks. It was full to the brim of 
 muddy water, for the unusual warmth of the past two days had pro- 
 duced a freshet. 
 
 In almost any stream in the mountainous parts of the Territory 
 you may find more or less beavers and beaver dams. But this stream, 
 and this whole region, surpasses any place I know of as a resort for 
 these animals, now so scarce east of the Mississippi. In the rocky 
 canon higher up, this creek was thirty or forty yards across, nor would 
 it have been much wider in the more open valley below, had it not 
 been impeded ; but for a dozen miles the beavers had so dammed it 
 and choked it with their houses that the water spread out to a mile 
 or more in width, and hundreds of dead and living trees, once far back 
 from the margin, were now standing equally far out in the water. 
 Some of the dams measured a hundred or more feet in length, and 
 were built on a curve, with the hollow of the curve up stream, yet so 
 substantially that they were standing the beating of this freshet with 
 slight damage. All along the bank of the stream the hill-side was bare 
 of aspens, and their stumps, cut off close to the ground, showed what 
 had destroyed them. Some of the stumps were of trees ten or twelve 
 inches in diameter, and seventy- five yards from the water, yet there 
 was no doubt that these rodents had felled those trees, trimmed off 
 the branches, peeled away the bark, and then dragged the logs all the 
 way to the water, to put into a new dam or repair an old one. Indeed, 
 we surprised some of them at work. Most of the dams were shorter 
 than I have mentioned, and ran from one to another, so that there was
 
 A PROSPECTIVE FIELD FOR THE BEAVER TRAPPER. 
 
 197 
 
 a net-work of them supporting a growth of willows, and each enclosing 
 a little basin of deep, still water, in which would rise like an island the 
 domed top of their home. But the houses of many were under the 
 
 IN THE UROS VENTRE HILLS. 
 
 bank, and of others beneath the dams, as we could see by the paths to 
 them, which showed plainly through the water. Wherever the willows 
 grew closely to the water's edge for some distance, there would be roads 
 through them at frequent intervals, the stems gnawed off, and the 
 weeds trodden down smooth. " Busy as a beaver " acquires a new 
 force when we think how ceaselessly he must work to get his daily 
 food, collect winter stores, keep his house in order, repair his dam, and 
 guard against enemies. We saw none of the animals themselves. They 
 are rarely seen by any one who does not secretly watch, being able to 
 detect your approach by the jar of the ground, if not otherwise, and 
 hide themselves. 
 
 A good trapper ought to secure a thousand dollars' worth of beaver 
 skins on this one stream in a single winter, and there are other great 
 communities within a short distance. He would find the place an ex- 
 cellent one to spend the winter in, too. Besides the beaver he would
 
 103 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 get not a few otters, whose skins are worth seven or eight dollars 
 apiece, and martens, minks, and fishers in the marshes ; but he must 
 go away from the big beaver colonies for the others, none of these 
 animals, and particularly the otter, consorting well with the trowel- 
 tailed gentry. In the mountains and woods, to which the hunter win- 
 tering in the Fall River valley would have access, he would be able to 
 shoot and trap bears, both grizzlies and the cinnamons, wolves (both 
 gray and the prairie), wild-cats, lynxes, and foxes. All these furs would 
 be valuable, and he could get plenty of venison and " small deer " for 
 his larder, not to speak of skunks to bait his traps with, and the feath- 
 ers of the sage-hen as a lure to his mink and marten snares. 
 
 It was at the lower end of this stream that we started a band of elks 
 (consisting of a young buck with half-developed horns, and several does) 
 from the shallows, where they were pawing in the water to escape the 
 flies. They did not notice us till we were right upon them, and no less 
 than three Nimrods banged away, only breaking the leg of one doe, which 
 ran away, the injured limb swinging like a rope's end. A second shot 
 mercifully killed her. She had a small calf— a circumstance not known 
 when the first shot was fired — and this calf, in its bewilderment, came 
 right toward us, bleating pitifully. It would have starved to death, and 
 so we shot it, and the veal proved to be very good. The abundance of 
 game which I have chronicled in my notes on the Sweetwater country, 
 has continued, but we have not seen quite so many individuals, because 
 the regions we have traversed of late have been less open, affording 
 more hiding-places ; because the mosquitoes and flies have driven them 
 up above the timber or into the dense brush ; and lastly, because the 
 Indians have been hunting through here for some weeks, and have made 
 the animals wary. We noticed this at once after getting into the Green 
 River basin, before which the elks and deer regarded us with an uncon- 
 cern equal to that Selkirk complained of on his lone island : 
 
 " The beasts that roam over the plain 
 My form with indifference see ; 
 They are so unacquainted with man. 
 Their tameness is shocking to me." 
 
 I can't say that the tameness of these "beasts" shocked us partic- 
 ularly; but we were so loath to impose upon their confidence that I 
 know of but one that has been shot uselessly. Lately the antelope 
 have fled at our approach, and the larger game have made themselves 
 scarce. Our hunting propensities consequently have been excited, but
 
 "THE NOBLEST OF GAME." 199 
 
 somewhat fruitlessly, not having time to hunt systematically; yet we 
 have not been a single day since the beginning of the trip without at 
 least two varieties of venison in camp. "Sow-belly" has not been in 
 lively demand, therefore, although a few bites, nicely cooked, season a 
 meal well. 
 
 Latterly we have struck the bighorns, which we had not seen since 
 leaving the Seminole mountains. They are the noblest of game, after 
 all. Much like the chamois or ibex, the man who would get them, even 
 though they never saw the human form before, must have the strength 
 and agility to climb to the loftiest ledges and skill to shoot at long 
 range. Even then he may lose his dead game, its body often tumbling 
 over some precipice utterly out of his reach. The mountains west of 
 Green river are full of them, and in making stations upon their summits 
 the topographer has a good chance at them. Once or twice we have 
 had bands in sight for two or three hours at a time, feeding upon the 
 green hill-tops below us, where scattering clumps of dwarf spruces fur- 
 nished shelter when they cared to rest, and the young grass afforded 
 the best of pasture. It was very interesting to watch them. An old 
 ram or two, easily distinguished by the immense horns from ewes, 
 whose horns are small and light, would lead the flock, and there would 
 be from ten to fifty younger rams, ewes, and kids following. How they 
 can run ! Let the ground be rough or smooth, level or inclined, it 
 seems to make no difference, and the kids will race up and down the 
 steep snow-banks just for fun. The hair of these mountain sheep is 
 coarse and slightly crinkey, and when the bluish winter-coat comes out, 
 displacing gradually the brown summer pelt, you may find everywhere 
 between the hairs a shorter coat — a sort of undershirt — of the finest 
 silky wool. The flesh of the bighorn is tender and juicy in the autumn, 
 when the animals become fat, and has a taste between mutton and an- 
 telope, partaking of both. We have seen one small company of buffa- 
 loes west of Green river, and their skulls are scattered over all these 
 hills up to timber-line. This plenitude of animal life and wealth of all 
 such vegetation as the climate will permit (for the valleys are eight 
 thousand feet in height) is due both to the sheltered position of the 
 district among the mountains and to the constant moisture supplied by 
 the melting snow-banks. These very circumstances are productive of 
 two great disadvantages, without which the Green River basin would 
 be a paradise for travellers. One of these is the increase of the streams 
 by the raising of the water in the beaver dams, causing them to be 
 boggy and unfordable for long distances.
 
 200 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Another disadvantage, springing from the amount of still water 
 lying everywhere, are the hordes and hosts and legions and myriads of 
 mosquitoes and flies — flies large and small, all sizes and shapes and col- 
 ors, but with a single eye to blood, and no compunction as to what 
 they puncture. Mule and man alike were attacked, and with equal 
 ferocity. We did nothing but fight flies day and night, decking our 
 riding-animals with boughs till they looked like the duck-batteries gun- 
 ners use along the New Jersey coast, and slashing about our heads with 
 
 A LEISURE AFTERNOON. 
 
 other branches till our arms ached. There were the black flies of the 
 Adirondacks, the 'skeeters of Jersey, the blunderheads of the Catskills, 
 the buffalo gnats of the plains, and a giant of a horse-fly peculiar to 
 these mountains. Nor when we got out of the timber and camped 
 away above on a bald ledge, hoping to get rid of them, did the flies 
 "let up," but swarmed about us as we ate, buzzing in our ears, getting 
 into our food, and running red-hot needles into every exposed part of 
 our bodies. At dark they all disappeared, but were relieved by the 
 mosquitoes, who kept the battle up till midnight froze them out.
 
 DESCENDING A MOUNTAIN. 201 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Several days were spent in hard climbing about these precipitous, 
 untracked hills, and in wading through the slushy snow on their high 
 crests. Their tops were all covered with fragments of stone quarried 
 out by the frosts, and on the edges of the cliffs huge masses are sepa- 
 rated and just ready to topple. In the season of melting, therefore, it is 
 unsafe to go to the brink of a sharp bluff, lest your weight may send 
 the whole crumbling edge headlong. But we found some slopes, and 
 had good fun rolling stones ; just as they got well started they had to 
 bound off a cliff and then "scoot" over a thousand feet of steep snow, 
 racing beyond this across a frozen lake and broad valley. No one 
 can resist the fascination of setting rocks a-rolling from the top of a 
 mountain. You turn loose a tremendous amount of force, and feel like 
 a giant as your hard-headed missile crushes its way among snow and 
 loose rocks, opening lanes through the bushes, snapping off trees like 
 pipe-stems (if the bowlders be large and tough), and bounding on till 
 they are lost to view. You have made a catapult of yourself, and you 
 enjoy it. 
 
 Coming down a mountain two or three thousand feet is quick work, 
 but it makes your knees ache ; and if the slope consists of large, angular 
 fragments of rock, as many of these summits do, there is about as much 
 hard work in it as in the climbing. But if the slope is loose soil you 
 may step twenty feet at a time, and thus leap down swiftly, taking cau- 
 tion not to trip and fall on your nose. When the snow-banks are hard, 
 you have simply to make use of that portion of your anatomy which a 
 beneficent Providence designed you should employ for this purpose, 
 and slide to the bottom like a shot. 
 
 Having completed our work among these rough ridges and turned 
 southward, there was great pleasure in riding down long valleys, across 
 the foot-hills and out through the park-like country. The woods showed 
 an excellence of growth far ahead of anything we had seen before. In 
 the high mountains there was nothing but small-sized white pine and 
 
 14
 
 202 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 THE CARSON SINK. 
 
 slender quaking-asps, gnarled and weather twisted. On the hills crossed 
 three days before the spruces and pines, though standing thickly, were 
 not large, and w r hile making good house-logs, would be useless to saw 
 up or trim for spars. Here the valleys were full of mighty yellow and 
 white and pitch pines, ragged spruces three and four feet through, and 
 giants of red firs, straight as arrows, with shapely spires more than a 
 hundred feet high. The poplars and cottonwoods grew to their utmost, 
 and between them were dwarf maples and sumachs, wild plums, and 
 many other shrubs new to us. The crop of grass was dense and heavy 
 everywhere, proving true the old quatrain :
 
 A NIGHT'S REST ON THE GREEN RIVER PLAINS. 203 
 
 " A foot deep of rain 
 Will kill hay and grain ; 
 But three feet of snow- 
 Will make them come mo'." 
 
 Sometimes signs of previous occupancy added to the attractions of 
 a camp, when it was made near some trail, and we speculated on the 
 kind of man who had been there before us. How long before? What 
 was his object? And whither was he bound? In a region so wild and 
 utterly untenanted as this anything pertaining to humanity is invested 
 with extraordinary interest. From these foundation- sticks we could 
 tell the size and kind of tent he had ; from the tracks could decide that 
 his one animal was a horse, not a mule (which makes a smaller, nar- 
 rower track), and knew that at this stake he picketed him at night, and 
 by that path led him to the water; from this stump we guessed the 
 sharpness of his axe ; that wadding told the size of his rifle ; here was 
 his fire; there, where the grass is trampled, he piled his night's wood. 
 Where this hunter or beaver-trapper has camped and left his history on 
 a few chips there remains a civilized aspect which Nature must work 
 long to efface. 
 
 After they are weary of the majesty of mountain Avails, here will 
 wander the painters making studies. I commend to them some of 
 those lakelets set in a wall of evergreen-tangled rock, or spreading gen- 
 tly over the green herbage as the melting snow trickles into them and 
 swells their flood ; lakes which, in the sunlight, reflect' their margins 
 like mirrors, and in the shadow, as you look down upon them, take pre- 
 cisely that opaque, dead, sap-green hue of the pools of heavy oil I have 
 seen in the muddy ravines of West Virginia. Ride along under the 
 brow of some moss-grown cliff, and you are sure to find hidden in a 
 bunch of greenery a spring, seething quietly with gentle hissing of small 
 bubbles. Camp there, and call it champagne ; its bead is perpetual. 
 
 All day we had caught glimpses of the Green River plains, like a 
 misty gray sea, and in the afternoon got out upon them, and rested at 
 night on a creek bottom where Indians seemed to have camped for 
 generations. It was a pretty place, but disfigured by dirty debris and 
 the remains of old wicky-ups, as the Indians call the bough lodges they 
 build when on hunting trips. Angwinam, a prominent man among the 
 Shoshonees, was camped, with his family, two miles distant, and came 
 to see us, happening in, as if by accident, just as dinner was called. 
 He was trapping beaver, or, more exactly, trying to, for he could show 
 none of the skins of this animal among his collection of peltries.
 
 204 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 There was a heavy shower that night, but the next morning was 
 clear, and, saddling early, I started up to the top of a neighboring bluff 
 to see the grave, or rather the corpse, of a child, supposed to be Ang- 
 winam's, discovered by our cook the evening before. He described 
 it as being wrapped up in bark and skins and cloth, and lashed to a 
 frame of osiers shaped like a snow-shoe. This was lying upon a shel- 
 tered ledge. In the morning I found the osier-rack, but no body. It 
 had evidently been taken away and secreted. The reader would have 
 been amused could he have witnessed the exceedingly dignified, circum- 
 spect, and conciliatory manner with which I made my examinations 
 there. My restless mule let me know plainly enough, though I could 
 not see them, that Indians were close by; and I had a vivid impression 
 that more than one Winchester rifle was waiting a pretext to send some 
 bullets into my sacrilegious body. 
 
 Meanwhile the train had " packed away," and I could see it like a 
 string of black dots far away on the prairie. Trying to make a short 
 cut across the beaver-dammed creek, I steered my mule into a likely- 
 looking shallow, and was half-way over, when she suddenly went clear 
 under and had to swim for it. I stuck to the saddle, and we reached 
 the opposite bank ; but it was too steep to climb out, and Mouse had 
 to turn round and swim back against the swift current, well-nigh ex- 
 hausted when she attained the bank, and looking like a drowned rat. 
 She recovered her breath by the time I had poured the water out of 
 my boots and saddle-bags, and then we went down to the ford, as we 
 ought to have done at first. 
 
 Fording a river, where the current is deep and rapid, is a dangerous 
 experience for a pack-train. The attendants must ride on the lower 
 side and keep the mules from drifting down-stream. They are very 
 sure-footed and plucky under their loads so long as they keep up ; but 
 let one fall down, and there is not an instant to be lost, if you would 
 save him and his cargo. Leap into the water and help him up without 
 an instant's delay, for if he gets any water in those big, furry ears of his 
 he will do nothing to save himself, but will lie there and drown without 
 a struggle. Mules can swim very well, however, if they are willing to 
 try, as I have just shown. I had presence of mind, in the case men- 
 tioned above, though the ducking was startlingly sudden, not to pull 
 in the least on the bridle-reins — a thing which should never be done 
 in swimming a horse or mule. 
 
 All mules are very particular and fastidious about their ears. They 
 won't allow them to be touched or interfered with. These long and
 
 WIND RIVER AND TEMPEST-BREEDING HEIGHTS. 205 
 
 mobile members are very expressive in their various positions, but I 
 could never learn satisfactorily what each position signified, unless it 
 was that the next movement would be precisely the opposite of what 
 was apparently intended. The paradox is this brute's model of mental 
 action. Never was a mule more innocent in appearance than one which 
 Mr. Wilson was riding just ahead of me one afternoon. I was half 
 asleep, when I felt a smart blow on my stirrup. I thought a stone had 
 been kicked up. A moment after the tapadcro was struck, and I was 
 just beginning to guess at the truth, when I saw the heels of that 
 mule fly up. Probably nothing but a quick movement of my leg saved 
 it from being broken. What caused that beast to kick at me three 
 times without provocation? — anything but "pure cussedness?" 
 
 Their tails, too, being very horse-like, are objects of great pride with 
 them, and they decidedly resent any fooling with them. The worst 
 spell of kicking I ever saw, I think, was once when I accidentally struck 
 backward with my three-lashed Indian quirt and got one thong entan- 
 gled in Darby's caudal extremity. Such a frightened and thoroughly 
 indignant beast I never bestrode and hope never to again ; but, in the 
 expressive phrase of that hard-riding region, I "stayed by him." 
 
 The first ten miles that morning was across rolling, grassy hills, 
 where thousands of cattle will ere long find plentiful summer pasturage, 
 and whence the eye could take in a wide view of plains and mountains, 
 savannas and woodland. The whole length of the majestic Wind River 
 range stood out behind us, blue -black as far up as the timber grew, 
 and above that all white with snow, many of the peaks showing not 
 a spot to mar their perfect cones. Before noon we could see the storm 
 clouds chasing each other through the mountains, and puffs of cloud 
 drifted away from the peaks, like the smoke from the mouth of a can- 
 non. Listening to the low growling of the far thunder, it was easy to 
 imagine a genuine " war of the elements " taking place among those 
 tempest-breeding heights. 
 
 Turning in from the plains to the entrance of the long east and 
 west valley, affording a passage-way through the range, we happily 
 struck an Indian trail, and followed the well-trodden path up a long 
 ravine beside an exceedingly picturesque brook, where the trout were 
 gliding through sunny shallows or leaping miniature cascades, and the 
 willows that arched over the blue beaver ponds were full of singing 
 birds. We scarcely knew when we reached the " Divide," and wound 
 about through open groves of evergreen timber with an ease that was 
 luxury after our experience of the tangled, log- obstructed forests
 
 206 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 encountered the week before.* In the middle of the range the trail 
 forked at a diamond-shaped prairie, where some herds of Indian horses 
 were feeding, and there was a log-house, called Bad Man's Ranch — for 
 what reason I do not know. Skirting this prairie and ascending the 
 bed of a torrent through a narrow, tortuous ravine, where black-tailed 
 deer were common, we stopped in a spruce grove, and made us beds 
 of springy boughs. 
 
 Of all the lovely camping-places in my recollection I think this one 
 over in Western Wyoming, among the nameless heights between the 
 Green and the Snake rivers, bears the palm. A ravine diverged from 
 the valley we had been travelling through, one side of which was a 
 high, grassy bank, and the other was wooded ; but in the w r oods opened 
 a little glade, down which came an icy rill, tumbling and foaming be- 
 tween banks of moss solid to the water's edge. All about were gigan- 
 tic, yellow -barked spruces, among which this level spot had remained 
 clear, just capacious enough for our tents. It was a place for perfect 
 repose. The eye, weary with incessant far-seeing, rested content on 
 the verdant slope that cut off the rest of the world. As, after the tur- 
 moil and noise of the city, the business man pulls the blinds close to- 
 gether and drops the curtain, shutting out the turbulent scenes of his 
 daily struggle, and shutting in the peace and love of his home, so we 
 were thankful that we could not see even the loftiest summits, and 
 gladly gathered round our cosy hearth-stones, where the spruce boughs 
 crackled like salt, and coils of black smoke writhed up from the res- 
 inous logs. 
 
 The night " effect," as painters phrase it, of such a bivouac as this 
 is weirdly curious. One need not be afraid to walk away from it into 
 the gloom : the Prince of Darkness is said to be a gentleman. And, in 
 fact, it is not dark out there in the open air; for under the lamps of the 
 constellations, and in that strange light from the north, even midnight 
 in the high mountains is only gray. But beneath the star-proof trees 
 there is the blackness of plagued Egypt — a darkness which may be felt 
 in thrusts from a thousand needle-pointed leaves and rough cones, if 
 one pushes too heedlessly into the recesses of the woods. The blaze is 
 orange-colored, the smoke heavy and black, illumined redly underneath. 
 The pillars of the smooth fir trunks within reach of the firelight stand 
 like a stockade about the camp, but the shifting light penetrates be- 
 tween them and summons from the darkness new boles, that step out 
 
 * See frontispiece.
 
 A NIGHT IN THE SHADOWY FOREST. 207 
 
 and retreat again as the capricious flame is wafted by the wind toward 
 or away from that side. 
 
 While the centres of the great, gummy logs are eaten by the blaze, 
 and while we sit on their ends and smoke our pipes, what soul-inspiring 
 talk is heard ! The stories flow as naturally as the sparks explore the 
 dark arch overhead, but-it is no more possible to communicate the point 
 and living fun of these narratives, told with the Western freedom of lan- 
 guage and usually apropos of some previous tale, than it is to tickle your 
 senses with the sizzle and delectable flavor of the deer's juicy ribs roast- 
 ing in those ashes. Shut in by the shadowy forest, we seem to inhabit 
 a little world all by ourselves, with sky, sun, moon, and stars of our own ; 
 and we converse of you in New York as Proctor does of the inhabitants 
 of other planets, and speculate upon the movements of armies and 
 governments as the Greeks discussed the life of souls across the Styx. 
 The affairs of the outside world have lost interest for us, since we are 
 no longer spurred by the heel of the morning newspaper. In simplify- 
 ing our life to a primitive measure we have ceased to trouble ourselves 
 about problems of politics or social economy, and are beginning to dis- 
 cover that the universe is less complex than we had made it. Thus we 
 conduct a sort of mental exploration parallel with the geodetic survey. 
 
 Early the next morning two of us, with a burden-mule, were off " to 
 make a peak." It was just at sunrise that we rode through the woods, 
 startling a splendid elk from under a big tree where he was sunning 
 his almost mature antlers, and we got out above the timber by eight 
 o'clock. Here the snow was gone, and we rode easily to the base of 
 the crest. This we had to climb ; and although the distance was not 
 more than half a mile to the summit, we were well-nigh exhausted, for 
 the whole way was over loose rock that slid from under our feet at ev- 
 ery step. It was almost advisable to take the school-boy's plan in the 
 old story: An urchin started for school one snowy morning, but reached 
 there after it had been "called." "Why were you tardy, sir?" shouted 
 the master, birch in hand. " 'Cause 'twas so slippery I slipped two steps 
 back for every one ahead," whimpered the boy. "Then how did you 
 get here at all?" "Turned round and walked backward," replied the 
 little fellow, and saved his hide. 
 
 Once at the top your breath comes back, and as long as you keep 
 still you suffer no inconvenience. But going up you have dismal 
 thoughts about the cold grave, etc. 
 
 This mountain was in the southern portion of the hills ranging north 
 and south, along whose bases we had been travelling for the previous
 
 208 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES, 
 
 ten days, and around whose foot we had passed the day before. It was 
 of red sandstone, capped with drab, crumbling limestone. Everywhere 
 the view was veiled in purple haze, through which the red and yellow 
 of bare ridge -tops in the plains gave a faint color. The lesser hills 
 about the mountain were of every shape, with wooded valleys between, 
 but their heads were bald, and bare of snow, which lingered only in 
 banks on shaded slopes, melting slowly into hollows of the surface, 
 which, overflowing, drained into larger hollows, and the surplus of these 
 collecting into ponds formed the fountains of rills, whose united wa- 
 ters were gathered into creeks and carried to the river channels, whose 
 courses we could mark across the far purple heather of the plains. Let 
 the sun beat down for a day with unusual fervor and the clear brooks 
 are turbid little floods, carving deep cafions in the mountain's side, and 
 scattering its substance far beyond its base. Thus the surface of the 
 plain and that of the mountain top are slowly approaching one another, 
 and the universal effort of Nature to re-adjust the disturbed levelness 
 of the globe is being accomplished. 
 
 However interesting it might prove, time forbids even to suggest all 
 that meets the eye and is implanted in the memory while one is sitting 
 for two or three hours on a peak of the Rocky Mountains — the surpris- 
 ing clearness of the air, so that your vision penetrates a hundred and 
 fifty miles ; the steady gale of wind sucked up from the heated val- 
 leys ; the frost and lightning shattered fragments of rock incrusted with 
 lichens, orange and green and drab and white ; the miniature mountains 
 and scheme of drainage spread before you ; the bright blue and yellow 
 mats of moss-blossoms ; the herds of big-horned sheep, unconscious of 
 your watching; the hawks leisurely sailing their vast aerial circles level 
 with your eye ; the shadows of the clouds chasing each other across 
 the landscape; the clouds and the azure dome itself; the purple, 
 snow -embroidered horizon of mountains, "upholding heaven, holding 
 down earth." I can no more express with leaden types the ineffable, 
 intangible ghost and grace of such an experience than I can weigh 
 out to you the ozone that empurples the dust raised by the play of 
 the antelopes in yonder amethyst valley. Moses need have chosen 
 no particular mountain whereon to receive his inspiration. The divine 
 Heaven approaches very near all these peaks. 
 
 From our lofty station the smoke of our camp-fire could be seen ; 
 and as we could thus lay our course there was little difficulty in getting 
 back home. But in work of this kind it frequently occurs that the to- 
 pographer must send his camp on indefinitely, and it is not always that
 
 MISTAKING THEIR VOCATION. 209 
 
 he can see their signal-smoke from his station. The finding of camp — 
 frequently reached after dark — then becomes a matter of woodcraft and 
 skill, and some persons never can find it. 
 
 A few years ago a young man was attached to one of these Ter- 
 ritorial Surveys — a graduate of Yale College — who knew how not to 
 do it to perfection. He was forever getting lost, and had some ex- 
 periences fearful to contemplate. One day the party with which he 
 travelled were on a hill within a mile of Canon City, Colorado, in plain 
 view of the town, and between two well-travelled roads. On their way 
 to the town a strip of timber was passed through, and when they got 
 past this and into the village the Yale man wasn't there ; nor did he 
 come in that night. The next day some of the men started to look 
 for him, and met him coming back — his eyes big with a story to tell. 
 He had fallen a few feet behind the party, which passed just out of his 
 view, when in some curious way he got himself turned about and started 
 in precisely the wrong direction, wandering and twisting and turning to 
 no purpose. He experienced all the doleful sensations of a lost man, 
 and at last built him- a little fire and lay down to sleep, when, lo ! there 
 stood on its hind legs before him a mountain lion ! Color indistinct, 
 ears long, small pointed head, big body, and a short white tail — he 
 didn't wait to see any more, but fled precipitately until out of breath. 
 And that graduate of Yale does not believe to this day that it was 
 an astonished jack-rabbit that scared him! 
 
 Another member of the same expedition, the next year, who soon 
 found that he had mistaken his calling in seeking to be an explorer, 
 and wished himself back on Boston Common long before he got there, 
 started to make the ascent of one of those fearful quartzite peaks in 
 the Uncompahgre range one morning, in company with two geologists 
 who were born mountaineers. Seeing his inability to keep up, they 
 pointed out to him where the Indian trail lay, along which, some miles 
 ahead, the evening's camp would be fixed. Poor Mr. G.'s breath soon 
 gave out, and he thought he would stop, then concluded he would go 
 down to where the riding animals were picketed and wait, but, growing 
 impatient, saddled his own mule and started for camp. He recovered 
 the trail and trotted along merrily, but just as he was expecting to reach 
 the camp-train he found himself at the deserted site of their morning's 
 bivouac. To retrace his steps in the right direction took him until 
 twilight, when, just as dusk was coming on, he heard guns fired a little 
 way ahead and thought he saw a fire. Instantly he was frightened — 
 though there wasn't an unfriendly Indian in the whole region — and
 
 210 
 
 KNOCKING "ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 took to his heels. A moment's sensible reflection would have shown 
 him that these were signals meant for his guidance, but his fears and 
 his greenness together made a fool of him, and he stayed out all night, 
 supperless, fireless, and quaking with imaginary fright. 
 
 Of another expedition in Nevada, where some soldiers were acting 
 as escort, an equal stupidity is related. Coming to a halt early one 
 evening, a soldier obtained permission to go and hunt near camp. 
 Darkness came on, and as he had not returned shots were fired and a 
 great blaze made to guide his return. Before long those in camp heard 
 his shouts, and hallooed in reply. This howling dialogue was kept up 
 at intervals until bed-time, but poor Johnny hadn't wit enough to fol- 
 low the sounds, and so slept far from his blankets until daylight — if he 
 slept at all — and got well laughed at, as he deserved, in the morning. 
 
 But such stupidity and absence of woodcraft are the exception; the 
 finding of their way correctly under the most adverse circumstances is 
 the rule with these explorers and native mountaineers, and many aston- 
 ishing incidents illustrating skill in this respect are to be related.
 
 THE MULE THE ABSORBING CAMP-FIRE THEME. 211 
 
 XXV. 
 
 PERHAPS I remember the camping-place described in the last chap- 
 ter, and from which I have only seemed to have wandered, so pleasantly, 
 because of the jolly anecdotes lingering in my memory first heard there. 
 
 After sunset the air in these high, Western regions grows rapidly 
 cool, and a chill air from the snow-banks seems to settle down and take 
 possession of the warm nooks where the sunbeams have been playing 
 all day. Now the long-caped, blue cavalry overcoats (bought in Den- 
 ver or Cheyenne for three dollars apiece) are unstrapped from behind 
 the saddles, fresh wood is piled upon the fire, the pipes are newly filled, 
 and the circling smoke, exploring the recesses of the dark tree -tops, 
 looks down on an exceedingly contented company. 
 
 Then, as the fragrant herb glows in the pipe-bowl, and the darkness 
 shuts in the fire and the little circle about it from the great Without, 
 tongues are unloosed, and the treasures of memory are drawn upon to 
 enliven the hour. All these mountain-men are great talkers, and most 
 of them tell a story in a very vivid way — a way purely their own, sound- 
 ing barbarous to other ears, so full is it of slang, local phrases, and pro- 
 fanity, but in a language perfectly understood and with a wit keenly 
 appreciated by kindred listeners. Tales of Indian warfare and border 
 ruffianism in the old days of the emigrant trail, the founding of the 
 Mormon settlements, the track -laying of the Pacific railway, and the 
 gold discoveries ; stories of the road agents — robbers of the mails and 
 expresses — who never let a man out of the country with any money, 
 and of the scarcely preferable vigilantes who sought to rid the moun- 
 tains of these human wolves, only to learn that the persons most 
 trusted in their councils were the ringleaders of crime. Between the 
 road agents and the vigilantes no man was safe : the former might kill 
 him to get him out of the way, the latter might hang him on the single 
 charge that the ruffians let him alone. But the theme of all themes 
 which is never neglected, and which lasts clear through the trip, is the 
 mule.
 
 212 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The mountain mule is a perpetual study. No animal in the world 
 possesses so much individuality and will develop in a given time so 
 many distinct phases of character. His sagacity in some directions is 
 balanced by most desperate stupidity in others. A herd shows a wide 
 range of variation in tractability and in other traits among its members. 
 You cannot fail to note this in their different countenances, to which 
 the long ears lend so much expression ; but all their characteristics 
 are positive, and are asserted in the most startling manner. They are 
 
 crotchety, too, and it is often 
 impossible to overcome their 
 prejudices. One I knew who 
 would never allow himself to 
 be caught to have his pack 
 put oh or re-adjusted until all 
 the rest had been attended to ; 
 then he was quite ready and 
 docile. Another was a good, 
 gentle riding animal, and had 
 no objection to your pipe, but 
 you must get off to light it ; 
 strike a match in the saddle, 
 and Satan entered into his 
 breast on the instant. The 
 same fellow had an insupera- 
 ble objection to entering wa- 
 ter — an unfortunate trait, for 
 before crossing an unknown stream with a pack-train it is desirable to 
 know what sort of a ford it is, and the man who rode this mule was the 
 one whose duty it generally was to make the test. The animal would 
 walk straight down to the margin, then rear upon his hind-legs and spin 
 round like a flash. 
 
 I had a mule once that would bray ferociously and incessantly when- 
 ever it was out of hearing of the train's bell. It was an excessively an- 
 noying habit, and, persuasion failing, I one day dug my spurs into its 
 ribs, and hammered its head first with a strap, then with the butt of my 
 pistol, every time the hideous voice was raised. I felt that there was no 
 sense in the absurd practice, and I was bound to break it. But after an 
 hour or two it was hard to keep my seat, for about once a minute the 
 beast would duck its head and jump as though propelled from a cannon, 
 uttering a terrible bray, apparently just to invite punishment. So I 
 
 A SENSATION.
 
 EXASPERATING TRIALS OF PATIENCE. 213 
 
 changed my tactics, and paid no attention whatever to the habit, and in 
 a couple of days had no farther annoyance. Mules know what disturbs 
 you, and malignantly do that one thing regardless of pain to them- 
 selves. Another mule I had was an exemplar of this trait. He had 
 a trick of swelling himself out when I put the saddle on, so that 
 it was impossible to make the girth tight ; I might as well have 
 tried to draw in the waist of a steamboat boiler ; and to secure the 
 saddle properly I always had to catch him unawares, after we had got 
 started. 
 
 It is not easy to gain a mule's confidence, and, on the other hand, he 
 rarely merits yours. I have known one to carry his rider in the most 
 exemplary manner for hundreds of miles, and then one morning begin a 
 series of antics and develop an unruliness as uncomfortable as it was un- 
 expected. Sometimes you can train them with considerable satisfac- 
 tion, but you never feel quite sure of them. They are forever doing 
 something surprising, heroically pulling through real difficulties to give 
 up tamely before some sham obstacle. This is partly owing to their 
 absurd timidity. If one scares, all the rest are panic-stricken. A piece 
 of black wood, like the embers of an old fire, will cause almost any mule 
 to shy. A bowlder of a certain shape was invariably regarded with dis- 
 trust by one I used to ride. Rattlesnakes they hold in just abhorrence ; 
 bears paralyze them with terror ; Indians they cannot be spurred to ap- 
 proach. This excessive timidity is the result of their social habits. A 
 mule cannot bear to be left alone ; and although he knows he can go 
 straight back from wherever you may take him, following the trail like 
 a hound, yet he considers himself hopelessly lost and forlorn when he 
 can no longer hear the bell. It is his use and habit to go with it. It 
 means everything which makes life happy for him, and he will endure 
 very much punishment before forsaking it. However, two or three 
 travelling together all day by themselves, keep one another company 
 and get along very well. 
 
 This attachment to the train, while it has been the salvation of many 
 an outfit, becomes a great nuisance on the march. Mile after mile you 
 plod along in the rear at a right-foot, left-foot, right-foot, left-foot jog, 
 which in the course of seven or eight hours wears out muscles and pa- 
 tience. The sun beats down, the dust rises up, and your only entertain- 
 ment is the cow-bell hung on the neck of the leader. The first hour you 
 do not mind it much ; the second, it grows wearisome ; the third, pain- 
 ful, and you hold your ears to shut out the monotonous clangor; the 
 fourth hour you go crazy. All life centres about that tireless hammer-
 
 214 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 ing and endless conning, till, in unison with the ceaseless copper-clatter 
 of that ding-dong bell, your mind loses itself in 
 
 " Hokey pokey winkcy wang, 
 Linkum lankum muscodang; 
 The Injun swore that he would hang 
 The man that couldn't keep warm." 
 
 You cannot get away from it. What is misery to you is melody to 
 the mule ; and if you try to ride him outside of the music of the bell, 
 he may, perhaps, be made to go, but it will be in such a protesting, halt- 
 ing, lame and blind way, with such " uncertain steps and slow," turnings 
 of reproachful eye and brayings of uplifted voice, that you will find it 
 better to endure the evils of the pack-train than to attempt to escape 
 from it. Of course, if you go clear away, out of sight and sound, the 
 beast is obliged to content himself; but on the march this is not always 
 pleasant or practicable. 
 
 But a diversion awaits. It is afternoon. Everybody is dozing. The 
 distant line of trees which marks the day's destination is in sight, and 
 the mules have been well-behaved all day. Plodding along in front of 
 you at a rapid walk, very demurely, heads down, eyes half closed, ears 
 monotonously wagging, you think they have forgotten all their pranks, 
 abandoned all intentions of wickedness concocted in the restful leisure 
 of the early morning, and you fall into admiring contemplation of their 
 exceeding docility and sweetness. Meanwhile the aparejo and load of 
 a certain little buckskin -hued Cayusc mule have been slipping back- 
 ward, and he, knowing it, has made no sign, but has quietly wriggled and 
 swelled himself until he has got far enough through the sinch to try his 
 experiment. With the suddenness and agility of a grasshopper he now 
 gives a tremendous leap toward one side, bucks high in the air a dozen 
 times in as many seconds, dancing about and kicking, stands straight 
 up on his hind-legs, and falls over backward ; next he squirms rapidly 
 through the loosened girths until he can bring his heels to bear, and 
 kicks boxes, bags, and bundles until the saddle slips down over his legs 
 and confines them like a handcuff. Then he rolls, over and quietly nib- 
 bles the grass within reach, waiting, in the most exasperating uncon- 
 cern, until you shall come and release him. 
 
 It will readily be understood that an Eastern man finds the tricks 
 and treachery, lively heels, and diabolical disposition of the mule a con- 
 stant check upon the enjoyment of Western work and wandering. The 
 mule-packers are the most desperately profane men I have ever met ;
 
 PROFANITY OF THE MULE-PACKERS. 
 
 215 
 
 they exhibit a real genius in "good mouth-filling oaths." Considering 
 the vexation to which they are subjected, and which they must not oth- 
 erwise retaliate, lest they should injure the precious endurance and car- 
 rying power upon which their lives depend, and which make mules far 
 more valuable than horses for mountain service, it is not surprising. 
 And though these strong and agile animals will stand for hours when 
 the bridle-rein of one is merely thrown over the ear of his neighbor, un- 
 der the delusion that they are securely fastened, they are very wise and 
 cunning, and can doubtless talk among themselves ; but it is an unfort- 
 
 CONTENTED VICTIMS OF A DELUSION. 
 
 unate fact that their wisdom is all exerted for wickedness, and their con- 
 versation used chiefly in plotting combined mischief. And it is my hon- 
 est and serious opinion, founded upon much observation, that so long 
 as any considerable numbers of mules are employed there, it is utterly 
 useless for missionaries to go to the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 The last pipe smoked, the longest story heard out, such slumber fol- 
 lows as defies any ordinary disturbance to break in upon. With com- 
 plete composure you sleep through a steady rain falling on the piece of 
 canvas laid over your face, or in momentary expectation of being sur- 
 prised by Indians. I have heard of a few camps in the old days having 
 been run over by a stampede of buffaloes now and then ; but this, fort- 
 unately, was rare. Now few worse interruptions of this sort occur to
 
 21G KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 rest than the tramping among the sleepers of mules, in their attempt to 
 make some felonious attack upon the edible portion of the cargo ; and 
 this only occurs where pasturage is scant. Once, camping near a Mexi- 
 can pack-train of donkeys, we were thus greatly annoyed by those little 
 brutes. 
 
 Now and then, on the plains, coyotes venture close to camp, and, if 
 they are very hungry, even come to the fireside in search of meat, and 
 perhaps attempt to gnaw the straps off the saddle or boots your weary 
 head reclines upon. Foiled in this, they adjourn to a respectful dis- 
 tance and set up prolonged and lugubrious howls, which either keep 
 you awake altogether or attune your dreams to some horrible theme. 
 Perhaps I ought not to use the plural, since one coyote's voice is capa- 
 ble of noise enough to simulate a whole pack. No doubt it often hap- 
 pens that when a score seem howling in shrill concert there is really 
 but a single wolf raining his quick-repeated and varied cries upon our 
 unwilling ears. These small wolves are justly-despised by all Western 
 men ; but the big gray wolves are a different matter. 
 
 While cougars and wolves and coyotes, and even Mexican burros, 
 are rare infringers on the sacred privacy of your sleep, numerous " small 
 deer" come to investigate the curious stranger who has stretched him- 
 self out in their domain. Rattlesnakes are extremely numerous over 
 many parts of the West, and we used to fear that, with their love 
 of warmth, they would seek the shelter of our bedding to escape the 
 chill of the night ; but I do not know of any such an unpleasant bed- 
 fellow having been found by any of the Survey people. I myself came 
 pretty near to it, however, over on Cochetopa creek, in Colorado, one 
 night, when I unwittingly spread my blankets over a small hole in the 
 ground. I snoozed on, unmindful of danger; but when I moved my 
 bed in the morning out from the hole crawled a huge rattler, whose 
 door-way I had stopped up all night! He would better have stayed in, 
 for big John of Oregon caught him by the tail and broke his stupid 
 neck before he had time to throw himself into a coil of vantage for 
 the strike. 
 
 If you camp in the woods you are certain of late visitors in the 
 shape of mice and the ubiquitous and squeaky ground-squirrels, whose 
 nocturnal rambles lead them all over your bed-covers ; often, indeed, 
 their rapid, sharp-toed little feet scud across your cheek, and their furry 
 tails trail athwart the bridge of your nose, brushing the dew from your 
 sealed eyelids. To the thousand insects rustling in the grass we nev- 
 er gave attention ; and not even the most home-bred tender-foot ever
 
 NIGHT AND MORNING IN THE CAMP. 217 
 
 thought of cotton in his ears ! How thus could he hear all the pleasant, 
 faint voices speaking through the night so close about him ? Thoreau, 
 writing from his camp on a sloping bank of the Merrimac, has well de- 
 scribed the sounds of the night : 
 
 " With our heads so low in the grass, we heard the river whirling 
 and sucking, and lapsing downward, kissing the shore as it went, some- 
 times rippling louder than usual, and again its mighty current making 
 only a slight, limpid, trickling sound, as if our water -pail had sprung 
 aleak and the water were flowing into the grass by our side. The 
 wind, rustling the oaks and hazels, impressed us like a wakeful and in- 
 considerate person up at midnight, moving about, and putting things 
 to rights, occasionally stirring up whole drawers full of leaves at a 
 puff. There seemed to be a great haste and preparation throughout 
 Nature, as for a distinguished visitor; all her aisles had to be swept in 
 a night by a thousand hand-maidens, and a thousand pots to be boiled 
 for the next day's feasting — such a whispering bustle, as if ten thou- 
 sand fairies made their fingers fly, silently sewing at the new carpet 
 with which the earth was to be clothed, and the new drapery which 
 was to adorn the trees. And the wind would lull and die away, and 
 we, like it, fell asleep again." 
 
 But I am dwelling too long upon this rare wakefulness in camp, 
 rather than the ordinary and business-like repose of the night. One's 
 sleep in the crisp air, after the fatigues of the hard day, is sound and 
 serene. But the morning! Ah, that is the time that tries men's souls! 
 In this land one would find it very unpleasantly cold to be with her 
 
 when 
 
 "Jocund Day 
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-top." 
 
 You awake at daylight a little chilly, re-adjust your blankets, and want 
 again to sleep. The sun may pour forth from the " golden window of 
 the east " and flood the world with limpid light ; the stars may pale 
 and the jet of the midnight sky be diluted to that deep and perfect 
 morning blue into which you gaze to unmeasured depths ; the air may 
 become a pervading champagne, dry and delicate, every draught of 
 which tingles the lungs and spurs the blood along the veins with 
 joyous speed ; the landscape may woo the eyes with airy undulations 
 of prairie or snow-pointed pinnacles lifted sharply against the azure — 
 yet sleep chains you. That very quality of the atmosphere which con- 
 tributes to all this beauty and makes it so delicious to be awake makes 
 it equally blessed to slumber. Lying there in the utterly open air, 
 
 15
 
 218 
 
 KNOCKING 'ROUND THE ROCKIES. 
 
 breathing the pure elixir of the untainted mountains, you come to 
 think even the confinement of a flapping tent oppressive, and the ven- 
 tilation of a sheltering spruce-bough bad. 
 
 
 i 
 
 . - -- > ''-A \ 
 
 
 ICY ABLUTIONS. 
 
 This was practically the end of the trip. There were several days 
 of marching and work later than that before we reached Fort Hall and 
 the Agency of the Bannock Indians, in Southern Idaho. Thence, hav- 
 ing separated from my companions, I went northward by stage to Mon- 
 tana, visiting Virginia City, Bozeman, Helena, and Fort Benton. At 
 the latter place a steamer was obtained by which I descended, in a 
 seven days' voyage, the Upper Missouri to Bismarck, Dakota. This 
 was then the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway, by which I jour- 
 ney to St. Paul, and so on along the magnificent route of the Chicago, 
 Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway to New York, and home.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Above timber-line, 35, 107, 108. 
 A ducking in the South Platte, 63. 
 /Egialitis montanus, 86. 
 Air, clearness of, 208. 
 Angwinam, a Shoshonee, 203, 204. 
 Assaying precious ores, 115. 
 
 Baker's Park, 113. 
 Bears, stories of, 186. 
 Beaver-dams, 196, 197. 
 Beaver-skins, price of, 197, 198. 
 Bed, substance and form of, 65. 
 Berthoud Pass, 40. 
 Bighorns, 199. 
 Buffalo-gnats, 200. 
 
 Camp, making a, 40. 
 Camp-cooking, 42. 
 Camping in the rain, 62. 
 Camp-birds, 52. 
 Camp, evenings in, 51, 64. 
 Canon scenery, 109. 
 California Gulch, 80. 
 Cherry Creek booms, 12. 
 Cliff-scaling at night, 37. 
 Cold, precautions against, 67. 
 Colorado, first newspaper of, S. 
 Conies, or Little Chief hares, 36. 
 Cook, the camp, 21. 
 Cottonwood-trees, 7, 15. 
 Cradling and Sluicing, 75. 
 Cunningham Gulch, 109. 
 
 Denver, 2, 7. 
 Diamond-hitch, the, 26. 
 
 Elks, shooting of, 198. 
 Empire deserted, 82. 
 
 Fishing, 41. 
 
 Flapjacks, 45. 
 
 Flies, black, 200. 
 
 Flour-sack garments, 31. 
 
 Food in camp, 21, 43. 
 
 Foot-hills, the, 27, 29. 
 
 Fremont's Peak, climbing of, 186, 1S7. 
 
 Game, confidence of, 19S. 
 
 Glaciers, 188, 189. 
 
 Gold discovered in Colorado, 2. 
 
 Gold-digging, 72. 
 
 Gold-mining, process of, 72. 
 
 Gold, geology of, 84, 115. 
 
 Grand Lake, 58. 
 
 Grand River, the, 64. ' 
 
 Granite, the ball at, 70 
 
 Grave of Indian child, 204. 
 
 Green river, source of, 195. 
 
 Green River plains, 203. 
 
 Gros Ventre hills, 195. 
 
 Gros Ventre river, source of, 195. 
 
 Gros Ventre Indians, 196. 
 
 Hirundo erythrogastrum , 57. 
 Hot sulphur springs, 55. 
 Hydraulic mining, 81. 
 
 " Instinct" at fault, 86. 
 Indian wars near Denver, 13. 
 
 Jay, Canada, 52. 
 
 Kitchen-kit and its stowage, 21, 40, 43. 
 
 Lagomys princeps, 36. 
 Long's Peak, storm scene, 23.
 
 220 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Maple-trees, 202. 
 
 Middle Park, scenery of, 55, 61. 
 
 Miners' camps and villages, 30, 63, 79, 8 J. 
 
 Miners, picturesque, 31, 70. 
 
 Moles, 196. 
 
 Morning in the Rockies, 217. 
 
 Mountains, descent of, 201. 
 
 " Mountain Harry" Yount, 46. 
 
 Mosquito Pass, a lonely night in, 6S. 
 
 Mosquitoes, 195, 200. 
 
 Mules, fording and swimming of, 204. 
 
 Mules, ears of, 204, 205. 
 
 Mules, tails of, 205. 
 
 Mules, traits of, 18, 23, 39, 40, 219. 
 
 Navajos, 102. 
 
 Owl, shooting an, 5S. 
 
 ( luray, 89. 
 
 ( hi/el, the, 63. 
 
 Packing mules, 25. 
 
 Pines, white and yellow, 202. 
 
 Plovers, 86. 
 
 Poplars, 202. 
 
 Putting on the aparejos, 16. 
 
 Rattlesnakes, 216. 
 
 Rendezvous camp, the, 16. 
 Rio Grande, the, 107. 
 Riots in early Denver, 11, 
 
 Rocky Mountains, approach to, 22, 34. 
 Rock}' Mountains, geology of, 26. 
 Rocky Mountain News established, 8. 
 Rocky Mountain Herald y 9. 
 
 San Juan, the, 109. - I 
 
 Sparrow, the white-crowned, 38. 
 Starvation threatened, 105. 
 Stowing of personal baggage, 17. 
 Sumachs, 202. 
 Swallow, the cliff, 57. 
 Swallow, the ham, 57. 
 Swallows in Middle Park, 57. 
 Sweet-water river, the course of, 190. 
 
 Tents, 65. 
 
 The war-bag, 17. 
 
 I'm 3, traditions of, 58, 102. 
 
 Utes, history of, 91, ior. 
 
 Ules, manners and customs of, 92, 104. 
 
 Utes, costumes of the, 89, 101. 
 
 Utes, Southern agency of, 88. 
 
 WIND RIVER mountains, description of, 1S7, 
 
 191. 
 Wyoming, 195. „ 
 
 YALE students, terrors of, 209. 
 Yount, Harry, 46. 
 
 Zonotrichia leucophrys, 38, 146. 
 
 1 5
 
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