Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot

by George B. Thayer

The next morning we visited the First National Mine, which, to all outward appearances, is nothing more than a small shanty up the side of the mountain, with a heap of rocks thrown out to one side of it. Inside is a hole in the floor just large enough for a half barrel bucket to go through, and beside this hole is a trap-door just large enough to let a man’s body down. The rocks are raised by a windlass run by horse power outside.

With old coats and hats on and a lighted candle in our hands, we followed the overseer down through the trap-door. The ladders down which we climbed were straight up and down, and about all I could see as I followed the others was the light of their candles. About once in fifty feet we came to a platform and then started down another ladder. The ladders went close to one side of the shaft, which was protected with heavy timbers on the sides, and on the other side was the hole down which the bucket went, two hundred and fifteen feet, to the bottom. It was rather awkward holding on to the rounds of the ladder with a candle in one hand, but I kept a firm grip till the rounds began to get slippery from the mud and water, and then the descent was anything but pleasant. Sometimes the ladders, instead of going straight down, leaned over from the top a little, and then it was hard work to keep my feet from slipping off. It was so dark in there I could only see the black bucket hole on one side and the two lighted candles beneath me, and how far down a fellow would go, should his hands or feet slip off the slimy rounds, I had no idea; only I know every nerve in my body was strung up and every muscle was hard.

At last, and it seemed an age, we got down to where the men were working. Two hundred feet down, tunnels, just large enough for men to work in, were run out in opposite directions, and at the ends of these tunnels the men were drilling and blasting. And what were these men after, down in this hole in the solid rock, over two hundred feet from the surface? Simply to get out a little narrow streak of dark-colored rock, not over two or three inches wide. This little streak went nearly straight down into the earth, and these men were following it wherever it went, excavating probably fifty tons of refuse rock in order to get one ton of the ore sufficiently valuable to work up.

Then we started up, and as I was the last to go up I was wondering all the way if I could keep my hold on the rounds if one of the others should slip and drop on me; but they did not have occasion to test my grip in that way, and we reached the top all right, only I had to stop and rest once, more because of the nervous excitement than anything else, and then you can imagine my feeling, suspended over that black hole with just strength to keep from falling, but with none to go higher. The memory of that experience will never be very pleasant to me.

Up three miles farther into the mountains and we came to Gold Hill, another mining town, full of saloons, but otherwise harmless, then down Left Hand Cañon, over a very fair road, out upon the plains again, and back to Longmont. On our way back we stripped off our clothes and took a bath in one of the ditches near the road.

A pleasant ride the next day of thirty miles brought us to Fort Collins, where I found many former residents of Connecticut.

The mosquito record of thirteen killed at one slap has been broken several times since reference was last made to the subject. The mosquitoes, which swarm everywhere, rarely trouble us about the hands or head, but the revolving motion of the legs seem to attract them, and they collect on our stockings in regular military array, every one headed toward the knee—of all the hundreds, and perhaps thousands, that have alighted on us, we never have seen one headed the other way—and many of them in straight lines, four and six in a row. Once, after enduring the pricking sensation as long as I could, I jumped off my wheel, and with a single slap on each stocking put thirty-two of the sweet singing little creatures on their way to the place where everybody sings. This was the result of the first two blows, and there were several outlying sections to be heard from that increased this number somewhat, for a Colorado mosquito that escapes death the first slap is sure to wait for the second one. In fact, one could almost tell the size of my hand by the area of crushed mosquitoes on my stockings, which was almost entirely surrounded by those still waiting and working. The reader may say the habits of these mosquitoes are of little interest to him, but to me the mosquitoes had points of keen interest about them.

The number of light complexioned men in Colorado is very noticeable. I began to observe it at Denver and at Colorado Springs, and at Manitou it was even more marked, till it seemed as if every man, woman, and child had light, very light-blue eyes, and a light moustache; that is, every one that wears a moustache of any color. Wheelmen, guides, cowboys, they all had the same smiling blue eyes that seemed to win one’s confidence at the outset. Denver is noted for having many confidence men and bunco steerers, but there is no class of men I would sooner trust myself with than the ranchmen, guides, and cowboys of Colorado. They like to open one’s eyes by telling what they have done in the past, but in the mountains, mines, or on the plains a traveler is as safe in their hands as he would be in any city in the East.

There is a decided improvement in the general aspect of the country north of Denver, through Longmont and Fort Collins, upon what we saw south of that city for seventy-five miles. There is less stock-raising and more farming. We passed many fields of wheat, corn, and alfalfa. The latter is of the same nature as red clover and grows nearly as high as herdsgrass. Once sown it never needs to be restocked, and three and sometimes four large crops are cut from it during the season. It is almost impossible to plow it up when once it is thoroughly rooted, and one person told me the roots would go down into the ground nearly fifty feet in search of moisture. I give this as a Colorado li—statement. But the only thing that will kill it out is water, too much of it, for it can be drowned out, finally.

This brings me to the most important interest of Colorado, and that is water. Nearly all through the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, through which I have ridden, States from seven to eleven times as large as Connecticut, the great question that directly interests all the farmers, and that indirectly concerns every one dependent upon the success of farming, is how to get rid of the water. In some of those States great ditches, six, eight, or ten feet deep, and miles in length, are dug, and smaller ditches and tile drains lead into these main channels, and thus in the spring the water to a great extent is drained away, so that the land will dry off and be fit to cultivate.