Last winter in the United States

by F. Barham Zincke

On my return from the Rocky Mountains we found a Californian waiting for the train at North Platte. He had just come over the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges in a sleigh, in mid-winter. For the greater part of the way he had been alone. One of his feet was frostbitten. He was a little man, but appeared capable of daring anything, and of going through a great deal. His eye was quick, and very unlike that of men bred in towns or quiet farms. At this very point, many years ago, he had tried to carry his waggons across the Platte when the waters were out, and the river ten miles wide; but, having failed in the attempt, he had gone up the stream till he headed the freshet. His rifle was never out of his hand. I asked him, seeing that the barrel was somewhat short, at what distance it would kill an antelope. ‘It was not made,’ he said, ‘for antelope hunting, but it would kill one at eight hundred yards. It was the rifle used against the Indians. It was a sixteen-shooter.’ I asked him if it had ever been used in that way. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a few years ago the Indians were very troublesome, and thirty of us went out after them with these sixteen-shooters. They came on to meet us. There were four hundred of them, all mounted. At the first volley we fired, many of their saddles were emptied; still they persevered in attacking us, for a day and a night; but as they always had to retire to reload, and we had not, we had a great advantage over them. At last, when we had killed eighty of them, and they had killed nine of us, we got towards morning upon the top of a hill, where there was a kind of natural breastwork of rock, and they could not approach us without being exposed to our fire: they then gave up the game, and drew off. These sixteen-shooters cost in California forty dollars; but mine has so long been my companion day and night, and has so often saved my life, that I would not take any money for it.’ As he said this he turned it round, to see if there was any speck of dirt or rust upon it, handling it gently as if he loved it.

Manners on the Plains.

Perfect ease and equality, without any obtrusiveness or vulgar assumption, appeared to me to be the true characteristics of the manners of the plains. I spent a day and night at a solitary house where the proprietor combined the two employments of cattle-breeding and inn-keeping. I happened to be at the time the only guest. The accommodation was not bad. It consisted of a large room, used for smoking and for the bar; of a better furnished room for meals; and of a drawing-room, properly belonging to the mistress of the house, but into which favoured guests were invited. I here found several files of local and American papers, and among them the ‘London Illustrated News.’ The herdsmen of the proprietor took their meals with the guests. Before sitting down they always washed their hands and faces, and combed their hair. There was nothing at all disagreeable in their conversation or manners. They spoke good English, as all Americans do, and were unconstrained, as all Americans are. I had noticed on the previous evening that they had remarkably good appetites, and at breakfast, the next morning, I ‘made a note’ of what it took to satisfy the broadest-shouldered and hungriest-looking of the party. First, he called for beefsteak: the lad in waiting brought him about a pound, with a little dish of fried potatoes. This he soon disposed of. He then called for sausages. His next plate was ham and eggs. This was followed by a dish of slap-jacks, a kind of pancake eaten with butter and syrup. He finished with a dish of dried apples stewed. This was at half-past six in the morning. At the same hour in the evening, he would have much the same kind of supper, and at noon much the same kind of dinner. But these men live out of doors, and chiefly in the saddle, galloping over a plain four thousand feet above the level of the sea, with a very bracing and invigorating climate. The lady of the house had been well brought up in New England, and her manners were pleasing. She had no help, and did all the cooking herself. They had an only child, then just five years old, but whom—for children are very forward here—one might have taken for seven. His chief amusement, while I was here, was catching the pigs and dogs with an Indian lasso made of buckskin.

At La Porte, a city of three or four houses, a lady of prepossessing appearance got into the coach. The wife of the Colonel I have mentioned shook hands with her; and we had some pleasant conversation about the society of the plains and mountains. She was very decided in her preference for it over that of cities. She thought that life in old settled districts was mere existence and not life. She talked of the delights of camping out, and of long excursions of fifty or eighty miles on horseback. At La Park the Colonel handed her out of the coach. Supper was soon announced, and we took our places at the table, when the lady who had been conversing so pleasantly in the coach appeared behind my chair and asked me, in an easy and well-mannered way, what I would take. I saw now that she was the landlady of the little roadside inn at which we had stopped, and that she did the waiting herself. She supplied everybody with what they required, changed the plates, filled the glasses and cups, and brought whatever was wanted, all the time talking much as the mistress of a house would talk to her guests.

But though perfect equality is the first principle of Western life, yet the superiority of refinement and mental cultivation is fully recognised, and everybody readily defers to them. This, however, is only done on the condition that there is no assumption on the part of the person himself. To pretend to a superiority to others,—what we call, to give yourself airs,—is in American society, whether it be in the East or the West, an unpardonable offence; it is the sin against equality, which is never forgiven in this world, and which every true American trusts will not be forgotten in the next. Only leave it to them to discover your merits, and you will have no reason to complain of want of appreciation. They are a people who measure others much more fairly than we do.

From Shyenne to Denver.

The City of Denver.

The track from Shyenne to Denver lies along the foot of the mountains, and is about one hundred and ten miles in length. On your left is the boundless plain; on your right are the mountains, rising suddenly like a wall out of the plain. The first range is either scantily clothed with pine forests, or shows only the naked dark-coloured rock. Behind and above this is the snowy dividing ridge, which, however, in summer and autumn, has snow only on its highest peaks. In some places the lower range is of a bright red, as if the mountain were faced with red brick. From the picturesque point of view, the defect of the mountains is that they keep too much to the straight line. This is not observed when you get among them, but it is very perceptible from the plain, into which no outlying hills, or spurs, obtrude on this route. St. Vrain and Burlington are the most important places you pass. Each of them appears to have a population of three or four hundred souls: they are only separated from each other by a stream. But it is sufficient to render the land on its banks capable of cultivation; and this, in a region where there is so little land that can be made to produce anything except prairie grass, is sufficient to account for the existence of the two places. The other cities along the route are only wooden public-houses, where the coach changes horses, and at some of which it is arranged that the passengers shall have something to eat. It is to the credit of the landlords of these cities on the plains, that what they provide for their guests is good of its kind, which cannot be said of any one of the purveyors for the five hundred miles of railway between Shyenne and Omaha. At St. Vrain the outer range sinks so low that you are able to look into the valleys of the snowy dividing ridge. Fortunately, in the midst of this exposed part stands Long’s Peak, the highest point of the chain. As seen from the plain, it appears to be a three-peaked mountain, and each of its three peaks has the appearance of being accessible. On enquiry at St. Vrain, I was told that there was a good path for pedestrians, and even for mules, to the foot of the mountain, and that it had been frequently scaled. The mountain to the south of Long’s Peak appears to have a precipitous face of some thousands of feet on its side towards the Peak; and there is distinctly visible, lying between the two, a green park. A park in the language of the mountains is a large expanse of level grass-clad land up among the hills. There are many of them in this range. They are always well watered, and abundantly stocked with game. This park and this peak are, by the path I have just mentioned, forty-five miles distant from St. Vrain. The depression of the outer hills which admits them to view continues for about twelve miles.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CITY OF DENVER—THE LADIES GIVE A BALL—MANNERS OF DENVER—‘QUITE OUR FINEST GENTLEMAN’—THE PLAINS WILL BE TO AMERICA AN IMPROVED AUSTRALIA—THE ADVANTAGES THEY OFFER FOR FLOCKS AND HERDS—WILL SOON BE CLEAR OF INDIANS—MARKETS NOW OPENED TO THEM—SIZE OF THE RUNS—WEALTH OF THE REGION.