We are still twenty-five miles from Denver, and starting late we plan to drive to Morrison, but are told we can save two miles and get a good camping place by going down on a creek and leaving Morrison to the north. This we did and got into camp at seven-thirty, just three and a half hours after leaving our noon camp.
This three-and-a-half-hour drive was very interesting; in fact, probably as picturesque a drive as we had anywhere. We began going down grade rapidly and finally the road, which was especially good, turned abruptly down into a canyon and turned and twisted among the trees and bushes in a marvellous manner. We sent the boys on ahead to warn any one coming up to pick out a place to pass, as in spots we could see only a few yards ahead. The walls of the canyon towered up nearly perpendicular on each side and, although the sun was still three hours high, it was twilight where we were.
At last we arrived at the mouth of the canyon, or the gateway into the mountains, and before us lay one-half of the world, so it seemed, stretching away as level as a floor and as far as we could see. It was really not so flat as it seemed, but coming out of the mountains where we had been for weeks, it seemed absolutely level. Stretches of green here and patches of grain there, the soil red, and the sun, dropping behind the mountains back of us, reflected on the glass and roofs of Denver, which lay about twenty miles away. I unconsciously pulled up the team, and we all feasted our eyes on the scene. It seemed like an enchanted land, more like a mirage, and we made several more stops before we were reminded to hurry up and get to a place to camp before dark.
THE OUTFIT COMING INTO DENVER
Our last camp on the mountain trail was a very comfortable one. We found water and grazing here, and a camp wagon from New Mexico, a man and his wife and daughter. From New Mexico, but where to they apparently didn’t know; they were just “on the way.”
We had reached Denver Monday morning, half a day before we expected, and ahead of schedule, and as Brad did not have to leave for home before the twenty-eighth, and it was only the twenty-fifth, he said he would stay over and clean up with us, and start home the next day. We got into town about ten o’clock, put our outfit up at Craig’s Sales Stable, and went around the corner to the New Western Hotel. We cleaned up first, put on our “store clothes,” and then got our mail.
I dropped into E. H. Rollins & Sons’ banking house for some currency, and saw Mr. Reynolds. He started to talk business to me and I thought he was speaking a different language. I didn’t seem to understand much of what he was talking about, so got away as soon as I could. Didn’t feel just right in an office anyway, although he was very kind and offered to do anything for me I wished, but try as hard as I might I couldn’t think of anything I wanted.
Going back to the hotel I seemed to keep repeating to myself, “Funny you don’t want a thing; not even a cigar.” (I hadn’t been able to smoke coming over the mountains on account of the altitude.) Finally passing a cigar store I stopped and thought I would try a cigar anyway, and see if that wasn’t what I wanted, and as I lighted it and stepped out on the street, I knew it was. This also reminded me of the fact that we were on level ground. The mountains had been passed.