A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains - Pages 143-192



Page 143

LETTER IX.
"Please Ma'ams"--A Desperado--A Cattle Hunt--The Muster--A mad Cow--A Snow 
Storm--Snowed up--Birdie--The Plains--A Prairie Schooner--Denver--A Find--
Plum Creek--"Being Agreeable"--Snow bound--The Grey Mare.

   ESTES PARK, COLORADO. 
   THIS afternoon, as I was reading in my cabin, little Sam Edwards ran 
in, saying, "Mountain Jim wants to speak to you." This brought to my mind 
images of infinite worry, gauche servants, "please ma'ams," contretemps, 
and the habit growing out of our elaborate and uselessly conventional life 
of magnifying the importance of similar trifles. Then "things" came up, 
with the tyranny they exercise. I really need nothing more than this log-
cabin offers. But elsewhere one must have a house and servants; and 
burdens and worries--not that one may be hospitable and comfortable, but 
for the "thick clay" in the shape of "things" which one has accumulated. 
My log-house takes me about five minutes to "do," and you could eat off 
the floor, and it needs no lock, as it contains nothing worth stealing.

   But "Mountain Jim" was waiting while I made 

Page 144

these reflections to ask us to take a ride; and Mr. and Mrs. Dewy, and I, 
had a delightful stroll through coloured foliage, and then, when they were 
fatigued, I changed my horse for his beautiful mare, and we galloped and 
raced in the beautiful twilight, in the intoxicating, frosty air. Mrs. 
Dewy wishes you could have seen us as we galloped down the pass, the 
fearful-looking ruffian on my heavy waggon-horse, and I on his bare wooden 
saddle, from which beaver, mink, and marten tails, and pieces of skin, 
were hanging raggedly, with one spur, and feet not in the stirrups, the 
mare looking so aristocratic and I so beggarly! Mr. Nugent is what is 
called "splendid company." With a sort of breezy mountain recklessness in 
everything, he passes remarkably acute judgments on men and events; on 
women also. He has pathos, poetry, and humour, an intense love of nature, 
strong vanity in certain directions, an obvious desire to act and speak in 
character, and sustain his reputation as a desperado, a considerable 
acquaintance with literature, a wonderful verbal memory, opinions on every 
person and subject, a chivalrous respect for women in his manner, which 
makes it all the more amusing when he suddenly turns round upon one with 
some graceful raillery, a great power of fascination, and a singular love 
of children. The children of this house run to him, and when he sits down 
they climb on his broad shoulders and play 

Page 145

with his curls. They say in the house that "no one who has been here 
thinks any one worth speaking to after Jim," but I think that this is 
probably an opinion which time would alter. Somehow, he is kept always 
before the public of Colorado, for one can hardly take up a newspaper 
without finding a paragraph about him, a contribution by him, or a 
fragment of his biography. Ruffian as he looks, the first word he speaks--
to a lady, at least--places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and 
his conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of 
genius. Yet, on the whole, he is a most painful spectacle. His magnificent 
head shows so plainly the better possibilities which might have been his. 
His life, in spite of a certain dazzle which belongs to it, is a ruined 
and wasted one, and one asks what of good can the future have in store for 
one who has for, so long chosen evil?(*)

   Shall I ever get away? We were to have had a grand cattle-hunt 
yesterday, beginning at 6.30, but the horses were all lost. Often out of 
fifty horses all that are worth anything are marauding, and a day is lost 
in hunting for them in the canyons. However, before daylight this morning 
Evans called through my door, "Miss Bird, I say we've got to drive cattle 
fifteen miles, I wish you'd lend a hand; 

(* September of the next year answered the question by laying him down in 
a dishonoured grave, with a rifle bullet in his brain.)

Page 146

there's not enough of us; I'll give you a good horse."

   The scene of the drive is at a height of 7500 feet, watered by two 
rapid rivers. On all sides mountains rise to an altitude of from 11,000 to 
15,000 feet, their skirts shaggy with pitch-pine forests, and scarred by 
deep canyons, wooded and boulder-strewn, opening upon the mountain pasture 
previously mentioned. Two thousand head of half-wild Texan cattle are 
scattered in herds throughout the canyons, living on more or less 
suspicious terms with grizzly and brown bears, mountain lions, elk, 
mountain sheep, spotted deer, wolves, lynxes, wild cats, beavers, minks, 
skunks, chipmonks, eagles, rattlesnakes, and all the other two-legged, 
four-legged, vertebrate, and invertebrate inhabitants of this lonely and 
romantic regions. On the whole, they show a tendency rather to the habits 
of wild than of domestic cattle. They march to water in Indian file, with 
the bulls leading, and when threatened, take strategic advantage of ridgy 
ground, slinking warily along in the hollows, the bulls acting as 
sentinels, and bringing up the rear in case of an attack from dogs. Cows 
have to be regularly broken in for milking, being as wild as buffaloes in 
their unbroken state; but, owing to the comparative dryness of the 
grasses, and the system of allowing the calf to have the milk during the 
daytime, a dairy of 200 cows does not produce as 

Page 147

much butter as a Devonshire dairy of fifty. Some "necessary" cruelty is 
involved in the stockman's business, however humane he may be. The system 
is one of terrorism, and from the time that the calf is bullied into the 
branding-pen, and the hot iron burns into his shrinking flesh, to the day 
when the fatted ox is driven down from his boundless pastures to be 
slaughtered in Chicago, "the fear and dread of man" are upon him.

   The herds are apt to penetrate the savage canyons which come down from 
the Snowy Range, when they incur a risk of being snowed up and starved, 
and it is necessary now and then to hunt them out and drive them down to 
the "park." On this occasion, the whole were driven down for a muster, and 
for the purpose of branding the calves.

   After a 6.30 breakfast this morning, we started, the party being 
composed of my host, a hunter from the Snowy Range, two stockmen from the 
Plains, one of whom rode a violent buck-jumper, and was said by his 
comrade to be the "best rider in North Americay," and myself. We were all 
mounted Mexican saddles, rode, as the custom is, with light snaffle 
bridles, leather guards over our feet, and broad wooden stirrups, and each 
carried his lunch in a pouch slung on the lassoing horn of his saddle. 
Four big, badly-trained dogs accompanied us. It was a ride of nearly 
thirty miles, and of many hours, one 

Page 148

of the most splendid I ever took. We never got off our horses except to 
tighten the girths, we ate our lunch with our bridles knotted over our 
saddle-horns, started over the level at full gallop, leapt over trunks of 
trees, dashed madly down hillsides rugged with rocks or strewn with great 
stones, forded deep, rapid streams, saw lovely lakes and views of 
surpassing magnificence, startled a herd of elk with uncouth heads and 
monstrous antlers, and in the chase, which for some time was unsuccessful, 
rode to the very base of Long's Peak, over 14,000 feet high, where the 
bright waters of one of the affluents of the Platte burst from the eternal 
snows through a Canyon of indescribable majesty. The sun was hot, but at a 
height of over 8000 feet the air was crisp and frosty, and the enjoyment 
of riding a good horse under such exhilarating circumstances was extreme. 
In one wad part of the ride we had to come down a steep hill, thickly 
wooded with pitch-pines, to leap over the fallen timber, and steer between 
the dead and living trees to avoid being "snagged," or bringing down a 
heavy dead branch by an unwary touch.

   Emerging from this, we caught sight of a thousand Texan cattle feeding 
in a valley below. The leaders scented us, and, taking fright, began to 
move off in the direction of the open "park," while we were about a mile 
from and above them. "Head them off, boys!" our leader shouted; "all 
aboard; hark 

Page 149

away!" and with something of the "High, tally-ho in the morning!" away we 
all went at a hand-gallop down-hill. I could not hold my excited animal; 
down-hill, up-hill, leaping over rocks and timber, faster every moment the 
pace grew, and still the leader shouted, "Go it, boys!" and the horses 
dashed on at racing speed, passing and repassing each other, till my small 
but beautiful bay was keeping pace with the immense strides of the great 
buck-jumper ridden by "the finest rider in North Americay," and I was 
dizzied and breathless by the pace at which we were going. A shorter time 
than it takes to tell it brought us close to and abreast of the surge of 
cattle. The bovine waves were a grand sight: huge bulls, shaped like 
buffaloes, bellowed and roared, and with great oxen and cows with yearling 
calves, galloped like racers, and we galloped alongside of them, and 
shortly headed them, and in no time were placed as sentinels across the 
mouth of the valley. It seemed like infantry awaiting the shock of cavalry 
as we stood as still as our excited horses would allow. I almost quailed 
as the surge came on, but when it got close to us my comrades hooted 
fearfully, and we dashed forward with the dogs, and, with bellowing, 
roaring, and thunder of hoofs, the wave receded as it came. I rode up to 
our leader, who received me with much laughter. He said I was "a good 
cattleman," and that he had forgotten that a lady was of 

Page 150

the party till he saw me "come leaping over the timber, and driving with 
the others."

   It was not for two hours after this that the real business of driving 
began, and I was obliged to change my thoroughbred for a well-trained 
cattle-horse--a broncho, which could double like a hare, and go over any 
ground. I had not expected to work like a vachero, but so it was, and my 
Hawaiian experience was very useful. We hunted the various canyons and 
known "camps," driving the herds out of them; and, until we had secured 
850 head in the corral some hours afterwards, we scarcely saw each other 
to speak to. Our first difficulty was with a herd which got into some 
swampy ground, when a cow, which afterwards gave me an infinity of 
trouble, remained at bay for nearly an hour, tossing the dog three times, 
and resisting all efforts to dislodge her. She had a large yearling calf 
with her, and Evans told me that the attachment of a cow to her first calf 
is sometimes so great that she will kill her second that the first may 
have the milk. I got a herd of over a hundred out of a canyon by myself, 
and drove them down to the river with the aid of one badly-broken dog, 
which gave me more trouble than the cattle. The getting over was most 
troublesome; a few took to the water readily and went across, but others 
smelt it, and then, doubling back, ran in various directions; while some 
attacked the 

Page 151

dog as he was swimming, and others, after crossing, headed back in search 
of some favourite companions which had been left behind, and one specially 
vicious cow attacked my horse over and over again. It took an hour and a 
half of time and much patience to gather them all on the other side.

   It was getting late in the day, and a snowstorm was impending, before I 
was joined by the other drivers and herds, and as the former had 
diminished to three, with only three dogs, it was very difficult to keep 
the cattle together. You drive them as gently as possible, so as not to 
frighten or excite them,(*) riding first on one side, then on the other, 
to guide them; and if they deliberately go in a wrong direction, you 
gallop in front and head them off. The great excitement is when one breaks 
away from the herd and gallops madly up and down hill, and you

(* In several visits to America I have observed that the Americans are far 
in advance of us and our colonial kinsmen in their treatment of horses and 
other animals. This was very apparent with regard to this Texan herd. 
There were no stock-whips, no needless worrying of the animals in the 
excitement of sport. Any dog seizing a bullock by his tail or heels would 
have been called off and punished, and quietness and gentleness were the 
rule. The horses were ridden without whips, and with spurs so blunt that 
they could not hurt even a human skin, and were ruled by the voice and a 
slight pressure on the light snaffle bridle. This is the usual plan, even 
where, as in Colorado, the horses are bronchos, and inherit ineradicable 
vice. I never yet saw a horse bullied into submission in the United 
States.)

Page 152

gallop after him anywhere, over and among rocks and trees, doubling when 
he doubles, and heading him till you get him back again. The bulls were 
quite easily managed, but the cows with calves, old or young, were most 
troublesome. By accident I rode between one cow and her calf in a narrow 
place, and the cow rushed at me and was just getting her big horns under 
the horse, when he reared, and spun dexterously aside. This kind of thing 
happened continually. There was one very handsome red cow which became 
quite mad. She had a calf with her nearly her own size, and thought every 
one its enemy, and though its horns were well developed, and it was quite 
able to take care of itself, she insisted on protecting it from all 
fancied dangers. One of the dogs, a young, foolish thing, seeing that the 
cow was excited, took a foolish pleasure in barking at her, and she was 
eventually quite infuriated. She turned to bay forty times at least; tore 
up the ground with her horns, tossed the great hunting dogs, tossed and 
killed the calves of two other cows, and finally became so dangerous to 
the rest of the herd that, just as the drive was ending, Evans drew his 
revolver and shot her, and the calf for which she had fought so blindly 
lamented her piteously. She rushed at me several times mad with rage, but 
these trained cattle-horses keep perfectly cool, and, nearly without will 
on my part, mine jumped aside 

Page 153

at the right moment, and foiled the assailant. Just at dusk we reached the 
corral--an acre of grass enclosed by stout post-and-rail fences seven feet 
high, and by much patience and some subtlety lodged the whole herd within 
its shelter, without a blow, a shout, or even a crack of a whip, wild as 
the cattle were. It was fearfully cold. We galloped the last mile and a 
half in four and a half minutes, reached the cabin just as snow began to 
fall, and found strong, hot tea ready.


   October 18. 
   Snow-bound for three days! I could not write yesterday, it was so 
awful. People gave up all occupation, and talked of nothing but the storm. 
The hunters all kept by the great fire in the living-room, only going out 
to bring in logs and clear the snow from the door and windows. I never 
spent a more fearful night than two nights ago, alone in my cabin in the 
storm, with the roof lifting, the mud cracking and coming off, and the 
fine snow hissing through the chinks between the logs, while splittiings 
and breaking of dead branches, wind-wrung and snow-laden, went on 
incessantly, with screechings, howlings, thunder and lightning, and many 
unfamiliar sounds besides. After snowing fiercely all day, another foot of 
it fell in the early night, and, after drifting against my door, blocked 
me effectually in. About midnight the mercury fell to zero, and soon after 

Page 154

a gale rose, which lasted for ten hours. My window frame is swelled, and 
shuts, apparently, hermetically; and my bed is six feet from it. I had 
gone to sleep with six blankets on, and a heavy sheet over my face. 
Between two and three I was awoke by the cabin being shifted from 
underneath by the wind, and the sheet was frozen to my lips. I put out my 
hands, and the bed was thickly covered with fine snow. Getting up to 
investigate matters, I found the floor some inches deep in parts in fine 
snow, and a gust of fine, needle-like snow stung my face. The bucket of 
water was solid ice. I lay in bed freezing till sunrise, when some of the 
men came to see if I "was alive," and to dig me out. They brought a can of 
hot water, which turned to ice before I could use it. I dressed standing 
in snow, and my brushes, boots, and etceteras were covered with snow. When 
I ran to the house, not a mountain or anything else could be seen, and the 
snow on one side was drifted higher than the roof. The air, as high as one 
could see, was one white, stinging smoke of snow-drift--a terrific sight. 
In the living-room, the snow was driving through the chinks, and Mrs. Dewy 
was shovelling it from the floor. Mr. D.'s beard was hoary with frost in a 
room with a fire all night. Evans was lying ill, with his bed covered with 
snow. Returning from my cabin after breakfast, loaded with occupations for 
the day, I was lifted off my 

Page 155

feet, and deposited in a drift, and all my things, writing-book and letter 
included, were carried in different directions. Some, including a valuable 
photograph, are irrecoverable. The writing-book was found, some hours 
afterwards, under three feet of snow.

   There are tracks of bears and deer close to the house, but no one can 
hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding. We have been slightly 
overcrowded in our one room. Chess, music, and whist have been resorted 
to. One hunter, for very ennui, has devoted himself to keeping my ink from 
freezing. We all sat in great cloaks and coats, and kept up an enormous 
fire, with the pitch running out of the logs. The isolation is extreme, 
for we are literally snowed-up, and the other settler in the Park and 
"Mountain Jim" are both at Denver. Late in the evening the storm ceased. 
In some places the ground is bare of snow, while in others all 
irregularities are levelled, and the drifts are forty feet deep. Nature is 
grand under this new aspect. The cold is awful; the high wind with the 
mercury at zero would skin any part exposed to it.


   October 19. 
   Evans offers me six dollars a week if I will stay into the winter and 
do the cooking after Mrs. Edwards leaves! I think I should like playing at 
being a "hired girl" if it were not for the bread-making! But it would 
suit me better to ride 

Page 156

after cattle. The men don't like "baching," as it is called in the wilds--
i.e. "doing for themselves." They washed and ironed their clothes 
yesterday, and there was an incongruity about the last performance. I 
really think (though for the fifteenth time) that I shall leave to-morrow. 
The cold has moderated, the sky is bluet than ever, the snow is 
evaporating, and a hunter who has joined us to-day says that there are no 
drifts on the trail which one cannot get through.


   LONGMOUNT, COLORADO, October 20. 
   "The Island Valley of Avillon" is left, but how shall I finally tear 
myself from its freedom and enchantments? I see Long's snowy peak rising-
into the night sky, and know and long after the magnificence of the blue 
hollow at its base. We were to have left at 8, but the horses were lost, 
so it was 9.30 before we started, the we being the musical young French 
Canadian and myself. I have a bay Indian pony "Birdie," a little beauty, 
with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with luggage for 
some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my saddle, I am tolerably 
independent. It was a most glorious ride. We passed through the gates of 
rock, through gorges where the unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-
coloured aspens; caught glimpses of far-off snow-clad giants rising into a 
sky of deep sad blue; lunched above the Foot Hills at a cabin where 

Page 157

two brothers and a "hired man" were "keeping bach," where everything was 
so trim, clean, and ornamental that one did not miss a woman; crossed a 
deep backwater on a narrow beaver-dam, because the log bridge was broken 
down, and emerged from the brilliantly-coloured canyon of the St. Vrain 
just at dusk upon the featureless prairies, when we had some trouble in 
finding Longmount in the dark. A hospitable welcome awaited me at this 
inn, and an English friend came in and spent the evening with me.


   GREAT PLATTE CANYON, October 23. 
   My letters on this tour will, I fear, be very dull, for after riding 
all day, looking after my pony, getting supper, hearing about various 
routes, and the pastoral, agricultural, mining, and hunting gossip of the 
neighbourhood, I am so sleepy and wholesomely tired that I can hardly 
write. I left Longmount pretty early on Tuesday morning, the day being 
sad, with the blink of an impending snowstorm in the air. The evening 
before I was introduced to a man who had been a colonel in the rebel army, 
who made a most unfavourable impression upon me, and it was a great 
annoyance to me when he presented himself on horseback to guide me "over 
the most intricate part of the journey." Solitude is infinitely preferable 
to uncongeniality, and is bliss when compared with repulsiveness, so I was 
thoroughly glad when I got rid of my 

Page 158

escort and set out upon the prairie alone. It is a dreary ride of thirty 
miles over the low brown plains to Denver, very little settled, and with 
trails going in all directions. My sailing orders were "steer south, and 
keep to the best beaten track," and it seemed like embarking on the ocean 
without a compass. The rolling brown waves on which you see a horse a mile 
and a half off impress one strangely, and at noon the sky darkened up for 
another storm, the mountains swept down in blackness to the Plains, and 
the higher peaks took on a ghastly grimness horrid to behold. It was first 
very cold, then very hot, and finally settled down to a fierce east-windy 
cold, difficult to endure. It was free and breezy, however, and my horse 
was companionable. Sometimes herds of cattle were browsing on the sun-
cured grass, then herds of horses. Occasionally I met a horseman with a 
rifle lying across his saddle, or a waggon of the ordinary sort, but 
oftener I saw a waggon with a white tilt, of the kind known as a "Prairie 
Schooner," labouring across the grass, or a train of them, accompanied by 
herds, mules, and horsemen, bearing emigrants and their household goods in 
dreary exodus from the Western States to the much-vaunted prairies of 
Colorado. The host and hostess of one of these waggons invited me to join 
their mid-day meal, I providing tea (which they had not tasted for four 
weeks) and they hominy. 

Page 159

They had been three months on the journey from Illinois, and their oxen 
were so lean and weak that they expected to be another month in reaching 
Wet Mountain Valley. They had buried a child en route, had lost several 
oxen, and were rather out of heart. Owing to their long isolation and the 
monotony of the march they had lost count of events, and seemed like 
people of another planet. They wanted me to join them, but their rate of 
travel was too slow, so we parted with mutual expressions of goodwill, and 
as their white tilt went "hull down" in the distance on the lonely prairie 
sea, I felt sadder than I often feel on taking leave of old acquaintances. 
That night they must have been nearly frozen, camping out in the deep snow 
in the fierce wind. I met afterwards 2000 lean Texan cattle, herded by 
three wild-looking men on horseback, followed by two waggons containing 
women, children, and rifles. They had travelled 1000 miles. Then I saw two 
prairie wolves, like jackals, with gray fur, cowardly creatures, which 
fled from me with long leaps.

   The windy cold became intense, and for the next eleven miles I rode a 
race with the coming storm. At the top of every prairie roll I expected to 
see Denver, but it was not till nearly five that from a considerable 
height I looked down upon the great "City of the Plains," the metropolis 
of the Territories. There the great braggart city lay spread out, brown 

Page 160

and treeless, upon the brown and treeless plain, which seemed to nourish 
nothing but wormwood and the Spanish bayonet. The shallow Platte, 
shrivelled into a narrow stream with a shingly bed six times too large for 
it, and fringed by shrivelled cottonwood, wound along by Denver, and two 
miles up its course I saw a great sand-storm, which in a few minutes 
covered the city, blotting it out with a dense brown cloud. Then with 
gusts of wind the snowstorm began, and I had to trust entirely to Birdie's 
sagacity for finding Evans's shantie. She had been there once before only, 
but carried me direct to over rough ground and trenches. Gleefully Mrs. 
Evans and the children ran out to welcome the pet pony, and I was received 
most hospitably, and made warm and comfortable, though the house consists 
only of a kitchen and two bed-closets. My budget of news from "the Park" 
had to be brought out constantly, and I wondered how much I had to tell. 
It was past eleven when we breakfasted the next morning. It was cloudless 
and an intense frost, with six inches of snow on the ground, and everybody 
thought it too cold to get up and light the fire. I had intended to leave 
Birdie at Denver, but Governor Hunt and Mr. Byers of the Rocky Mountain 
News both advised me to travel on horseback rather than by train and stage 
telling me that I should be quite safe, and Governor Hunt drew out a route 
for me and gave me a circular letter to the settlers along it.

Page 161

   Denver is no longer the Denver of Hepworth Dixon. A shooting affray in 
the street is as rare as in Liverpool, and one no longer sees men dangling 
to the lamp-posts when one looks out in the morning! It is a busy place, 
the entrepôt and distributing-point for an immense district, with good 
shops, some factories, fair hotels, and the usual deformities and 
refinements Of civilisation. Peltry shops abound, and sportsman, hunter, 
miner, teamster, emigrant, can be completely rigged out at fifty different 
stores. At Denver, people who come from the east to try the "camp cure" 
now so fashionable, get their outfit of waggon, driver, horses, tent, 
bedding, and stove, and start for the mountains. Asthmatic people are 
there in such numbers as to warrant the holding of an "asthmatic 
convention" of patients cured and benefited. Numbers of invalids who 
cannot bear the rough life of the mountains fill its hotels and boarding-
houses, and others who have been partially restored by a summer of camping 
out go into the city in the winter to complete the cure. It stands at a 
height of 5000 feet, on an enormous plain, and has a most glorious view of 
the Rocky Range. I should hate even to spend a week there. The sight of 
those glories so near and yet out of reach would make me nearly crazy. 
Denver is at present the terminus of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. It has a 
line connecting it with the Union Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne, 

Page 162

and by means of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, open for about 200 
miles, it is expecting to reach into Mexico. It has also had the 
enterprise, by means of another narrow-gauge railroad, to push its way 
right up into the mining districts near Gray's Peak. The number of 
"saloons" in the streets impresses one, and everywhere one meets the 
characteristic loafers of a frontier town, who find it hard even for a few 
days or hours to submit to the restraints of civilisation, as hard as I 
did to ride sidewise to Governor Hunt's office. To Denver men go to spend 
the savings of months of hard work in the maddest dissipation, and there 
such characters as "Comanche Bill," "Buffalo Bill," "Wild Bill," and 
"Mountain Jim," go on the spree, and find the kind of notoriety they seek. 
A large number of Indians added to the harlequin appearance of the Denver 
streets the day I was there. They belonged to the Ute tribe, through which 
I had to pass, and Governor Hunt introduced me to a fine-looking young 
chief, very well dressed in beaded hide, and bespoke his courtesy for me 
if I needed it. The Indian stores and fur stores and fur depôts interested 
me most. The crowds in the streets, perhaps owing to the snow on the 
ground, were almost solely masculine. I only saw five women the whole day. 
There were men in every rig: hunters and trappers in buckskin clothing; 
men of the Plains with belts and revolvers, in great blue cloaks, relics 
of the war; teamsters in leathern suits; horsemen in fur 

Page 163

coats and caps and buffalo-hide boots with the hair outside, and camping 
blankets behind their huge Mexican saddles; Broadway dandies in light kid 
gloves; rich English sporting tourists, clean, comely, and supercilious-
looking; and hundreds of Indians on their small ponies, the men wearing 
buckskin suits sewn with beads, and red blankets, with faces painted 
vermilion, and hair hanging lank and straight, and squaws much bundled up, 
riding astride with furs over their saddles.

   Town tired and confused me, and in spite of Mrs. Evans's kind 
hospitality, I was glad when a man brought Birdie at nine yesterday 
morning. He said she was a little demon, she had done nothing but buck, 
and had bucked him off on the bridge! I found that he had put a curb on 
her, and whenever she dislikes anything she resents it by bucking. I rode 
sidewise till I was well through the town, long enough to produce a severe 
pain in my spine, which was not relieved for some time even after I had 
changed my position. It was a lovely Indian summer day, so warm that the 
snow on the ground looked an incongruity. I rode over the Plains for some 
time, then gradually reached the rolling country along the base of the 
mountains, and a stream with cotton-woods along it, and settlers' houses 
about every half-mile. I passed and met waggons frequently, and picked up 
a muff containing a purse with five hundred dollars in it, which I 
afterwards had the great pleasure of 

Page 164

restoring to the owner. Several times I crossed the narrow track of the 
quaint little Rio Grande Railroad, so that it was a very cheerful ride.


   RANCH, PLUM CREEK, October 24. 
   You must understand that in Colorado travel, unless on the main road 
and in the larger settlements, there are neither hotels nor taverns, and 
that it is the custom for the settlers to receive travellers, charging 
them at the usual hotel rate for accommodation. It is a very satisfactory 
arrangement. However, at Ranch, my first halting-place, the host was 
unwilling to receive people in this way, I afterwards found, or I 
certainly should not have presented my credentials at the door of a large 
frame house, with large barns and a generally prosperous look. The host, 
who opened the door, looked repellant, but his wife, a very agreeable, 
ladylike-looking woman, said they could give me a bed on a sofa. The house 
was the most pretentious I have yet seen, being papered and carpeted, and 
there were two "hired girls." There was a lady there from Laramie, who 
kindly offered to receive me into her room, a very tall, elegant person, 
remarkable as being the first woman who had settled in the Rocky 
Mountains. She had been trying the "camp cure" for three months, and was 
then on her way home. She had a waggon with beds, tent, tent-floor, 
cooking-stove, and every camp luxury, a light buggy, a man to manage 
everything, and a most superior "hired 

Page 165

girl." She was consumptive and frail in strength, but a very attractive 
person, and her stories of the perils and limitations of her early life at 
Fort Laramie were very interesting. Still I "wearied," as I had arrived 
early in the afternoon, and could not out of politeness retire and write 
to you. At meals the three "hired men" and two "hired girls" eat with the 
family. I soon found that there was a screw loose in the house, and was 
glad to leave early the next morning, although it was obvious that a storm 
was coming on. I saw the toy car of the Rio Grande Railroad whirl past, 
all cushioned and warmed, and rather wished I were in it, and not out 
among the snow on the bleak hill-side. I only got on four miles when the 
storm came on so badly that I got into a kitchen where eleven wretched 
travellers were taking shelter, with the snow melting on them and dripping 
on the floor. I had learned the art of "being agreeable" so well at the 
Chalmers's, and practised it so successfully during the two hours I was 
there, by paring potatoes and making scones, that when I left, though the 
hosts kept "an accommodation house for travellers," they would take 
nothing for my entertainment, because they said I was such "good company"! 
The storm moderated a little, and at one I saddled Birdie, and rode four 
more miles, crossing a frozen creek, the ice of which broke and let the 
pony through, to her great alarm. I cannot describe my feelings on this 
ride, produced by the utter loneliness, the silence and dumbness of all 

Page 166

things, the snow falling quietly without wind, the obliterated mountains, 
the darkness, the intense cold, and the unusual and appalling aspect of 
nature. All life was in a shroud, all work and travel suspended. There was 
not a foot-mark or wheel-mark. There was nothing to be afraid of; and 
though I can't exactly say that I enjoyed the ride, yet there was the 
pleasant feeling of gaining health every hour.

   When the snow darkness began to deepen towards evening, the track 
became quite illegible, and when I found myself at this romantically 
situated cabin, I was thankful to find that they could give me shelter. 
The scene was a solemn one, and reminded me of a description in Whittier's 
Snow-Bound. All the stock came round the cabin with mute appeals for 
shelter. Sheep-dogs got in, and would not be kicked out. Men went out 
muffled up, and came back shivering and shaking the snow from their feet. 
The churn was put by the stove. Later on, a most pleasant settler, on his 
way to Denver, came in, his waggon having been snow-blocked two miles off, 
where he had been obliged to leave it and bring his horses on here. The 
"Grey Mare" had a stentorian voice, smoked a clay pipe which she passed to 
her children, raged at English people, derided the courtesy of English 
manners, and considered that "Please," "Thank you," and the like, were 
"all bosh" when life was so short and busy.. And still the snow fell 
softly, and the air and earth were silent.

Page 167

LETTER X.
A White World--Bad Travelling--A Millionaire's Home--Pleasant Park--
Perry's Park--Stock-raising--A Cattle King--The Arkansas Divide--Birdie's 
Sagacity--Luxury--Monument Park--Deference to Prejudice--A Death Scene--
The Manitou--A loose Shoe--The Ute Pass--Bergens Park--A Settler's Home--
Hayden's Divide--Sharp Criticism--Speaking the truth.

   COLORADO SPRINGS, October 23. 
   IT is difficult to make this anything of a letter. I have been riding 
for a whole week, seeing wonders and greatly enjoying the singular 
adventurousness and novelty of my tour, but ten hours or more daily spent 
in the saddle in this rarefied, intoxicating air, disposes one to sleep 
rather than to write in the evening, and is far from conducive to mental 
brilliancy. The observing faculties are developed, and the reflective lie 
dormant.

   That night on which I last wrote was the coldest I have yet felt. I 
pulled the rag carpet from the floor and covered myself with it, but could 
not get warm. The sun rose gloriously on a shrouded earth. Barns, road, 
shrubs, fences, river, lake, all lay under the glittering snow. It was 
light and powdery, and 

Page 168

sparkled like diamonds. Not a breath of wind stirred, there was not a 
sound. I had to wait till a passing horseman had broken the track, but 
soon after I set off into the new, shining world. I soon lost the 
horseman's footmarks, but kept on near the road by means of the 
innumerable footprints of birds and ground squirrels, which all went in 
one direction. After riding for an hour I was obliged to get off and walk 
for another, for the snow balled in Birdie's feet to such an extent that 
she could hardly keep up even without my weight on her, and my pick was 
not strong enough to remove it. Turning off the road to ask for a chisel, 
I came upon the cabin of the people whose muff I had picked up a few days 
before, and they received me very warmly, gave me a tumbler of cream, and 
made some strong coffee. They were "old country folk," and I stayed too 
long with them. After leaving them I rode twelve miles, but it was "bad 
travelling," from the balling of the snow and the difficulty of finding 
the track. There was a fearful loneliness about it. The track was 
untrodden, and I saw neither man nor beast. The sky became densely 
clouded, and the outlook was awful. The great Divide of the Arkansas was 
in front, looming vaguely through a heavy snow-cloud, and snow began to 
fall, not in powder, but in heavy flakes. Finding that there would be risk 
in trying to ride till nightfall, in the early afternoon I left the road 
and went two 

Page 169

miles into the hills by an untrodden path, where there were gates to open 
and a rapid steep-sided creek to cross; and at the entrance to a most 
fantastic gorge I came upon an elegant frame house belonging to Mr. Perry, 
a millionaire, to whom I had an introduction which I did not hesitate to 
present, as it was weather in which a traveller might almost ask for 
shelter without one.

   Mr. Perry was away, but his daughter, a very bright-looking, elegantly-
dressed girl, invited me to dine and remain. They had stewed venison and 
various luxuries on the table, which was tasteful and refined, and an 
adroit, coloured table-maid waited, one of five attached negro servants 
who had been their slaves before the war. After dinner, though snow was 
slowly falling, a gentleman cousin took me a ride to show me the beauties 
of Pleasant Park, which takes rank among the finest scenery of Colorado, 
and in good weather is very easy of access. It did look very grand as we 
entered it by a narrow pass guarded by two buttes, or isolated upright 
masses of rock, bright red, and about 300 feet in height. The pines were 
very large, and the narrow canyons which came down on the Park gloomily 
magnificent. It is remarkable also from a quantity of "monumental" rocks, 
from 50 to 300 feet in height, bright vermilion, green, buff, orange, and 
sometimes all combined, their gay tinting a contrast to the disastrous-
looking snow and the sombre 

Page 170

pines. Bear Canyon, a gorge of singular majesty, comes down on the Park, 
and we crossed the Bear Creek at the foot of this on the ice, which gave 
way, and both our horses broke through into pretty deep and very cold 
water, and shortly afterwards Birdie put her foot into a prairie dog's 
hole which was concealed by the snow, and on recovering herself fell three 
times on her nose. I thought of Bishop Wilberforce's fatal accident from a 
smaller stumble, and felt sure that he would have kept his sent had he 
been mounted, as I was, on a Mexican saddle. It was too threatening for a 
long ride, and on returning I passed into a region of vivacious 
descriptions of Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Turkey, Russia, and other 
countries, in which Miss Perry had travelled with her family for three 
years.

   Perry's Park is one of the great cattle-raising ranches in Colorado. 
This, the youngest State in the Union, a Territory until quite recently, 
has an area of about 68,000,000 acres, a great portion of which, though 
rich in mineral wealth, is worthless either for stock or arable farming, 
and the other or eastern part is so dry that crops can only be grown 
profitably where irrigation is possible. This region is watered by the 
south fork of the Platte and its affluents, and, though subject to the 
grasshopper pest, it produces wheat of the finest quality, the yield 
varying according to the mode of cultivation from 18 to 30 bushels 

Page 171

per acre. The necessity for irrigation, however, will always bar the way 
to an indefinite extension of the area of arable farms. The prospects of 
cattle-raising seem at present practically unlimited. In 1876 Colorado had 
390,728, valued at £2:13s. per head, about half of which were imported as 
young beasts from Texas. The climate is so fine and the pasturage so ample 
that shelter and hand-feeding are never resorted to except in the case of 
imported breeding stock from the Eastern States, which sometimes in severe 
winters need to be fed in sheds for a short time. Mr. Perry devotes 
himself mainly to the breeding of graded shorthorn bulls, which he sells 
when young for £6 per head.

   The cattle run at large upon the prairies; each animal being branded, 
they need no herding, and are usually only mustered, counted, and the 
increase branded in the summer. In the fall, when three or four years old, 
they are sold lean or in tolerable condition to dealers who take them by 
rail to Chicago, or elsewhere, where the fattest lots are slaughtered for 
tinning or for consumption in the Eastern cities, while the leaner are 
sold to farmers for feeding up during the winter. Some of the wealthier 
stockmen take their best lots to Chicago themselves. The Colorado cattle 
are either pure Texan or Spanish, or crosses between the Texan and graded 
shorthorns. They are nearly all very inferior animals, being bony 

Page 172

and ragged. The herds mix on the vast plains at will; along the Arkansas 
valley 80,000 roam about with the freedom of buffaloes, and of this number 
about 16,000 are exported every fall. Where cattle are killed for use in 
the mining districts their average price is 3 cents per lb. In the summer 
thousands of yearlings are driven up from Texas, branded, and turned loose 
on the prairies, and are not molested again till they are sent east at 
three or four years old. These pure Texans, the old Spanish breed, weigh 
from 900 to 1000 pounds, and the crossed Colorado cattle from 1000 to 1200 
pounds.

   The "Cattle King" of the State is Mr. Iliff, of South Platte, who owns 
nine ranches, with runs of 15,000 acres, and 35,000 cattle. He is 
improving his herd rapidly by means of imported shorthorn stock; and, 
indeed, the opening of the dead-meat trade with this country is giving a 
great impetus to the improvement of the breed of cattle among all the 
larger and richer stock-owners. For this enormous herd 40 men are employed 
in summer, about 12 in winter, and 200 horses. In the rare case of a 
severe and protracted snow-storm the cattle get a little hay. Owners of 
6000, 8000, and 10,000 head of cattle are quite common in Colorado. Sheep 
are now raised in the State to the extent of half a million, and a chronic 
feud prevails between the "sheep men" and the "cattle men." Sheep-raising 
is said to be a very profitable 

Page 173

business, but its risks and losses are greater, owing to storms, while the 
outlay for labour, dipping materials, etc., is considerably larger, and 
owing to the comparative inability of sheep to scratch away the snow from 
the grass, hay has to be provided to meet the emergency of very severe 
snow-storms. The flocks are made up mostly of pure and graded Mexicans; 
but though some flocks which have been graded carefully for some years 
show considerable merit, the average sheep is a leggy, ragged beast. 
Wether mutton, four and five years old, is sold when there is any demand 
for it; but except at Charpiot's, in Denver, I never saw mutton on any 
table, public or private, and wool is the great source of profit, the old 
ewes being allowed to die off. The best flocks yield an average of seven 
pounds of wool, and the worst two and a half pounds. The shearing season, 
which begins in early June, lasts about six weeks. Shearers get six and a 
half cents a head for inferior sheep, and seven and a half for the better 
quality, and a good hand shears from sixty to eighty in a day. It is not 
likely that sheep-raising will attain anything of the prominence which 
cattle-raising is likely to assume. The potato-beetle "scare" is not of 
much account in the country of the potato-beetle. The farmers seem much 
more depressed by the magnitude and persistency of the grasshopper pest, 
which finds their fields in the morning "as the garden of 

Page 174

Eden," and leaves them at night "a desolate wilderness."

   It was so odd and novel to have a beautiful bedroom, hot water, and 
other luxuries. The snow began to fall in good earnest at six in the 
evening, and fell all night, accompanied by intense frost, so that in the 
morning there were eight inches of it glittering in the sun. Miss P. gave 
me a pair of men's socks to draw on over my boots, and I set out tolerably 
early, and broke my own way for two miles. Then a single waggon had 
passed, making a legible track for thirty miles, otherwise the snow was 
pathless. The sky was absolutely cloudless, and as I made the long ascent 
of the Arkansas Divide, the mountains, gashed by deep canyons, came 
sweeping down to the valley on my right, and on my left the Foot Hills 
were crowned with coloured fantastic rocks like castles. Everything was 
buried under a glittering shroud of snow. The babble of the streams was 
bound by fetters of ice. No branches creaked in the still air. No birds 
sang. No one passed or met me. There were no cabins near or far. The only 
sound was the crunch of the snow under Birdie's feet. We came to a river 
over which some logs were laid with some young trees across them. Birdie 
put one foot on this, then drew it back and put another on, then smelt the 
bridge noisily. Persuasions were useless; she only smelt, snorted, held 
back, and turned her 

Page 175

cunning head and looked at me. It was useless to argue the point with so 
sagacious a beast. To the right of the bridge the ice was much broken, and 
we forded the river there; but as it was deep enough to come up to her 
body, and was icy cold to my feet, I wondered at her preference. 
Afterwards I heard that the bridge was dangerous. She is the queen of 
ponies, and is very gentle, though she has not only wild horse blood, but 
is herself the wild horse. She is always cheerful and hungry, never tired, 
looks intelligently at everything, and her legs are like rocks. Her one 
trick is that when the saddle is put on she swells herself to a very large 
size, so that if any one not accustomed to her saddles her I soon find the 
girth three or four inches too large. When I saddle her a gentle slap on 
her side, or any slight start which makes her cease to hold her breath, 
puts it all right. She is quite a companion, and bathing her back, 
sponging her nostrils, and seeing her fed after my day's ride, is always 
my first care.

   At last I reached a log cabin where I got a feed for us both and 
further directions. The rest of the day's ride was awful enough. The snow 
was thirteen inches deep, and grew deeper as I ascended in silence and 
loneliness, but just as the sun sank behind a snowy peak I reached the top 
of the Divide, 7975 feet above the sea-level. There, in unspeakable 
solitude, lay a frozen lake. Owls hooted among the pines, 

Page 176

the trail was obscure, the country was not settled, the mercury was 9 
degrees below zero, my feet had lost all sensation, and one of them was 
frozen to the wooden stirrup. I found that owing to the depth of the snow 
I had only ridden fifteen miles in eight and a half hours, and must look 
about for a place to sleep in. The eastern sky was unlike anything I ever 
saw before. It had been chrysoprase, then it turned to aquamarine, and 
that to the bright full green of an emerald. Unless I am colour-blind, 
this is true. Then suddenly the whole changed, and flushed with the pure, 
bright, rose-colour of the afterglow. Birdie was sliding at every step, 
and I was nearly paralysed with the cold when I reached a cabin which had 
been mentioned to me, but they said that seventeen snowbound men were 
lying on the floor, and they advised me to ride half a mile farther, which 
I did, and reached the house of a German from Eisenau, with a sweet young 
wife and a venerable mother-in-law. Though the house was very poor, it was 
made attractive by ornaments, and the simple, loving, German ways gave it 
a sweet home atmosphere. My room was reached by a ladder, but I had it to 
myself and had the luxury of a basin to wash in. Under the kindly 
treatment of the two women my feet came to themselves, but with an amount 
of pain that almost deserved the name of torture.

   The next morning was gray and sour, but bright- 

Page 177

ened and warmed as the day went on. After tiding twelve miles I got bread 
and milk for myself and a feed for Birdie at a large house where there 
were eight boarders, each one looking nearer the grave than the other, and 
on remounting was directed to leave the main road and diverge through 
Monument Park, a ride of twelve miles among fantastic rocks, but I lost my 
way, and came to an end of all tracks in a wild canyon. Returning about 
six miles, I took another track, and rode about eight miles without seeing 
a creature. I then came to strange gorges with wonderful upright rocks of 
all shapes and colours, and turning through a gate of rock, came upon what 
I knew must be Glen Eyrie, as wild and romantic a glen as imagination ever 
pictured. The track then passed down a valley close under some ghastly 
peaks, wild, cold, awe-inspiring scenery. After fording a creek several 
times, I came upon a decayed-looking cluster of houses bearing the 
arrogant name of Colorado City, and two miles farther on, from the top of 
one of the Foot Hill ridges, I saw the bleak-looking scattered houses of 
the ambitious watering-place of Colorado Springs, the goal of my journey 
of 150 miles. I got off, put on a long skirt, and rode sidewise, though 
the settlement scarcely looked like a place where any deference to 
prejudices was necessary. A queer embryo-looking place it is, out on the 
bare Plains, yet it is rising and likely to rise, and has some big 

Page 178

hotels much resorted to. It has a fine view of the mountains, specially of 
Pike's Peak, but the celebrated springs are at Manitou, three miles off, 
in really fine scenery. To me no place could be more unattractive than 
Colorado Springs, from its utter treelessness.

   I found the --s living in a small room which served for parlour, 
bedroom, and kitchen, and combined the comforts of all. It is inhabited 
also by two prairie dogs, a kitten, and a deerhound. It was truly 
homelike. Mrs. -- cooked an excellent steak, and her husband got the tea 
ready. They dispense with the dubious comfort and certain discomfort of a 
"hired girl." Mrs. -- walked with me to the boarding-house where I slept, 
and we sat some time in the parlour talking with the landlady. Opposite to 
me there was a door wide open into a bedroom, and on a bed opposite to the 
door a very sick-looking young man was half lying, half sitting, fully 
dressed, supported by another, and a very sick-looking young man much 
resembling him passed in and out occasionally, or leaned on the chimney-
piece in an attitude of extreme dejection. Soon the door was half-closed, 
and some one came to it, saying rapidly, "Shields, quick, a candle!" and 
then there were movings about in the room. All this time the seven or 
eight people in the room in which I was were talking, laughing, and 
playing backgammon, and none laughed louder than the landlady, who was 
sitting where she saw that 

Page 179

mysterious door as plainly as I did. All this time, and during the movings 
in the room, I saw two large white feet sticking up at the end of the bed. 
I watched and watched, hoping those feet would move, but they did not; and 
somehow, to my thinking, they grew stiffer and whiter, and then my 
horrible suspicion deepened, that while we were sitting there a human 
spirit untended and desolate had passed forth into the night. Then a man 
came out with a bundle of clothes, and then the sick young man, groaning 
and sobbing, and then a third, who said to me, with some feeling, that the 
man who had just died was the sick young man's only brother. And still the 
landlady laughed and talked, and afterwards said to me, "It turns the 
house upside down when they just come here and die; we shall be half the 
night laying him out." I could not sleep for the bitter cold and the sound 
of the sobs and groans of the bereaved brother. The next day the landlady, 
in a fashionably-made black dress, was bustling about, proud of the 
prospective arrival of a handsome coffin. I went into the parlour to get a 
needle, and the door of that room was open, and children were running in 
and out, and the landlady, who was sweeping there, called cheerily to me 
to come in for the needle, and there, to my horror, not even covered with 
a face-cloth, and with the sun blazing in through the unblinded window, 
lay that thing of terror, a corpse, on some chairs which were 

Page 180

not even placed straight. It was buried in the afternoon, and from the 
looks of the brother, who continued to sob and moan, his end cannot be far 
off.

   The --s say that many go to the Springs in the last stage of 
consumption, thinking that the Colorado climate will cure them, without 
money enough to pay for even the coarsest board. We talked most of that 
day, and I equipped myself with arctics and warm gloves for the mountain 
tour which has been planned for me, and I gave Birdie the Sabbath she was 
entitled to on Tuesday, for I found, on arriving at the Springs, that the 
day I crossed the Arkansas Divide was Sunday, though I did not know it. 
Several friends of Miss Kingsley called on me; she is much remembered and 
beloved. This is not an expensive tour; we cost about ten shillings a day, 
and the five days which I have spent en route from Denver have cost 
something less than the fare for the few hours' journey by the cars. There 
are no real difficulties. It is a splendid life for health and enjoyment. 
All my luggage being in a pack, and my conveyance being a horse, we can go 
anywhere where we can get food and shelter.


   GREAT GORGE OF THE MANITOU, October 29. 
   This is a highly picturesque place, with several springs, still and 
effervescing, the virtues of which were well known to the Indians. Near it 
are places, 

Page 181

the names of which are familiar to every one--the Garden of the Gods, Glen 
Eyrie, Pike's Peak, Monument Park, and the Ute Pass. It has two or three 
immense hotels, and a few houses picturesquely situated. It is thronged by 
thousands of people in the summer who come to drink the waters, try the 
camp cure, and make mountain excursions; but it is all quiet now, and 
there are only a few lingerers in this immense hotel. There is a rushing 
torrent in a valley, with mountains, covered with snow and rising to a 
height of nearly 15,000 feet, overhanging it. It is grand and awful, and 
has a strange, solemn beauty like death. And the Snowy Mountains are 
pierced by the torrent which has excavated the Ute Pass, by which, to-
morrow, I hope to go into the higher regions. But all may be "lost for 
want of a horseshoe-nail." One of Birdie's shoes is loose, and not a nail 
is to be got here, or can be got till I have ridden for ten miles up the 
Pass. Birdie amuses every one with her funny ways. She always follows me 
closely, and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlour-door 
open. She walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder, licking my 
face and teasing me for sugar; and sometimes, when any one else takes hold 
of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious broncho soul comes into her 
eyes. Her face is cunning and pretty, and she makes a funny, blarneying 
noise when I go up to her. The men at all the stables make a 

Page 182

fuss with her, and call her "Pet." She gallops up and down hill, and never 
stumbles even on the roughest ground, or requires even a touch with a whip.

   The weather is again perfect, with a cloudless sky and a hot sun, and 
the snow is all off the plains and lower valleys. After lunch, the --s in 
a buggy, and I on Birdie, left Colorado Springs, crossing the Mesa, a high 
hill with a table top, with a view of extraordinary laminated rocks, 
leaves of rock a bright vermilion colour, against a background of snowy 
mountains, surmounted by Pike's Peak. Then we plunged into cavernous Glen 
Eyrie, with its fantastic needles of coloured rock, and were entertained 
at General Palmer's "baronial mansion," a perfect eyrie, the fine hall 
filled with buffalo, elk, and deer heads, skins of wild animals, stuffed 
birds, bear robes, and numerous Indian and other weapons and trophies. 
Then, through a gate of huge red rocks, we passed into the valley, called 
fantastically, Garden of the Gods, in which, were I a divinity, I 
certainly would not choose to dwell. Many places in this neighbourhood are 
also vulgarised by grotesque names. From this we passed into a ravine, 
down which the Fountain river rushed, and there I left my friends with 
regret, and rode into this chill and solemn gorge, from which the 
mountains, reddening in the sunset, are only seen afar off. I put Birdie 
up at a stable, and as there was no place to put myself up but this huge 

Page 183

hotel, I came here to have a last taste of luxury. They charge six dollars 
a day in the season, but it is now half-price; and instead of four hundred 
fashionable guests there are only fifteen, most of whom are speaking in 
the weak, rapid accents of consumption, and are coughing their hearts out. 
There are seven medicinal springs. It is strange to have the luxuries of 
life in my room. It will be only the fourth night in Colorado that I have 
slept on anything better than hay or straw. I am glad that there are so 
few inns. As it is, I get a good deal of insight into the homes and modes 
of living of the settlers.


   BERGENS PARK, October 31. 
   This cabin was so dark, and I so sleepy last night, that I could not 
write; but the frost during the night has been very severe, and I am 
detained until the bright, hot sun melts the ice and renders travelling 
safe. I left the great Manitou at ten yesterday. Birdie, who was loose in 
the stable, came trotting down the middle of it when she saw me for her 
sugar and biscuits. No nails could be got, and her shoe was hanging by 
two, which doomed me to a foot's-pace and the dismal clink of a loose shoe 
for three hours. There was a cloud on the bright blue sky the whole day, 
and though it froze hard in the shade, it was summer-heat in the sun. The 
mineral fountains were sparkling in their basins and sending up their full 
perennial jets 

Page 184

but the snow-clad, pine-skirted mountains frowned and darkened over the 
Ute Pass as I entered it to ascend it for twenty miles. A narrow pass it 
is, with barely room for the torrent and the waggon road which has been 
blasted out of its steep sides. All the time I was in sight of the 
Fountain river, brighter than any stream, because it tumbles over rose-red 
granite, rocky or disintegrated, a truly fair stream, cutting and forcing 
its way through hard rocks, under arches of alabaster ice, through fringes 
of crystalline ice, thumping with a hollow sound in cavernous recesses 
cold and dark, or leaping in foam from heights with rush and swish; always 
bright and riotous, never pausing in still pools to rest, dashing through 
gates of rock, pine-hung, pine-bridged, pine-buried; twinkling and 
laughing in the sunshine, or frowning in "dowie dens" in the blue pine 
gloom. And there, for a mile or two in a sheltered spot, owing to the more 
southern latitude, the everlasting northern pine met the trees of other 
climates. There were dwarf oaks, willows, hazel, and spruce; the white 
cedar and the trailing juniper jostled each other for a precarious 
foothold; the majestic redwood-tree of the Pacific met the exquisite 
balsam-pine of the Atlantic slopes, and among them all the pale gold 
foliage of the large aspen trembled (as the legend goes) in endless 
remorse. And above them towered the toothy peaks of the glittering 
mountains, rising in pure white against the 

Page 185

sunny blue. Grand! glorious! sublime! but not lovable. I would give all 
for the luxurious redundance of one Hilo gulch, or for one day of those 
soft dreamy "skies whose very tears are balm."

   Up ever! the road being blasted out of the red rock which often 
overhung it, the canyon only from fifteen to twenty feet wide, the thunder 
of the Fountain, which is crossed eight times, nearly deafening. Sometimes 
the sun struck the road, and then it was absolutely hot; then one entered 
unsunned gorges where the snow lay deep, and the crowded pines made dark 
twilight, and the river roared under ice bridges fringed by icicles. At 
last the Pass opened out upon a sunlit upland Park, where there was a 
forge, and with Birdie's shoe put on, and some shoenails in my purse, I 
rode on cheerfully, getting food for us both at a ranch belonging to some 
very pleasant people, who, like all Western folk, when they are not 
taciturn, asked a legion of questions. There I met a Colonel Kittridge, 
who said that he believed his valley, twelve miles off the track, to be 
the loveliest valley in Colorado, and invited me to his house. Leaving the 
road, I went up a long ascent deep in snow, but as it did not seem to be 
the way, I tied up the pony, and walked on to a cabin at some distance, 
which I had hardly reached when I found her trotting like a dog by my 
side, pulling my sleeve and laying her soft gray nose on my shoulder. Does 
it all mean sugar? We had 

Page 186

eight miles farther to go--most of the way through a forest, which I 
always dislike when alone, from the fear of being frightened by something 
which may appear from behind a tree. I saw a beautiful white fox, several 
skunks, some chipmonks and gray squirrels, owls, crows, and crested blue-
jays. As the sun was getting low I reached Bergens Park, which was to put 
me out of conceit with Estes Park. Never! It is long and featureless, and 
its immediate surroundings are mean. It reminded me in itself of some 
dismal Highland strath--Glenshee, possibly. I looked at it with special 
interest, as it was the place at which Miss Kingsley had suggested that I 
might remain. The evening was glorious, and the distant views were very 
fine. A stream fringed with cotton-wood runs through the Park; low ranges 
come down upon it. The south end is completely closed up, but at a 
considerable distance, by the great mass of Pike's Peak, while far beyond 
the other end are peaks and towers, wonderful in blue and violet in the 
lovely evening, and beyond these, sharply defined against the clear green 
sky, was the serrated ridge of the Snowy Range, said to be 200 miles away. 
Bergens Park has been bought by Dr. Bell, of London, but its present 
occupant is Mr. Thornton, an English gentleman, who has a worthy married 
Englishman as his manager. Mr. Thornton is building a good house, and 
purposes to build other cabins, with the intention of making the 

Page 187

Park a resort for strangers. I thought of the blue hollow lying solitary 
at the foot of Long's Peak, and rejoiced that I had "happened into it."

   The cabin is long, low, mud-roofed, and very dark. The middle place is 
full of raw meat, fowls, and gear. One end, almost dark, contains the 
cooking-stove, milk, crockery, a long deal table, two benches, and some 
wooden stools; the other end houses the English manager or partner, his 
wife, and three children, another cooking-stove, gear of all kinds, and 
sacks of beans and flour. They put up a sheet for a partition, and made me 
a shake-down on the gravel floor of this room. Ten hired men sat down to 
meals with us. It was all very rough, dark, and comfortless, but Mr. T., 
who is not only a gentleman by birth, but an M.A. of Cambridge, seems to 
like it. Much in this way (a little smoother if a lady is in the case) 
every man must begin life here. Seven large dogs--three of them with cats 
upon their backs--are usually warming themselves at the fire.


   TWIN ROCK, SOUTH FORK OF THE PLATTE, November 1. 
   I did not leave Mr. Thornton's till ten, because of the slipperiness. I 
rode four miles along a back trail, and then was so tired that I stayed 
for two hours at a ranch, where I heard, to my dismay, that I must ride 
twenty-four miles farther before I could find any place to sleep at. I did 
not enjoy yester- 

Page 188

day's ride. I was both tired and rheumatic, and Birdie was not so 
sprightly as usual. After starting again I came on a hideous place, of 
which I had not heard before, Hayden's Divide, one of the great backbones 
of the region, a weary expanse of deep snow eleven miles across, and 
fearfully lonely. I Saw nothing the whole way but a mule lately dead lying 
by the road. I was very nervous somehow, and towards evening believed that 
I had lost the road, for I came upon wild pine forests, with huge masses 
of rock from 100 to 700 feet high, cast here and there among them; beyond 
these pine-sprinkled grass hills; these, in their turn, were bounded by 
interminable ranges, ghastly in the lurid evening, with the Spanish Peaks 
quite clear, and the colossal summit of Mount Lincoln, the King of the 
Rocky Mountains, distinctly visible, though seventy miles away. It seemed 
awful to be alone on that ghastly ridge, surrounded by interminable 
mountains, in the deep snow, knowing that a party of thirty had been lost 
here a month ago. Just at nightfall the descent of a steep hill took me 
out of the forest and upon a clean log cabin, where, finding that the 
proper halting-place was two miles farther on, I remained. A truly 
pleasing, superior-looking woman placed me in a rocking-chair; would not 
let me help her otherwise than by rocking the cradle, and made me "feel at 
home." The room, though it serves them and their 

Page 189

two children for kitchen, parlour, and bedroom, is the pattern of 
brightness, cleanliness, and comfort. At supper there were canned 
raspberries, rolls, butter, tea, venison, and fried rabbit, and at seven I 
went to bed in a carpeted log room, with a thick feather-bed on a 
mattress, sheets, ruffled pillow slips, and a pile of warm white blankets! 
I slept for eleven hours. They discourage me much about the route which 
Governor Hunt has projected for me. They think that it is impassable, 
owing to snow, and that another storm is brewing.


   HALLS GULCH, November 6. 
   I have ridden 150 miles since I wrote last. On leaving Twin Rock on 
Saturday I had a short day's ride to Colonel Kittridge's cabin at Oil 
Creek, where I spent a quiet Sunday with agreeable people. The ride was 
all through parks and gorges, and among pine-clothed hills, about 9000 
feet high, with Pike's Peak always in sight. I have developed much 
sagacity in finding a trail, or I should not be able to make use of such 
directions as these: "Keep along a gulch four or five miles till you get 
Pike's Peak on your left, then follow some wheel-marks till you get to 
some timber, and keep to the north till you come to a creek, where you'll 
find a great many elk tracks; then go to your right and cross the creek 
three times, then you'll see a red rock to your left," etc. etc. The K.'s 

Page 190

cabin was very small and lonely, and the life seemed a hard grind for an 
educated and refined woman. There were snow flurries after I arrived, but 
the first Sunday of November was as bright and warm as June, and the 
atmosphere had resumed its exquisite purity. Three peaks of Pike's Peak 
are seen from Oil Creek, above the nearer hills, and by them they tell the 
time. We had been in the evening shadows for half an hour before those 
peaks ceased to be transparent gold. On leaving Colonel Kittridge's 
hospitable cabin I dismounted, as I had often done before, to lower a bar, 
and, on looking round, Birdie was gone! I spent an hour in trying to catch 
her, but she had taken an "ugly fit," and would not let me go near her; 
and I was getting tired and vexed, when two passing trappers, on mules, 
circumvented and caught her. I rode the twelve miles back to Twin Rock, 
and then went on, a kindly teamster, who was going in the same direction, 
taking my pack. I must explain that every mile I have travelled since 
leaving Colorado Springs has taken me farther and higher into the 
mountains. That afternoon I rode through lawn-like upland parks, with the 
great snow mass of Pike's Peak behind, and in front mountains bathed in 
rich atmospheric colouring of blue and violet, all very fine, but 
threatening to become monotonous, when the waggon road turned abruptly to 
the left, and crossed a broad, swift, mountain 

Page 191

river, the head-waters of the Platte. There I found the ranch to which I 
had been recommended, the quarters of a great hunter named Link, which 
much resembled a good country inn. There was a pleasant, friendly woman, 
but the men were all away, a thing I always regret, as it gives me half an 
hour's work at the horse before I can write to you. I had hardly come in 
when a very pleasant German lady, whom I met at Manitou, with three 
gentlemen, arrived, and we were as sociable as people could be. We had a 
splendid though rude supper. While Mrs. Link was serving us, and urging 
her good things upon us, she was orating on the greediness of English 
people, saying that "you would think they travelled through the country 
only to gratify their palates;" and addressed me, asking me if I had not 
observed it! I am nearly always taken for a Dane or a Swede, never for an 
Englishwoman, so I often hear a good deal of outspoken criticism. In the 
evening Mr. Link returned, and there was a most vehement discussion 
between him, an old hunter, a miner, and the teamster who brought my pack, 
as to the route by which I should ride through the mountains for the next 
three or four days--because at that point I was to leave the waggon road--
and it was renewed with increased violence the next morning, so that if my 
nerves had not been of steel I should have been appalled. The old hunter 
acrimoniously said he 

Page 192

"must speak the truth," the miner was directing me over a track where for 
twenty-five miles there was not a house, and where, if snow came on, I 
should never be heard of again. The miner said he "must speak the truth," 
the hunter was directing me over a pass where there were five feet of 
snow, and no trail. The teamster said that the only road possible for a 
horse was so-and-so, and advised me to take the waggon road into South 
Park, which I was determined not to do. Mr. Link said he was the oldest 
hunter and settler in the district, and he could not cross any of the 
trails in snow. And so they went on. At last they partially agreed on a 
route--"the worst road in the Rocky Mountains," the old hunter said, with 
two feet of snow upon it, but a hunter had hauled an elk over part of it, 
at any rate. The upshot of the whole you shall have in my next letter.

I.L.B.