A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains - Pages 193-238



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LETTER XI.
Tarryall Creek--The Red Range--Excelsior!--Importunate Pedlars--Snow and 
Heat--A Bison Calf--Deep Drifts--South Park--The Great Divide--Comanche 
Bill--Difficulties--Hall's Gulch--A Lord Dundreary--Ridiculous Fears.

   HALL'S GULCH, COLORADO, November 6. 
   IT was another cloudless morning, one of the many here on which one 
awakes early, refreshed, and ready to enjoy the fatigues of another day. 
In our sunless, misty climate you do not know the influence which 
persistent fine weather exercises on the spirits. I have been ten months 
in almost perpetual sunshine, and now a single cloudy day makes me feel 
quite depressed. I did not leave till 9.30, because of the slipperiness, 
and shortly after starting turned off into the wilderness on a very dim 
trail. Soon seeing a man riding a mile ahead, I rode on and overtook him, 
and we rode eight miles together, which was convenient to me, as without 
him I should several times have lost the trail altogether. Then his fine 
American horse, on which he had only ridden two days, broke down, while my 
"mad, bad broncho," on which I had been travelling for a fortnight, 
cantered 

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lightly over the snow. He was the only traveller I saw in a day of nearly 
twelve hours. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of that ride. It 
concentrated all my faculties of admiration and of locality, for truly the 
track was a difficult one. I sometimes thought it deserved the bad name 
given to it at Link's. For the most part it keeps in sight of Tarryall 
Creek, one of the large affluents of the Platte, and is walled in on both 
sides by mountains, which are sometimes so close together as to leave only 
the narrowest canyon between them, at others breaking wide apart, till, 
after winding and climbing up and down for twenty-five miles, it lands one 
on a barren rock girdled park, watered by a rapid fordable stream as broad 
as the Ouse at Huntingdon, snow-fed and ice-fringed, the park bordered by 
fantastic rocky hills, snow-covered and brightened only by a dwarf growth 
of the beautiful silver spruce. I have not seen anything hitherto so 
thoroughly wild and unlike the rest of these parts.

   I rode up one great ascent where hills were tumbled about confusedly; 
and suddenly across the broad ravine, rising above the sunny grass and the 
deep-green pines, rose in glowing and shaded red against the glittering 
blue heaven a magnificent and unearthly range of mountains, as shapely as 
could be seen, rising into colossal points, cleft by deep blue ravines, 
broken up into sharks' teeth, with gigantic knobs and pinnacles rising 
from their inaccessible sides, very fair to 

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look upon--a glowing, heavenly, unforgetable sight, and only four miles 
off. Mountains they looked not of this earth, but such as one sees in 
dreams alone, the blessed ranges of "the land which is very far off." They 
were more brilliant than those incredible colours in which painters array 
the fiery hills of Moab and the Desert, and one could not believe them for 
ever uninhabited, for on them rose, as in the East, the similitude of 
stately fortresses, not the gray castellated towers of feudal Europe, but 
gay, massive, Saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. 
They were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their colour 
indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases, then 
gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the highest summits 
rose all flushed, and with an illusion of transparency, so that one might 
believe that they were taking on the hue of sunset. Below them lay broken 
ravines of fantastic rocks, cleft and canyoned by the river, with a tender 
unearthly light over all, the apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while I 
on the north side was in the shadow among the pure unsullied snow. 

"With us the damp, the chill, the gloom;
 With them the sunset's rosy bloom."

   The dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them. Here, 
again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit, and the 
question was ever present, "Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful 

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of him; or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" I rode up and down 
hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off often to ease my faithful 
Birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes, stopping constantly to feast my 
eyes upon that changeless glory, always seeing some new ravine, with its 
depths of colour or miraculous brilliancy of red, or phantasy of form. 
Then below, where the trail was locked into a deep canyon where there was 
scarcely room for it and the river, there was a beauty of another kind in 
solemn gloom. There the stream curved and twisted marvellously, widening 
into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling eddies, with pyramidal firs and 
the beautiful silver spruce fringing its banks, and often falling across 
it in artistic grace, the gloom chill and deep, with only now and then a 
light trickling through the pines upon the cold snow, when suddenly 
turning round I saw behind, as if in the glory of an eternal sunset, those 
flaming and fantastic peaks. The effect of the combination of winter and 
summer was singular. The trail ran on the north side the whole time, and 
the snow lay deep and pure white, while not a wreath of it lay on the 
south side, where abundant lawns basked in the warm sun.

   The pitch pine, with its monotonous and somewhat rigid form, had 
disappeared; the white pine became scarce, both being displaced by the 
slim spires and silvery green of the miniature silver spruce. Valley and 
canyon were passed, the flaming ranges 

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were left behind, the upper altitudes became grim and mysterious. I 
crossed a lake on the ice, and then came on a park surrounded by barren 
contorted hills, overtopped by snow mountains. There, in some brushwood, 
we crossed a deepish stream on the ice, which gave way, and the fearful 
cold of the water stiffened my limbs for the rest of the ride. All these 
streams become bigger as you draw nearer to their source, and shortly the 
trail disappeared in a broad rapid river, which we forded twice. The trail 
was very difficult to recover. It ascended ever in frost and snow, amidst 
scanty timber dwarfed by cold and twisted by storms, amidst solitudes such 
as one reads of in the High Alps; there were no sounds to be heard but the 
crackle of ice and snow, the pitiful howling of wolves, and the hoot of 
owls. The sun to me had long set; the peaks which had blushed were pale 
and sad; the twilight deepened into green; but still "Excelsior!" There 
were no happy homes with light of household fires; above, the spectral 
mountains lifted their cold summits. As darkness came on I began to fear 
that I had confused the cabin to which I had been directed with the rocks. 
To confess the truth, I was cold, for my boots and stockings had frozen on 
my feet, and I was hungry too, having eaten nothing but raisins for 
fourteen hours. After riding 30 miles I saw a light a little way from the 
track, and found it to be the cabin of the daughter of the 

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pleasant people with whom I had spent the previous night. Her husband had 
gone to the plains, yet she, with two infant children, was living there in 
perfect security. Two pedlars, who were peddling their way down from the 
mines, came in for a night's shelter soon after I arrived--ill-looking 
fellows enough. They admired Birdie in a suspicious fashion, and offered 
to "swop" their pack-horse for her. I went out the last thing at night and 
the first thing in the morning to see that "the powny" was safe, for they 
were very importunate on the subject of the "swop." I had before been 
offered 150 dollars for her. I was obliged to sleep with the mother and 
children, and the pedlars occupied a room within ours. It was hot and 
airless. The cabin was papered with the Phrenological Journal, and in the 
morning I opened my eyes on the very best portrait of Dr. Candlish I ever 
saw, and grieved truly that I should never see that massive brow and 
fantastic face again.

   Mrs. Link was an educated and very intelligent young woman. The pedlars 
were Irish Yankees, and the way in which they "traded" was as amusing as 
"Sam Slick." They not only wanted to "swop" my pony, but to "trade" my 
watch. They trade their souls, I know. They displayed their wares for an 
hour with much dexterous flattery and persuasiveness, but Mrs. Link was 
untemptable, and I was only tempted into buying a handkerchief to keep the 
sun 

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off. There was another dispute about my route. It was the most critical 
day of my journey. If a snowstorm came on, I might be detained in the 
mountains for many weeks; but if I got through the snow and reached the 
Denver waggon-road, no detention would signify much. The pedlars insisted 
that I could not get through, for the road was not broken. Mrs. L. thought 
I could, and advised me to try, so I saddled Birdie and rode away.

   More than half of the day was far from enjoyable. The morning was 
magnificent, but the light too dazzling, the sun too fierce. As soon as I 
got out I felt as if I should drop off the horse. My large handkerchief 
kept the sun from my neck, but the fierce heat caused soul and sense, 
brain and eye, to reel. I never saw or felt the like of it. I was at a 
height of 12,000 feet, where, of course, the air was highly rarefied, and 
the snow was so pure and dazzling that I was obliged to keep my eyes shut 
as much as possible to avoid snow blindness. The sky was a different and 
terribly fierce colour; and when I caught a glimpse of the sun, he was 
white and unwinking like a lime-ball light, yet threw off wicked 
scintillations. I suffered so from nausea, exhaustion, and pains from head 
to foot, that I felt as if I must lie down in the snow. It may have been 
partly the early stage of soroche, or mountain sickness. We plodded on for 
four hours, snow all round, and nothing else to be 

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seen but an ocean of glistening peaks against that sky of infuriated blue. 
How I found my way I shall never know, for the only marks on the snow were 
occasional footprints of a man, and I had no means of knowing whether they 
led in the direction I ought to take. Earlier, before the snow became so 
deep, I passed the last great haunt of the magnificent mountain bison, 
but, unfortunately, saw nothing but horns and bones. Two months ago Mr. 
Link succeeded in separating a calf from the herd, and has partially 
domesticated it. It is a very ugly thing at seven months old, with a thick 
beard, and a short, thick, dark mane on its heavy shoulders. It makes a 
loud grunt like a pig. It can outrun their fastest horse, and it sometimes 
leaps over the high fence of the corral, and takes all the milk of five 
cows.

   The snow grew seriously deep. Birdie fell thirty times, I am sure. She 
seemed unable to keep up at all, so I was obliged to get off and stumble 
along in her footmarks. By that time my spirit for overcoming difficulties 
had somewhat returned, for I saw a lie of country which I knew must 
contain South Park, and we had got under cover of a hill which kept off 
the sun. The trail had ceased; it was only one of those hunter's tracks 
which continually mislead one. The getting through the snow was awful 
work. I think we accomplished a mile in something over two hours. The snow 
was two feet 

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eight inches deep, and once we went down in a drift the surface of which 
was rippled like sea sand, Birdie up to her back, and I up to my 
shoulders! At last we got through, and I beheld, with some sadness, the 
goal of my journey, "The Great Divide," the snowy range, and between me 
and it South Park, a rolling prairie seventy-five miles long and over 10,
000 feet high, treeless, bounded by mountains, and so rich in sun-cured 
hay that one might fancy that all the herds of Colorado could find pasture 
there. Its chief centre is the rough mining town of Fairplay, but there 
are rumours of great mineral wealth in various quarters. The region has 
been "rushed," and mining camps have risen at Alma and elsewhere, so 
lawless and brutal that vigilance committees are forming as a matter of 
necessity. South Park is closed, or nearly so, by snow during an ordinary 
winter; and just now the great freight waggons are carrying up the last 
supplies of the season, and taking down women and other temporary 
inhabitants. A great many people come up here in the summer. The rarefied 
air produces great oppression on the lungs, accompanied with bleeding. It 
is said that you can tell a new arrival by seeing him go about holding a 
blood-stained handkerchief to his mouth. But I came down upon it from. 
regions of ice and snow; and as the snow which had fallen on it had all 
disappeared by evaporation and drifting, it looked to 

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me quite lowland and livable, though lonely and indescribably mournful, "a 
silent sea," suggestive of "the muffled oar." I cantered across the narrow 
end of it, delighted to have got through the snow; and when I struck the 
"Denver stage-road" I supposed that all the difficulties of mountain 
travel were at an end, but this has not turned out to be exactly the case.

   A horseman shortly joined me and rode with me, got me a fresh horse, 
and accompanied me for ten miles. He was a picturesque figure and rode a 
very good horse. He wore a big slouch hat, from under which a number of 
fair curls hung nearly to his waist. His beard was fair, his eyes blue, 
and his complexion ruddy. There was nothing sinister in his expression, 
and his manner was respectful and frank. He was dressed in a hunter's 
buckskin suit ornamented with beads, and wore a pair of exceptionally big 
brass spurs. His saddle was very highly ornamented. What was unusual was 
the number of weapons he carried. Besides a rifle laid across his saddle 
and a pair of pistols in the holsters, he carried two revolvers and a 
knife in his belt, and a carbine slung behind him. I found him what is 
termed "good company." He told me a great deal about the country and its 
wild animals, with some hunting adventures, and a great deal about Indians 
and their cruelty and treachery. All this time, having crossed South Park, 
we were ascending the Continental 

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Divide by what I think is termed the Breckenridge Pass, on a fairly good 
waggon-road. We stopped at a cabin, where the woman seemed to know my 
companion, and, in addition to bread and milk, produced some venison 
steaks. We rode on again, and reached the crest of the Divide (see 
engraving), and saw snow-born streams starting within a quarter of a mile 
from each other, one for the Colorado and the Pacific, the other for the 
Platte and the Atlantic. Here I wished the hunter good-bye, and 
reluctantly turned northeast. It was not wise to go up the Divide at all, 
and it was necessary to do it in haste. On my way down I spoke to the 
woman at whose cabin I had dined, and she said, "I am sure you found 
Comanche Bill a real gentleman;" and I then knew that, if she gave me 
correct information, my intelligent, courteous companion was one of the 
most notorious desperadoes of the Rocky Mountains, and the greatest Indian 
exterminator on the frontier--a man whose father and family fell in a 
massacre at Spirit Lake by the hands of Indians, who carried away his 
sister, then a child of eleven. His life has since been mainly devoted to 
a search for this child, and to killing Indians wherever he can find them.

   After riding twenty miles, which made the distance for that day fifty, 
I remounted Birdie to ride six miles farther, to a house which had been 
mentioned to me as a stopping-place. The road ascended 

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to a height of 11,000 feet, and from thence I looked my last at the 
lonely, uplifted prairie-sea. "Denver stage-road!" The worst, rudest, 
dismallest, darkest road I have yet travelled on, nothing but a winding 
ravine, the Platte canyon, pine-crowded and pine-darkened, walled in on 
both sides for six miles by pine-skirted mountains 12,000 feet high! Along 
this abyss for forty miles there are said to be only five houses, and were 
it not for miners going down, and freight-waggons going up, the solitude 
would be awful. As it was, I did not see a creature. It was four when I 
left South Park, and between those mountain walls and under the pines it 
soon became quite dark, a darkness which could be felt. The snow which had 
melted in the sun had refrozen, and was one sheet of smooth ice. Birdie 
slipped so alarmingly that I got off and walked, but then neither of us 
could keep our feet, and in the darkness she seemed so likely to fall upon 
me, that I took out of my pack the man's socks which had been given me at 
Perry's Park, and drew them on over her fore feet--an expedient which for 
a time succeeded admirably, and which I commend to all travellers 
similarly circumstanced. It was unutterably dark, and all these operations 
had to be performed by the sense of touch only. I remounted, allowed her 
to take her own way, as I could not see even her ears, and though her hind 
legs slipped badly, we contrived 

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to get along through the narrowest part of the canyon, with a tumbling 
river close to the road. The pines were very dense, and sighed and creaked 
mournfully in the severe frost, and there were other eerie noises not easy 
to explain. At last, when the socks were nearly worn out, I saw the blaze 
of a camp fire, with two hunters sitting by it, on the hill-side, and at 
the mouth of a gulch something which looked like buildings. We got across 
the river partly on ice and partly by fording, and I found that this was 
the place where, in spite of its somewhat dubious reputation, I had been 
told that I could put up. A man came out in the sapient and good-natured 
stage of intoxication, and, the door being opened, I was confronted by a 
rough bar and a smoking, blazing kerosene lamp without a chimney. This is 
the worst place I have put up at as to food, lodging, and general 
character; an old and very dirty log-cabin, not chinked, with one dingy 
room used for cooking and feeding, in which a miner was lying very ill of 
fever; then a large footless shed with a canvas side, which is to be an 
addition, and then the bar. They accounted for the disorder by the 
building operations. They asked me if I were the English lady written of 
in the Denver News, and for once I was glad that my fame had preceded me, 
as it seemed to secure me against being quietly "put out of the way." A 
horrible meal was served--dirty, greasy, disgusting. 

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   A celebrated hunter, Bob Craik, came in to supper with a young man in 
tow, whom, in spite of his rough hunter's or miner's dress, I at once 
recognised as an English gentleman. It was their camp-fire which I had 
seen on the hill-side. This gentleman was lording it in true caricature 
fashion, with a Lord Dundreary drawl and a general execration of 
everything; while I sat in the chimney corner, speculating on the reason 
why many of the upper class of my countrymen --"High Toners," as they are 
called out here--make themselves so ludicrously absurd. They neither know 
how to hold their tongues or to carry their personal pretensions. An 
American is nationally assumptive, an Englishman personally so. He took no 
notice of me till something passed which showed him I was English, when 
his manner at once changed into courtesy, and his drawl was shortened by a 
half. He took pains to let me know that he was an officer in the Guards, 
of good family, on four months' leave, which he was spending in slaying 
buffalo and elk, and also that he had a profound contempt for everything 
American. I cannot think why Englishmen put on these broad, mouthing 
tones, and give so many personal details. They retired to their camp, and 
the landlord having passed into the sodden, sleepy stage of drunkenness, 
his wife asked if I should be afraid to sleep in the large canvas-sided, 
unceiled, doorless shed, as they could not move the sick miner. 

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So I slept there on a shake-down, with the stars winking overhead through 
the roof, and the mercury showing 30 degrees of frost. I never told you 
that I once gave an unwary promise that I would not travel alone in 
Colorado unarmed, and that in consequence I left Estes Park with a Sharp's 
revolver loaded with ball-cartridge in my pocket, which has been the 
plague of my life. Its bright ominous barrel peeped out in quiet Denver 
shops, children pulled it out to play with, or when my riding-dress hung 
up with it in the pocket, pulled the whole from the peg to the floor; and 
I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which I could feel it right to 
make any use of it, or in which it could do me any possible good. Last 
night, however, I took it out, cleaned and oiled it, and laid it under my 
pillow, resolving to keep awake all night. I slept as soon as I lay down, 
and never woke till the bright morning sun shone through the roof, making 
me ridicule my own fears and abjure pistols for ever!

I.L.B. 

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LETTER XII.
Deer Valley--Lynch Law--Vigilance Committees--The Silver Spruce--Taste and 
Abstinence--The Whisky Fiend--Smartness--Turkey Creek Canyon--The Indian 
Problem--Public Rascality--Friendly Meetings--The Way to the Golden City--
A rising Settlement--Clear Creek Canyon--Staging--Swearing--A Mountain 
Town.

   DEER VALLEY, November. 
   TO-NIGHT I am in a beautiful place like a Dutch farm--large, warm, 
bright, clean, with abundance of clean food, and a clean, cold little 
bedroom to myself. But it is very hard to write for two free-tongued, 
noisy Irishwomen, who keep a miners' boarding-house in South Park, and are 
going to winter quarters in a freight-waggon, are telling the most fearful 
stories of violence, vigilance committees, Lynch law, and "stringing," 
that I ever heard. It turns one's blood cold only to think that where I 
travel in perfect security, only short time ago men were being shot like 
skunks. At the mining towns up above this nobody is thought anything of 
who has not killed a man--i.e. in a certain set. These women had a 
boarder, only fifteen, who thought he could not be anything till he had 
shot somebody, and they gave an absurd account of the 

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lad dodging about with a revolver, and not getting up courage enough to 
insult any one, till at last he hid himself in the stable and shot the 
first Chinaman who entered. Things up there are just in that initial state 
which desperadoes love. A man accidentally shoves another in a saloon, or 
says a rough word at meals, and the challenge, "first finger on the 
trigger" warrants either in shooting the other at any subsequent time 
without the formality of a duel. Nearly all the shooting affrays arise 
from the most trivial causes in saloons and bar-rooms. The deeper 
quarrels, arising from jealousy or revenge, are few, and are usually about 
some woman not worth fighting for. At Alma and Fairplay vigilance 
committees have been lately formed, and when men act outrageously and make 
themselves generally obnoxious they receive a letter with a drawing of a 
tree, a man hanging from it, and a coffin below, on which is written 
"Forewarned." They "git" in a few hours. When I said I spent last night at 
Hall's Gulch there was quite a chorus of exclamations. My host there, they 
all said, would be "strung" before long. Did I know that a man was 
"strung" there yesterday? Had I not seen him hanging? He was on the big 
tree by the house, they said. Certainly, had I known what a ghastly burden 
that tree bore, I would have encountered the ice and gloom of the gulch 
rather than have slept there. They then told me a horrid tale of crime and 

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violence. This man had even shocked the morals of the Alma crowd, and had 
a notice served on him by the vigilants, which had the desired effect, and 
he imigrated to Hall's Gulch. As the tale runs, the Hall's Gulch miners 
were resolved either not to have a groggery or to limit the number of such 
places, and when this ruffian set one up he was "forewarned." It seems, 
however, to have been merely a pretext for getting rid of him, for it was 
hardly a crime of which even Lynch law could take cognisance. He was 
overpowered by numbers, and, with circumstances of great horror, was tried 
and strung on that tree within an hour.(*)

   I left the place this morning at ten, and have had a very pleasant day, 
for the hills shut out the hot sun. I only rode twenty-two miles, for the 
difficulty of riding on ice was great, and there is no blacksmith within 
thirty five miles of Hall's Gulch. I met two freighters just after I left, 
who gave me the unwelcome news that there were thirty miles of ice between 
that and Denver. "You'll have a tough trip," they said. The road runs up 
and down hill, walled in along with a rushing river by high mountains. The 
scenery is very grand, but I hate being shut into these deep gorges, and 
always expect to see some startling object moving among the trees. I met 
no one the whole 

(* Public opinion approved this execution, regarding it as a fitting 
retribution for a series of crimes.)

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day after passing the teams except two men with a "pack-jack." Birdie 
hates jacks, and rears and shies as soon as she sees one. It was a bad 
road, one shelving sheet of ice, and awfully lonely, and between the peril 
of the mare breaking her leg on the ice and that of being crushed by 
windfalls of timber, I had to look out all day. Towards sunset I came to a 
cabin where they "keep travellers," but the woman looked so vinegar-faced 
that I preferred to ride four miles farther, up a beautiful road winding 
along a sunny gulch filled with silver spruce, bluer and more silvery than 
any I have yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which the view in all 
the ecstasy of sunset colour was perfectly glorious. It was enjoyment also 
in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which I had been immured all 
day. There is a train of twelve freight-waggons here, each waggon with six 
horses, but the teamsters carry their own camping blankets and sleep 
either in their waggons or on the floor, so the house is not crowded. It 
is a pleasant two-storey log-house, not only chinked but lined with planed 
timber. Each room has a great open chimney with logs burning in it; there 
are pretty engravings on the walls, and baskets full of creepers hanging 
from the ceiling. This is the first settler's house I have been in in 
which the ornamental has had any place. There is a door to each room, the 
oak chairs are bright with rubbing, and the floor, though unplaned, 

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is so clean that one might eat off it. The table is clean and abundant, 
and the mother and daughter, though they do all the work, look as trim as 
if they did none, and actually laugh heartily. The ranchman neither allows 
drink to be brought into the house nor to be drunk outside, and on this 
condition only he "keeps travellers." The freighters come in to supper 
quite well washed, and though twelve of them slept in the kitchen; by nine 
o'clock there was not a sound. This freighting business is most 
profitable. I think that the charge is three cents per pound from Denver 
to South Park, and there much of the freight is transferred to "pack-
jacks" and carried up to the mines. A railroad, however, is contemplated. 
I breakfasted with the family after the freight train left, and instead of 
sitting down to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh 
tablecloth and hot food. The buckets are all polished oak, with polished 
brass bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make them; 
and, more wonderful still, the girls black their boots. Blacking usually 
is an unused luxury; and frequently is not kept in houses. My boots have 
only been blacked once during the last two months.


   DENVER, November 9. 
   I could not make out whether the superiority of the Deer Valley 
settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster I met in the 
evening said it "made him 

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more of a man to spend a night in such a house." In Colorado whisky is 
significant of all evil and violence and is the cause of most of the 
shooting affrays in the mining camps. There are few moderate drinkers; it 
is seldom taken except to excess. The great local question in the 
Territory, and just now the great electoral issue, is drink or no drink, 
and some of the papers are openly advocating a prohibitive liquor law. 
Some of the districts, such as Greeley, in which liquor is prohibited, are 
without crime, and in several of the stock-raising and agricultural 
regions through which I have travelled where it is practically excluded 
the doors are never locked, and the miners leave their silver bricks in 
their waggons unprotected at night. People say that on coming from the 
Eastern States they hardly realise at first the security in which they 
live. There is no danger and no fear. But the truth of the proverbial 
saying, "There is no God west of the Missouri," is everywhere manifest. 
The "almighty dollar" is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. 
"Smartness" is the quality thought most of. The boy who "gets on" by 
cheating at his lessons is praised for being a "smart boy," and his 
satisfied parents foretell that he will make a "smart man." A man who 
overreaches his neighbour, but who does it so cleverly that the law cannot 
take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a "smart man," and stories 
or this species of smartness are told admiringly round 

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every stove. Smartness is but the initial stage of swindling, and the 
clever swindler who evades or defies the weak and often corruptly 
administered laws of the States excites unmeasured admiration among the 
masses.(*)

   I left Deer Valley at ten the next morning on a glorious day, with rich 
atmospheric colouring, had to spend three hours sitting on a barrel in a 
forge after I had ridden twelve miles, waiting while twenty-four oxen were 
shod, and then rode on twenty-three miles through streams and canyons of 
great beauty till I reached a grocery store, where I had to share a room 
with a large family and three teamsters; and being almost suffocated by 
the curtain partition, got up at four, before any one was stirring, 
saddled Birdie, and rode away in the darkness, leaving my money on the 
table! It was a short eighteen miles' ride to Denver down the Turkey Creek 
Canyon, which contains some magnificent scenery, and then the road ascends 
and hangs on the ledge of a precipice 600 feet in depth, such a narrow 
road that on meeting a waggon I had to dismount for fear of hurting my 
feet with the wheels. From thence there was a wonderful view through the 
rolling Foot Hills and over the gray- 

(* MAY 1878.--I am copying this letter in the city of San Francisco, and 
regretfully add a strong emphasis to what I have written above. The best 
and most thoughtful among Americans would endorse these remarks with shame 
and pain.--I.L.B.)

Page 215

brown plains to Denver. Not a tree or shrub was to be seen, everything was 
rioting in summer heat and drought, while behind lay the last grand canyon 
of the mountains, dark with pines and cool with snow. I left the track and 
took a short cut over the prairie to Denver, passing through an encampment 
of the Ute Indians about 500 strong, a disorderly and dirty huddle of 
lodges, ponies, men, squaws, children, skins, bones, and raw meat.

   The Americans will never solve the Indian problem till the Indian is 
extinct. They have treated them after a fashion which has intensified 
their treachery and "devilry" as enemies, and as friends reduces them to a 
degraded pauperism, devoid of the very first elements of civilisation. The 
only difference between the savage and the civilized Indian is that the 
latter carries firearms and gets drunk on whisky. The Indian Agency has 
been a sink of fraud and corruption; it is said that barely thirty per 
cent of the allowance ever reaches those for whom it is voted; and the 
complaints of shoddy blankets, damaged flour, and worthless firearms are 
universal. "To get rid of the Injuns" is the phrase used everywhere. Even 
their "reservations" do not escape seizure practically; for if gold 
"breaks out" on them they are "rushed," and their possessors are either 
compelled to accept land farther west or are shot off and driven off. One 
of the surest agents in their destruction is vitriolised 

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whisky. An attempt has recently been made to cleanse the Augean stable of 
the Indian Department, but it has met with signal failure, the usual 
result in America of every effort to purify the official atmosphere. 
Americans specially love superlatives. The phrases "biggest in the world," 
"finest in the world," are on all lips. Unless President Hayes is a strong 
man they will soon come to boast that their government is composed of the 
"biggest scoundrels" in the world.

   As I rode into Denver and away from the mountains the view became 
glorious, as range above range crowned with snow dame into sight. I was 
sure that three glistening peaks seventy miles north were the peerless 
shapeliness of Long's Peak, the king of the Rocky Mountains, and the 
"mountain fever" returned so severely that I grudged every hour spent on 
the dry, hot plains. The range looked lovelier and sublimer than when I 
first saw it from Greeley, all spiritualised in the wonderful atmosphere. 
I went direct to Evans's house, where I found a hearty welcome, as they 
had been anxious about my safety, and Evans almost at once arrived from 
Estes Park with three elk, one grizzly, and one bighorn in his waggon. 
Regarding a place and life one likes (in spite of all lessons) one is sure 
to think, "To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant;" and 
all through my tour I had thought of returning to Estes Park and finding 
everything just as it was. Evans brought 

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the unwelcome news that the goodly fellowship was broken up. The Dewys and 
Mr. Waller were in Denver, and the house was dismantled, Mr. and Mrs. 
Edwards alone remaining, who were, however, expecting me back. Saturday, 
though like a blazing summer day, was wonderful in its beauty, and after 
sunset the afterglow was richer and redder than I have ever seen it, but 
the heavy crimson betokened severe heat, which came on yesterday, and was 
hardly bearable. I attended service twice at the Episcopal Church, where 
the service was beautifully read and sung; but in a city in which men 
preponderate the congregation was mainly composed of women, who fluttered 
their fans in a truly distracting way. Except for the churchgoing there 
were few perceptible signs of Sunday in Denver, which was full of rowdies 
from the mountain mining camps. You can hardly imagine the delight of 
joining in those grand old prayers after so long a deprivation. The "Te 
Deum" sounded heavenly in its magnificence; but the heat was so tremendous 
that it was hard to "warstle" through the day. They say that they have 
similar outbreaks of solar fury all through the winter.


   GOLDEN CITY, November 13. 
   Pleasant as Denver was, with the Dewys and so many kind friends there, 
it was too much of the "wearing world" either for my health or taste, and 

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I left for my sixteen miles' ride to this place at four on Monday 
afternoon with the sun still hot. Passing by a bare, desolate-looking 
cemetery, I asked a sad-locking woman who was leaning on the gate if she 
could direct me to Golden City. I repeated the question twice before I got 
an answer, and then, though easily to be accounted for, it was wide of the 
mark. In most doleful tones she said, "Oh, go to the minister; I might 
tell you, may be, but it's too great a responsibility; go to the 
ministers, they can tell you!" And she returned to her tears for some one 
whose spirit she was doubtless thinking of as in the Golden City of our 
hopes. That sixteen miles seemed like one mile, after sunset, in the 
rapturous freshness of the Colorado air, and Birdie, after her two days' 
rest and with a lightened load, galloped across the prairie as if she 
enjoyed it. I did not reach this gorge till late, and it was an hour after 
dark before I groped my way into this dark, unlighted mining town, where, 
however, we were most fortunate both as to stable and accommodation for 
myself.


   BOULDER, November 16. 
   I fear you will grow tired of the details of these journal letters. To 
a person sitting quietly at home, Rocky Mountain travelling, like Rocky 
Mountain scenery, must seem very monotonous; but not so to me, to whom the 
pure, dry mountain air 

Page 219

is the elixir of life. At Golden City I parted for a time from my faithful 
pony, as Clear Creek Canyon, which leads from it to Idaho, is entirely 
monopolised by a narrow-gauge railroad, and is inaccessible for horses or 
mules. To be without a horse in these mountains is to be reduced to 
complete helplessness. My great wish was to see Green Lake, situated near 
the timber line above Georgetown (said to be the highest town in the 
United States), at a height of 9000 feet. A single day took me from the 
heat of summer into the intense cold of winter. Golden City by daylight 
showed its meanness and belied its name. It is ungraded, with here and 
there a piece of wooden sidewalk, supported on posts, up to which you 
ascend by planks. Brick, pine, and log houses are huddled together, every 
other house is a saloon, and hardly a woman is to be seen. My landlady 
apologised for the very exquisite little bedroom which she gave me by 
saying "it was not quite as she would like it, but she had never had a 
lady in her house before." The young "lady" who waited at breakfast said, 
"I've been thinking about you, and I'm certain sure you're an authoress." 
The day, as usual, was glorious. Think of November half through and 
scarcely even a cloud in the sky, except the vermilion cloudlets which 
accompany the sun at his rising and setting! They say that winter never 
"sets in" there in the Foot Hills, but that there are spells 

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of cold, alternating with bright, hot weather, and that the snow never 
lies on the ground so as to interfere with the feed of cattle. Golden City 
rang with oaths and curses, especially at the depôt. Americans are given 
over to the most atrocious swearing, and the blasphemous use of our 
Saviour's name is peculiarly revolting. Golden City stands at the mouth of 
Toughcuss, otherwise Clear Creek Canyon, which many people think the 
grandest scenery in the mountains, as it twists and turns marvellously, 
and its stupendous sides are nearly perpendicular, while farther progress 
is to all appearance continually blocked by great masses of rock and piles 
of snow-covered mountains. Unfortunately, its sides have been almost 
entirely denuded of timber, mining operations consuming any quantity of 
it. The narrow-gauge, steep-grade railway, which runs up the canyon for 
the convenience of the rich mining districts of Georgetown, Black Hawk, 
and Central City, is a curiosity of engineering. The track has partly been 
blasted out of the sides of the canyon, and has partly been "built" by 
making a bed of stones in the creek itself, and laying the track across 
them. I have never seen such churlishness and incivility as in the 
officials of that railroad and the stage-lines which connect with it, or 
met with such preposterous charges. They have handsome little cars on the 
route, but though the passengers paid full fare, they 

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put us into a baggage-car because the season was over, and in order to see 
anything I was obliged to sit on the floor at the door. The singular 
grandeur cannot be described. It is a mere gash cut by the torrent, 
twisted, walled, chasmed, weather-stained, with the most brilliant 
colouring, generally dark with shadow, but its utter desolation 
occasionally revealed by a beam of intense sunshine. A few stunted pines 
and cedars, spared because of their inaccessibility, hung here and there 
out of the rifts. Sometimes the walls of the abyss seemed to meet 
overhead, and then widening out, the rocks assumed fantastic forms, all 
grandeur, sublimity, and almost terror. After two hours of this, the track 
came to an end, and the canyon widened sufficiently for a road, all 
stones, holes, and sidings. There a great "Concord coach" waited for us, 
intended for twenty passengers, and a mountain of luggage in addition, and 
the four passengers without any luggage sat on the seat behind the driver, 
so that the huge thing bounced and swung upon the straps on which it was 
hung so as to recall the worst horrors of New Zealand staging. The driver 
never spoke without an oath, and though two ladies were passengers, cursed 
his splendid horses the whole time. Formerly, even the most profane men 
intermitted their profanity in the presence of women, but they "have 
changed all that." Every one I saw up there seemed in a bad temper. I 
suspect that 

Page 222

all their "smart tricks" in mining shares had gone wrong.

   The road pursued the canyon to Idaho Springs, a fashionable mountain 
resort in the summer, but deserted now, where we took a superb team of six 
horses, with which we attained a height of 10,000 feet, and then a descent 
of 1000 took us into Georgetown, crowded into as remarkable a gorge as was 
ever selected for the site of a town, the canyon beyond apparently 
terminating in precipitous and inaccessible mountains, sprinkled with 
pines up to the timber-line, and thinly covered with snow. The area on 
which it is possible to build is so circumscribed and steep, and the 
unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and there, and the water 
rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded me slightly of a Swiss 
town. All the smaller houses are shored up with young pines on one side, 
to prevent them from being blown away by the fierce gusts which sweep the 
canyon. It is the only town I have seen in America to which the epithet 
picturesque could be applied. But truly, seated in that deep hollow in the 
cold and darkness, it is in a terrible situation, with the alpine heights 
towering round it. I arrived at three, but its sun had set, and it lay in 
deep shadow. In fact, twilight seemed coming on, and as I had been unable 
to get my circular notes cashed at Denver, I had no money to stay over the 

Page 223

next day, and much feared that I should lose Green Lake, the goal of my 
journey. We drove trough the narrow, piled-up, irregular street, crowded 
with miners standing in groups, or drinking and gaming under the 
verandahs, to a good hotel declivitously situated, where I at once 
inquired if I could get to Green Lake. The landlord said he thought not; 
the snow was very deep, and no one had been up for five weeks, but for my 
satisfaction he would send to a stable and inquire. The amusing answer 
came back, "If it's the English lady travelling in the mountains, she can 
have a horse, but not any one else."

I.L.B. 

Page 224

LETTER XIII.
The Blight of Mining--Green Lake--Golden City--Benighted--Vertigo--Boulder 
Canyon--Financial straits--A hard Ride--The last Cent--A Bachelor's Home--
Mountain Jim--A Surprise--A Night Arrival--Making the best of it--Scanty 
Fare.

   BOULDER, November. 
   THE answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was given 
to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in and asked my 
name, and if I were the lady who had crossed from Link's to South Park by 
Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast. In five minutes the horse was at the 
door, with a clumsy two-horned side-saddle, and I started at once for the 
upper regions. It was an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension. The 
evening shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2000 feet to 
climb, or give up Green Lake. I shall forget many things, but never the 
awfulness and hugeness of that scenery. I went up a steep track by Clear 
Creek, then a succession of frozen waterfalls in a widened and then 
narrowed valley, whose frozen sides looked 5000 feet high. That is the 
region of enormous mineral wealth in 

Page 225

silver. There are the "Terrible" and other mines, whose shares you can see 
quoted daily in the share lists in the Times, sometimes at cent per cent 
premium, and then down to 25 discount. These mines, with their prolonged 
subterranean workings, their stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting 
works which have been established near them, fill the district with noise, 
hubbub, and smoke by night and day; but I had turned altogether aside from 
them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was grubbing for 
himself, and confiding to none his finds or disappointments. Agriculture 
restores and beautifies, mining destroys and devastates; turning the earth 
inside out, making it hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it 
usually blights man's heart and soul. There was mining everywhere along 
that grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its digging, 
burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the seemingly 
inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log-supported, in which 
solitary and patient men were selling their lives for treasure. Down by 
the stream, all among the icicles, men were sluicing and washing, and 
everywhere along the heights were the scars of hardly-passable trails, too 
steep even for pack-jacks, leading to the holes, and down which the miner 
packs the ore on his back. Many a heart has been broken for the few finds 
which have been made along those hill-sides. 

Page 226

   All the ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of 
desolation, where nature had made everything grand and fair. But even from 
all this I turned. The last miner I saw gave me explicit directions, and I 
left the track and struck upwards into the icy solitudes--sheets of ice at 
first, then snow, over a foot deep, pure and powdery, then a very 
difficult ascent through a pine forest, where it was nearly dark, the 
horse tumbling about in deep snow-drifts. But the goal was reached, and 
none too soon. At a height of nearly 12,000 feet I halted on a steep 
declivity, and below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, 
with mountains red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was 
Green Lake, looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two feet 
thick. From the gloom and chill below I had come up into the pure air and 
sunset light, and the glory of the unprofaned works of God. It brought to 
my mind the verse, "The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth;" 
and, as if in commentary upon it, were the hundreds and thousands of men 
delving in dark holes in the gloom of the twilight below. 

"O earth, so full of dreary noises
 O men, with wailing in your voices,
 O delved gold, the wailer's heap,
 O strife and curse that o'er it fall,
 God strikes a silence through you all,
 He giveth His beloved sleep."

Page 227

   It was something to reach that height and see the far-off glory of the 
sunset, and by it to be reminded that neither God nor His sun had yet 
deserted the world. But the sun was fast going down, and even as I gazed 
upon the wonderful vision the glory vanished, and the peaks became sad and 
gray. It was strange to be the only human being at that glacial altitude, 
and to descend again through a foot of untrodden snow and over sloping 
sheets of ice into the darkness, and to see the hill-sides like a 
firmament of stars, each showing the place where a solitary man in his 
hole was delving for silver. The view, as long as I could see it, was 
quite awful. It looked as if one could not reach Georgetown without 
tumbling down a precipice. Precipices there were in plenty along the road, 
skirted with ice to their verge. It was the only ride which required nerve 
that I have taken in Colorado, and it was long after dark when I returned 
from my exploit.

   I left Georgetown at eight the next morning on the Idaho stage, in 
glorious cold. In this dry air it is quite warm if there are only a few 
degrees of frost. The sun does not rise in Georgetown till eleven now; I 
doubt if it rises there at all in the winter! After four hours' fearful 
bouncing, the baggage-car again received us, but this time the conductor, 
remarking that he supposed I was just travelling to see the country, gave 
me his chair and put it on the plat- 

Page 228

form, so that I had an excellent view of that truly sublime canyon. For 
economy I dined in a restaurant in Golden City, and at three remounted my 
trusty Birdie, intending to arrive here that night. The adventure I met 
with is almost too silly to tell. When I left Golden City it was a 
brilliant summer afternoon, and not too hot. They could not give any 
directions at the stable, and told me to go out on the Denver track till I 
met some one who could direct me, which started me off wrong from the 
first. After riding about two miles I met a man who told me I was all 
wrong, and directed me across the prairie till I met another, who gave me 
so many directions that I forgot them, and was irretrievably lost. The 
afterglow, seen to perfection on the open plain, was wonderful. Just as it 
grew dark I rode after a teamster who said I was then four miles farther 
from Boulder than when I left Golden, and directed me to a house seven 
miles off. I suppose he thought I should know, for he told me to cross the 
prairie till I came to a place where three tracks are seen, and there to 
take the best-travelled one, steering all the time by the north star. His 
directions did bring me to tracks, but it was then so dark that I could 
see nothing, and soon became so dark that I could not even see Birdie's 
ears, and was lost and benighted. I rode on, hour after hour, in the 
darkness and solitude, the prairie all round and a firmament of frosty 
stars 

Page 229

overhead. The prairie wolf howled now and then, and occasionally the 
lowing of cattle gave me hope of human proximity. But there was nothing 
but the lone wild plain. You can hardly imagine the longing to see a 
light, to hear a voice, the intensely eerie feeling of being alone in that 
vast solitude. It was freezing very sharply and was very cold, and I was 
making up my mind to steer all night for the Pole Star, much fearing that 
I should be brought up by one of the affluents of the Platte, or that 
Birdie would tire, when I heard the undertoned bellowing of a bull, which, 
from the snorting and rooting up of earth, seemed to be disputing the 
right of way, and the pony was afraid to pass. While she was scuffling 
about, I heard a dog bark and a man swear; then I saw a light, and in 
another minute found myself at a large house, where I knew the people, 
only eleven miles from Denver! It was nearly midnight, and light, warmth, 
and a good bed were truly welcome.

   You can form no idea of what the glory on the plains is just before 
sunrise. Like the afterglow, for a great height above the horizon there is 
a shaded band of the most intense and glowing orange, while the mountains 
which reflect the yet unrisen sun have the purple light of amethysts. I 
left early, but soon lost the track and was lost; but knowing that a 
sublime gash in the mountains was Bear Canyon, quite 

Page 230

near Boulder, I struck across the prairie for it, and then found the 
Boulder track. "The best-laid schemes of men and mice gang aft agee," and 
my exploits came to an untimely end to-day. On arriving here, instead of 
going into the mountains, I was obliged to go to bed in consequence of 
vertigo, headache, and faintness, produced by the intense heat of the sun. 
In all that weary land there was no "shadow of a great rock" under which 
to rest. The gravelly, baked soil reflected the fiery sun, and it was 
nearly maddening to look up at the cool blue of the mountains, with their 
stretches of pines and their deep indigo shadows. Boulder is a hideous 
collection of frame houses on the burning plain, but it aspires to be a 
"city" in virtue of being a "distributing point" for the settlements up 
the Boulder Canyon, and of the discovery of a coal-seam.


   LONGMOUNT, November. 
   I got up very early this morning, and on a hired horse went nine miles 
up the Boulder Canyon, which is much extolled, but I was greatly 
disappointed with everything except its superb waggon-road, and much 
disgusted with the laziness of the horse. A ride of fifteen miles across 
the prairie brought me here early in the afternoon, but of the budget of 
letters which I expected there is not one. Birdie looks in such capital 
condition that 

Page 231

my host here can hardly believe that she has travelled over 500 miles. I 
am feeling "the pinch of poverty" rather severely. When I have paid my 
bill here I shall have exactly twenty-six cents left. Evans was quite 
unable to pay the hundred dollars which he owes me, and, to save 
themselves, the Denver banks, though they remain open, have suspended 
payment, and would not cash my circular notes. The financial straits are 
very serious, and the unreasoning panic which has set in makes them worse. 
The present state of matters is--nobody has any money, so nothing is worth 
anything. The result to me is that, nolens volens, I must go up to Estes 
Park, where I can live without ready money, and remain there till things 
change for the better. It does not seem a very hard fate! Long's Peak 
rises in purple gloom, and I long for the cool air and unfettered life of 
the solitary blue hollow at its base.


   ESTES PARK, November 20. 
   Would that three notes of admiration were all I need give to my grand 
solitary, uplifted, sublime, remote, beast-haunted lair, which seems more 
indescribable than ever; but you will wish to know how I have sped, and I 
wish you to know my present singular circumstances. I left Longmount at 
eight on Saturday morning, rather heavily loaded, for in addition to my 
own luggage I was asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy 

Page 232

with newspapers. Edwards, with his wife and family, were still believed to 
be here. A heavy snowstorm was expected, and all the sky--that vast dome 
which spans the plains--was overcast; but over the mountains it was a 
deep, still, sad blue, into which snowy peaks rose sunlighted. It was a 
lonely, mournful-looking morning, but when I reached the beautiful canyon 
of the St. Vrain, the sad blue became brilliant, and the sun warm and 
scintillating. Ah, how beautiful and incomparable the ride up here is, 
infinitely more beautiful than the much-vaunted parts I have seen 
elsewhere. There is, first, this beautiful hill-girdled valley of fair 
savannahs, through which the bright St. Vrain curves in and out amidst a 
tangle of cotton-wood and withered clematis and Virginia creeper, which 
two months ago made the valley gay with their scarlet and gold. Then the 
canyon, with its fantastically-stained walls; then the long ascent through 
sweeping foothills to the gates of rock at a height of 9000 feet; then the 
wildest and most wonderful scenery for twenty miles, in which you cross 
thirteen ranges from 9000 to 11,000 feet high, pass through countless 
canyons and gulches, cross thirteen dark fords, and finally descend, 
through M'Ginn's Gulch, upon this, the gem of the Rocky Mountains. It was 
a weird ride. I got on very slowly. The road is a hard one for any horse, 
specially for a heavily-loaded one, and at the end of several weeks 

Page 233

of severe travel. When I had ridden fifteen miles I stopped at the ranch 
where people usually get food, but it was empty, and the next was also 
deserted. So I was compelled to go to the last house, where two young men 
are "baching." There I had to decide between getting a meal for myself or 
a feed for the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty, 
trusted me "till next time." His house, for order and neatness, and a sort 
of sprightliness of cleanliness--the comfort of cleanliness without its 
severity--is a pattern to all women, while the clear eyes and manly self-
respect which the habit of total abstinence gives in this country are a 
pattern to all men. He cooked me a splendid dinner, with good tea. After 
dinner I opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an accumulation of 
letters from you; but I sat much too long there, forgetting that I had 
twenty miles to ride, which could hardly be done in less than six hours. 
It was then brilliant. I had not realised the magnificence of that ride 
when I took it before, but the pony was tired, and I could not hurry her, 
and the distance seemed interminable, as after every range I crossed 
another range. Then came a region of deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, 
only a few feet wide, and many fords, and from their cold depths I saw the 
last sunlight fade from the brows of precipices 4000 feet high. It was 
eerie, as darkness came on, to wind in and out in the pine- 

Page 234

shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the bottom of 
these tremendous chasms. Wolves howled in all directions. This is said to 
denote the approach of a storm. During this twenty-mile ride I met a 
hunter with an elk packed on his horse, and he told me not only that the 
Edwardses were at the cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain 
for two weeks longer, no matter how uncongenial. The ride did seem endless 
after darkness came on, Finally the last huge range was conquered, the 
last deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which craved for human 
companionship, I rode up to "Mountain Jim's" den, but no light shone 
through the chinks, and all was silent. So I rode tediously down M'Ginn's 
Gulch, which was full of crackings and other strange mountain noises, and 
was pitch dark, though the stars were bright overhead. Soon I heard the 
welcome sound of a barking dog. I supposed it to denote strange hunters, 
but calling "Ring" at a venture, the noble dog's large paws and grand head 
were in a moment on my saddle, and he greeted me with all those 
inarticulate but perfectly comprehensible noises with which dogs welcome 
their human friends. Of the two men on horses who accompanied him, one was 
his master, as I knew by the musical voice and grace of manner, but it was 
too dark to see any one, though he struck a light to show me the valuable 
furs with which one of the horses 

Page 235

was loaded. The desperado was heartily glad to see me, and sending the man 
and fur-laden horse on to his cabin, he turned with me to Evans's; and as 
the cold was very severe, and Birdie was very tired, we dismounted and 
walked the remaining three miles. All my visions of a comfortable 
reception and good meal after my long ride vanished with his first words. 
The Edwardses had left for the winter on the previous morning, but had not 
passed through Longmount; the cabin was dismantled, the stores were low, 
and two young men, Mr. Kavan, a miner, and Mr. Buchan, whom I was slightly 
acquainted with before, were "baching" there to look after the stock until 
Evans, who was daily expected, returned. The other settler and his wife 
had left the Park, so there was not a woman within twenty-five miles. A 
fierce wind had arisen, and the cold was awful, which seemed to make 
matters darker. I did not care in the least about myself, I could rough 
it, and enjoy doing so, but I was very sorry for the young men, who, I 
knew, would be much embarrassed by the sudden appearance of a lady for an 
indefinite time. But the difficulty had to be faced, and I walked in and 
took them by surprise as they were sitting smoking by the fire in the 
living-room, which was dismantled, unswept, and wretched-looking. The 
young men did not show any annoyance, but exerted themselves to prepare a 
meal, and courteously made Jim share it. After he 

Page 236

had gone, I boldly confessed my impecunious circumstances, and told them 
that I must stay there till things changed, that I hoped not to 
inconvenience them in any way, and that by dividing the work among us they 
would be free to be out hunting. So we agreed to make the best of it. [Our 
arrangements, which we supposed would last only two or three days, 
extended over nearly a month. Nothing could exceed the courtesy and good 
feeling which these young men showed. It was a very pleasant time on the 
whole, and when we separated they told me that though they were much 
"taken aback" at first, they felt at last that we could get on in the same 
way for a year, in which I cordially agreed.] Sundry practical 
difficulties had to be faced and overcome. There was one of the common 
spring mattresses of the country in the little room which opened from the 
living-room, but nothing upon it. This was remedied by making a large bag 
and filling it with hay. Then there were neither sheets, towels, nor table-
cloths. This was irremediable, and I never missed the first or last. 
Candles were another loss, and we had only one paraffin lamp. I slept all 
night in spite of a gale which blew all Sunday and into Monday afternoon, 
threatening to lift the cabin from the ground, and actually removing part 
of the roof from the little room between the kitchen and living-room, in 
which we used to dine. Sunday was brilliant, but nearly a 

Page 237

hurricane, and I dared not stir outside the cabin. The parlour was two 
inches deep in the mud from the roof. We nominally divide the cooking. Mr. 
Kayan makes the best bread I ever ate; they bring in wood and water, and 
wash the supper-things, and I "do" my room and the parlour, wash the 
breakfast-things, and a number of etceteras. My room is easily "done," but 
the parlour is a never-ending business. I have swept shovelfuls of mud out 
of it three times to-day. There is nothing to dust it with but a buffalo's 
tail, and every now and then a gust descends the open chimney and drives 
the wood ashes all over the room. However, I have found an old shawl which 
answers for a table-cloth, and have made our "parlour" look a little more 
habitable. Jim came in yesterday in a silent mood, and sat looking 
vacantly into the fire. The young men said that this mood was the usual 
precursor of an "ugly fit."

   Food is a great difficulty. Of thirty milch cows only one is left, and 
she does not give milk enough for us to drink. The only meat is some 
pickled pork, very salt and hard, which I cannot eat, and the hens lay 
less than one egg a day. Yesterday morning I made some rolls, and made the 
last bread into a bread-and-butter pudding, which we all enjoyed. Today I 
found part of a leg of beef hanging in the waggon-shed, and we were elated 
with the prospect of fresh meat, but on cutting into it we found it green 

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and uneatable. Had it not been for some tea which was bestowed upon me at 
the inn at Longmount we should have had none. In this superb air and 
physically active life I can eat everything but pickled pork. We breakfast 
about nine, dine at two, and have supper at seven, but our menu never 
varies. To-day I have been all alone in the Park, as the men left to hunt 
elk after breakfast, after bringing in wood and water. The sky is 
brilliant and the light intense, or else the solitude would be oppressive. 
I keep two horses in the corral so as to be able to explore, but except 
Birdie, who is turned out, none of the animals are worth much now from 
want of shoes, and tender feet.