Cheyenne had settled down from these exciting times when Mr. Black arrived there, and he found "nothing about its outward appearance to entitle anyone to call it 'Hell on Wheels.'"
"Certainly," he says, "the Cheyenne we saw was far from being an exciting place; there was not a single corpse lying at any of the saloon doors, nor any duel being fought in the street."
Of the outskirts of Cheyenne, he says:—
"The odd fashion in which shanties and sheds—with some private houses here and there—are dotted down anyhow on the plain; their temporary look; the big advertisements; the desolate and homeless appearance of the whole place, all serve to recall the dismal scene that is spread around the Grand Stand on Epsom Downs on the morning after Derby Day, when the revellers have all returned to town.... We drove out to a lake which will no doubt form an ornamental feature in a big park, when the Black Hill miners, gorged with wealth, come back to make Cheyenne a great city."
Mr. Black will be pleased to know that his prophecy has been, to some extent, fulfilled.
Cheyenne is now a most pleasant city. The big park has been formed; the streets are broad, and lined with trees; the houses are well-built; there are stores there which would almost rival Whiteley's or Shoolbred's in the magnitude and variety of their contents, and perhaps surpass them in their outward appearance. The outskirts are now dotted, I might rather say crowded, with very charming "Queen Anne" villas, surrounded by well-laid-out lawns, flower-beds, and creeping foliage, reminding one not so much of Epsom Downs, as of that æsthetic suburb of London known as Bedford Park, only that the houses are larger and better built, and in their furniture display an exuberance of wealth and good taste. There are two fine hotels, several churches and chapels, and a delightful little club-house, where we were most hospitably entertained.
I may add that the place has none of the appearance of vulgar show which "Black Hill miners, gorged with wealth," might be supposed to have given to it; on the contrary, it has an air of quiet respectability not to be seen in many other western cities. The inhabitants are well-educated people, musical and social, and amongst them is a large community of well-bred English people.
As I have a personal interest in the matter, I will venture to give another extract from "Green Pastures and Piccadilly."
Mr. Black says that—
"As he was unanimously requested by his party to pay a tribute of gratitude to the clean and comfortable inn at the station, he must now do so; only he must also confess that he was bribed, for the good-natured landlord was pleased, as we sat at supper, to send in to us, with his compliments, a bottle of real French champagne. Good actions should never go unrewarded; so the gentle reader is most earnestly entreated, the first time he goes to Cheyenne, to stay at this inn and give large orders. Moreover, the present writer not wishing to have his conduct in this particular regarded as being too mercenary, would wish to explain that the bottle of champagne in question was, as was subsequently discovered, charged for in the bill and honestly paid for too; but he cannot allow the landlord to be deprived of all credit for his hospitable intentions merely on account of an error on the part of the clerk."