We men dined on bread and milk, and at seven o'clock struck out for Meeker. We had passed through the village of Newcastle when some fifteen miles from the Springs; and there were invited into a peach orchard to delight our palates with some delicious fruit, but no other village did we thread on our route to White River.
The last twenty miles of the journey led us across a series of divides, mesas or benches, variously called, and between these miniature watersheds trickled occasional rivulets which either lost themselves in the parched soil, or struggled on till they joined with a larger stream to reach a river. As the tired eye wanders over this sun-scorched wilderness, strewn with what appears to be volcanic matter, he imagines he sees on the black, rock-strewn butes the craters of long-extinct volcanos, which the ravages of time and the elements have almost leveled. And over these charred piles and the intervening plains of white and yellow sage one sometimes sees a solitary horse or steer standing bewildered, as if before impending doom, or else trending by animal instinct some tortuous, obscured trail to a hidden spring.
Meeker takes its name from a family, massacred by the Indians in the 70's. Four or five hundred inhabitants to-day compose this quiet and now law-abiding community, whose chief pursuits appear to be the pursuit of wild steers, horses, fish and game. White River flows past the town on its picturesque way to the Grand, the latter further on joining forces with the Green to form the Colorado.
The hills about Meeker abound with large game—mountain lions, bear, bobcats, and, when the snow comes, deer and elk. I was informed from authentic sources that in early winter the deer are driven by the snow down the river in to Grand Junction valley in such numbers that ranchmen have had to stand guard over haystacks with guns and pitchforks. One woman told me with modest candor that she had actually seen her husband catch and hold a deer in his arms.
After leaving Meeker the scenic views from the trail down and along White River for seventy miles are magnificent and imposing. Rising sheer and bold from the west bank of this deep stream, is a lofty ridge of brown and barren mountains, whose mural crests of red and yellow sandstone and limestone formed in my imagination the walls and watch-towers of castles of a prehistoric race, while the placid river at their base appeared to be a mighty moat to protect the towering battlements from menacing foe.
White River City lies some twenty miles south of Meeker. It has great possibilities. If another house were erected there, and it domiciled as many people as the one habitation then standing did, the population of the place would be increased 100 per cent. Even a part of that house was converted into a post office and a general store. About twenty-five miles from White River City is Angora, another town containing a single house. We arrived at sunset. The proprietor of this goat ranch invited me to pitch camp on his meadow lot, where my animals could find some feed, and treated me to a leg of goat. He possessed a herd of about two hundred Angoras, and derived his chief livelihood from their hair, hides, and "mutton," as he called it. I found the meat sweet and tender; it was hard to distinguish it from lamb; possibly because I had forgotten how lamb tasted. My host visited my camp-fire and entertained me with many interesting tales of adventure.
Occasional gardens and fields of alfalfa are seen on the east bank, all due to irrigation. Great water-wheels, turned by the river current, raise cans of water ten feet and more and empty them in troughs, so conveying the water to ditches.
Ranchmen had cautioned me to give Rangely, the next settlement, a "wide berth." I was told it was a den of outlaws and desperate cowboys, who lived by "rustling" cattle and rebranding them, hunting mavericks, (unbranded calves) and following other nefarious pursuits. Instead of frightening me away, these accounts interested me.
At four in the afternoon we came to a trail branching and leading to a large log house a half mile away. That was Rangely; and we headed for it.