The Cruise of a Schooner

by Albert W. Harris

We camped at what might be called the Four Corners. We had come up from Salida on the south; the left-hand road was the old freight road west to Leadville; the north fork led to Denver; and the east fork to Hartzel. We found a party of fishermen from Cripple Creek camped here. The boys fished a short time and then, as it looked like rain, we made things tight for the night. Some of the fishing party were old freighters who had been over the road between Denver and Leadville many times before the railroad was put through, and they told us about the road to Denver. We will soon be in South Park.

It is mostly a hay country through here and they are not going to have as much of a crop as usual. This is July twentieth, and the showers they usually have around July first are just beginning now. It would seem that they are trying to make up for lost time, but by the looks of the hay crop it is evidently too late.

Pete saw a coyote about fifty feet from camp just at dark, but it was so foggy there was no use trying to get a shot at him, as a run of a few feet would take him out of sight.

The next morning we drove to Fairplay and in spite of the rain the roads are fine. They are apparently made of crushed granite and are the finest roads imaginable. Autoists would enjoy driving a car over them, if they could but get in here. We went on to Como and camped three miles beyond, making about twenty-three miles to-day. This doesn’t seem so far considering the good roads, but the grades were always with us and we were either going up or down, at neither of which we could make very fast time.

We all took a turn at the prairie dogs to-day and I guess if we claimed a bounty on each one, we would have made enough to pay for our ammunition, as we certainly killed a lot of them. The ranchers were glad to have us try to kill them, but evidently were surprised that we did, because ordinarily one gets tired shooting before he actually kills one that he can go and pick up.

All along here the elevation is about ten thousand feet. The mosquitoes did not bother us so much as the deer flies did the horses during the middle of the day. Sometimes we all had to get out and actually drive them away with switches, and, although we had nets over the horses’ faces, they could not shake them fast enough to do any good.

The next morning we drove over the Divide out of South Park through Webster, and camped within two miles of Grant and about seventy miles from Denver. Coming over the pass the deer flies nearly drove Cyclone crazy, and we all had to fight them until we got up on top and into a breeze. From that point down there did not seem to be any, and we were exceedingly glad of it.

Our camp we called “Good Luck Camp” because when we had unhitched we found a horseshoe under the wagon. It was rusty and full of nails, so we hung it on behind. Here we had shade, grass for the horses, and a fine brook from which we expected to catch some fish, so we stayed all the afternoon and night, but caught only a few trout. The boys improved their marksmanship by shooting at swinging stones and all sorts of moving objects they had swinging from strings, and made some remarkable shots.

The next morning we started late and drove down nearly to Bailey and camped on the north branch of the Platte. The roads were fine and we began to see signs of civilization, summer cottages, parasols, “boiled shirts,” etc. We saw an occasional robin, but the magpies, ravens, and dickey birds we seem to have left behind.