Last winter in the United States

by F. Barham Zincke

We were full inside, and two of the outside places were occupied. The party was composed of eight gentlemen and three ladies. First came a good-humoured jovial colonel, the only colonel I met in the United States, where I must have made the acquaintance of not far short of fifty generals. He had long been on the Indian frontier, and had conducted many an expedition against them. His professional warfare being now over, he had taken to gold-mining and trading in the mountains. As he lived somewhere up on the Laramie plains, he laid his account with having a few more brushes with his old dusky friends before the time came, not now far distant, when their name would only stand for what once had been. He was still in the prime of life, as everybody is in the West. He had one child—nobody has more in the United States. There was nothing characteristic in these particulars; nor, perhaps, was there in his practice of carrying with him in his journeys a wickered magnum, and two kegs of whisky. Their contents were of different degrees of proof, and of different qualities, adapted to the varying circumstances and different hours of the day. Strength was the special merit of the magnum, which was intended for after-dinner use. It was regarded as a liqueur, or stomachic. The qualities of one keg made it suitable for the early part of the day; the qualities of the other fitted it for the evening. But it did not appear that the Colonel carried about the magnum and two kegs for his own especial benefit; for whenever we stopped for a meal, and sometimes only when horses were changed, if the interval seemed a long one, the keg with the black hoops, or the keg with the green hoops, or the magnum was taken from the boot, and everybody near was invited to ‘take a drink.’ Even the man who was changing the horses was not omitted. Could it be that the Colonel was one of the proprietors of the coach, and therefore desirous of making things as pleasant as possible to the passengers? This could not be the case, for the names of Wells and Fargo, the great American coaching firm, were on the panels. The true explanation, I believe, was that on the surface—that the Colonel had a heart as large as his head was strong, and that heaven itself would be no heaven to him if he could not share it with his friends—his friends being all those with whom at the moment he happened to be in contact. There was another point, besides that of being content with the rank of Colonel, in which he was unlike his countrymen, and that was his English aversion to the inside of a coach.

The Colonel’s wife acted as cicerone of the country to the inside passengers. She knew the names of all the conspicuous mountains, and how far off they were; what accidents had ever happened on the route, and where there had been Indian fights, down to the one of last summer.

Next in prominence came a Colorado herdmaster, and his sister, whom he was taking from her home in Pennsylvania to keep house for him on the plains, at a place called the Garden of the Gods. Everyone contributed what he could to make the day pass agreeably, and this gentleman’s contributions consisted in scraps of poetry and little high flown speeches suggested by the sights and occurrences of the moment.

There was also a lady who had made seventeen voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific (I suppose with her husband), and was now returning from a visit to her relations in the State of New York. Her husband was the owner of a mine in the mountains. Whenever called upon she was ready with a song.

The seat next to her was occupied by a well-informed and gentlemanly man. He was a Philadelphian, and had graduated at some American university. I collected that he was going to the mountains to look after some mines in which he was interested.

Two Denver storekeepers (but as town is here construed into city, so is storekeeper into merchant) completed our party. Their forte was that style of humour which is known as American. For instance, apropos to a conversation on the long-sightedness some people are said to acquire on the plains, Mr. A. asks Mr. B., ‘Whether he can see that fly on the top of that chimney?’ Mr. B. replies, ‘I am not quite sure I can see it, but I can hear it scratching its head.’ Mr. A. having been silent for some time is supposed to have been asleep: Mr. B. therefore requests him ‘to repeat the remark he had just been making.’ To this sally he replies, ‘If there is anything I have said which I shall hereafter have reason to regret, I am glad of it.’

One of these two storekeepers had a literary turn, and was in the habit of giving lectures in Denver and the mining towns in the mountains, where I saw several of his posters on the walls. He informed me that he had then in the press a humorous poem entitled ‘Life in Colorado.’

The other had strong sporting proclivities, and never went a journey by coach or rail without his sixteen-shooter rifle in his hand, for the chance of an antelope, or wolf, or whatever might cross his path. The year before last he had found, on this very road and coach, his practice of never moving unaccompanied by his rifle of use. A party of about a hundred Indians came down from the hills yelling, and firing on the coach. The gentlemen who were in it—they were all armed—got out to meet them, as they could do little when huddled together inside, and the horses and driver would soon have been shot. After the second volley, the driver finding that the Indians were not scared, got scared himself, and insisted on their all getting into the coach again, and his being allowed to drive off. They got in, leaving two of their number dead. The Indians followed for some little distance, and killed one more. The gentleman who told us this incident of travelling in summer on the plains—in winter the Indians are never troublesome—received in the skirmish a wound from an Indian bullet, in the back of his left hand. The ball passed through, shattering the bone. The hole remains as a memento of the day.

Californian Sixteen-shooters.

Such are the kind of persons one meets in a coach on the plains; and such is the way in which they while away the time.