The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Crest of the Continent, by Ernest Ingersoll

Transcriber’s Note

The original pagination has been retained in the right margin. The sequence is sometimes disrupted as full page illustrations have been moved to convenient paragraph breaks.

There are two footnotes, which are moved to the end of the text, and linked for easy reference in the text.

Detailed comments on any corrections that were made may be found in a Transcriber’s [Note] at the end of this text.

GARFIELD PEAK.

THE
Crest of the Continent:

A RECORD OF
A SUMMER’S RAMBLE IN THE ROCKY
MOUNTAINS AND BEYOND.

By ERNEST INGERSOLL.

“We climbed the rock-built breasts of earth!

We saw the snowy mountains rolled

Like mighty billows; saw the birth

Of sudden dawn; beheld the gold

Of awful sunsets; saw the face

Of God, and named it boundless space.”

TWENTY NINTH EDITION.

CHICAGO:
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS, PUBLISHERS.
1887.

COPYRIGHT,
BY S. K. HOOPER,
1885.

R. R. Donnelley & Sons, The Lakeside Press, Chicago.

TO
THE PEOPLE OF COLORADO,
SAGACIOUS IN PERCEIVING, DILIGENT IN DEVELOPING,
AND WISE IN ENJOYING
THE
RESOURCES AND ATTRACTIONS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
WITH
THE HOMAGE OF
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

Probably nothing in this artificial world is more deceptive than absolute candor. Hence, though the ensuing text may lack nothing in straightforwardness of assertion, and seem impossible to misunderstand, it may be worth while to say distinctly, here at the start, that it is all true. We actually did make such an excursion, in such cars, and with such equipments, as I have described; and we would like to do it again.

It was wild and rough in many respects. Re-arranging the trip, luxuries might be added, and certain inconveniences avoided; but I doubt whether, in so doing, we should greatly increase the pleasure or the profit.

“No man should desire a soft life,” wrote King Ælfred the Great. Roughing it, within reasonable grounds, is the marrow of this sort of recreation. What a pungent and wholesome savor to the healthy taste there is in the very phrase! The zest with which one goes about an expedition of any kind in the Rocky Mountains is phenomenal in itself; I despair of making it credited or comprehended by inexperienced lowlanders. We are told that the joys of Paradise will not only actually be greater than earthly pleasures, but that they will be further magnified by our increased spiritual sensitiveness to the “good times” of heaven. Well, in the same way, the senses are so quickened by the clear, vivifying climate of the western uplands in summer, that an experience is tenfold more pleasurable there than it could become in the Mississippi valley. I elsewhere have had something to say about this exhilaration of body and soul in the high Rockies, which you will perhaps pardon me for repeating briefly, for it was written honestly, long ago, and outside of the present connection.

“At sunrise breakfast is over, the mules and everybody else have been good-natured and you feel the glory of mere existence as you vault into the saddle and break into a gallop. Not that this or that particular day is so different from other pleasant mornings, but all that we call the weather is constituted in the most perfect proportions. The air is ‘nimble and sweet,’ and you ride gayly across meadows, through sunny woods of pine and aspen, and between granite knolls that are piled up in the most noble and romantic proportions....

“Sometimes it seems, when camp is reached, that one hardly has strength to make another move; but after dinner one finds himself able and willing to do a great deal....

“One’s sleep in the crisp air, after the fatigues of the day, is sound and serene.... You awake at daylight a little chilly, re-adjust your blankets, and want again to sleep. The sun may pour forth from the ‘golden window of the east’ and flood the world with limpid light; the stars may pale and the jet of the midnight sky be diluted to that pale and perfect morning-blue into which you gaze to unmeasured depths; the air may become a pervading Champagne, dry and delicate, every draught of which tingles the lungs and spurs the blood along the veins with joyous speed; the landscape may woo the eyes with airy undulations of prairie or snow-pointed pinnacles lifted sharply against the azure—yet sleep chains you. That very quality of the atmosphere which contributes to all this beauty and makes it so delicious to be awake, makes it equally blessed to slumber. Lying there in the open air, breathing the pure elixir of the untainted mountains, you come to think even the confinement of a flapping tent oppressive, and the ventilation of a sheltering spruce-bough bad.”

That was written out of a sincere enthusiasm, which made as naught a whole season’s hardship and work, before there was hardly a wagon-road, much less a railway, beyond the front range.

This exordium, my friendly reader, is all to show to you: That we went to the Rockies and beyond them, as we say we did; that we knew what we were after, and found the apples of these Hesperides not dust and ashes but veritable golden fruit; and, finally, that you may be persuaded to test for yourself this natural and lasting enjoyment.

The grand and alluring mountains are still there,—everlasting hills, unchangeable refuges from weariness, anxiety and strife! The railway grows wider and permits a longer and even more varied journey than was ours. Cars can be fitted up as we fitted ours or in a way as much better as you like. Year by year the facilities for wayside comforts and short branch-excursions are multiplied, with the increase of population and culture.

If you are unable, or do not choose, to undertake all this preparation, I still urge upon you the pleasure and utility of going to the Rocky Mountains, travelling into their mighty heart in comfortable and luxurious public conveyances. Nowhere will a holiday count for more in rest, and in food for subsequent thought and recollection.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

I
AT THE BASE OF THE ROCKIES.

Old Woodcock says that if Providence had not made him a justice of the peace, he’d have been a vagabond himself. No such kind interference prevailed in my case. I was a vagabond from my cradle. I never could be sent to school alone like other children—they always had to see me there safe, and fetch me back again. The rambling bump monopolized my whole head. I am sure my godfather must have been the Wandering Jew or a king’s messenger. Here I am again, en route, and sorely puzzled to know whither.—The Loiterings of Arthur O’Leary.

“‘There are the Rocky Mountains!’ I strained my eyes in the direction of his finger, but for a minute could see nothing. Presently sight became adjusted to a new focus, and out against a bright sky dawned slowly the undefined shimmering trace of something a little bluer. Still it seemed nothing tangible. It might have passed for a vapor effect of the horizon, had not the driver called it otherwise. Another minute and it took slightly more certain shape. It cannot be described by any Eastern analogy; no other far mountain view that I ever saw is at all like it. If you have seen those sea-side albums which ladies fill with algæ during their summer holiday, and in those albums have been startled, on turning over a page suddenly, to see an exquisite marine ghost appear, almost evanescent in its faint azure, but still a literal existence, which had been called up from the deeps, and laid to rest with infinite delicacy and difficulty,—then you will form some conception of the first view of the Rocky Mountains. It is impossible to imagine them built of earth, rock, anything terrestrial; to fancy them cloven by horrible chasms, or shaggy with giant woods. They are made out of the air and the sunshine which show them. Nature has dipped her pencil in the faintest solution of ultramarine, and drawn it once across the Western sky with a hand tender as Love’s. Then when sight becomes still better adjusted, you find the most delicate division taking place in this pale blot of beauty, near its upper edge. It is rimmed with a mere thread of opaline and crystalline light. For a moment it sways before you and is confused. But your eagerness grows steadier, you see plainer and know that you are looking on the everlasting snow, the ice that never melts. As the entire fact in all its meaning possesses you completely, you feel a sensation which is as new to your life as it is impossible of repetition. I confess (I should be ashamed not to) that my first view of the Rocky Mountains had no way of expressing itself save in tears. To see what they looked, and to know what they were, was like a sudden revelation of the truth that the spiritual is the only real and substantial; that the eternal things of the universe are they which, afar off, seem dim and faint.”

There are the Rocky Mountains! Ludlow saw them after days of rough riding in a dusty stage-coach. Our plains journey had been a matter of a few hours only, and in the luxurious ease of a Pullman sleeping car; but our hearts, too, were stirred, and we eagerly watched them rise higher and higher, and perfect their ranks, as we threaded the bluffs into Pueblo. Then there they were again, all the way up to Denver; and when we arose in the morning and glanced out of the hotel window, the first objects our glad eyes rested on were the snow-tipped peaks filling the horizon.

Thither Madame ma femme and I proposed to ourselves to go for an early autumn ramble, gathering such friends and accomplices as presented themselves. But how? That required some study. There were no end of ways. We were given advice enough to make a substantial appendix to the present volume, though I suspect that it would be as useless to print it for you as it was to talk it to us. We could walk. We could tramp, with burros to carry our luggage, and with or without other burros to carry ourselves. We could form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with a number of pack mules. We could hire an ambulance sort of wagon, with bedroom and kitchen and all the other attachments. We could go by railway to certain points, and there diverge. Or, as one sober youth suggested, we needn’t go at all. But it remained for us to solve the problem after all. As generally happens in this life of ours, the fellow who gets on owes it to his own momentum, for the most part. It came upon us quite by inspiration. We jumped to the conclusion; which, as the Madame truly observed, is not altogether wrong if only you look before you leap. That is a good specimen of feminine logic in general, and the Madame’s in particular.

But what was the inspiration—the conclusion—the decision? You are all impatience to know it, of course. It was this:

Charter a train!

Recovering our senses after this startling generalization, particulars came in order. Spreading out the crisp and squarely-folded map of Colorado, we began to study it with novel interest, and very quickly discovered that if our brilliant inspiration was really to be executed, we must confine ourselves to the narrow-gauge lines. Tracing these with one prong of a hair pin, it was apparent that they ran almost everywhere in the mountainous parts of the State, and where they did not go now they were projected for speedy completion. Closer inspection, as to the names of the lines, discovered that nearly all of this wide-branching system bore the mystical letters D. & R. G., which evidently enough (after you had learned it) stood for—

“Why, Denver and Ryo Grand, of course,” exclaims the Madame, contemptuous of any one who didn’t know that.

“Not by a long shot!” I reply triumphantly, “Denver and Reeo Grandy is the name of the railway—Mexican words.”

“Oh, indeed!” is what I hear; a very lofty nose, naturally a trifle uppish, is what I see.

Deciding that our best plan is to take counsel with the officers of the Denver and Rio Grande railway, we go immediately to interview Mr. Hooper, the General Passenger Agent, among whose many duties is that of receiving, counseling, and arranging itineraries for all sorts of pilgrims. An hour’s discussion perfected our arrangements, and set the workmen at the shops busy in preparing the cars for our migratory residence.

The realization that our scheme, which up to this point had seemed akin to a wild dream, was now rapidly growing into a promising reality, did not diminish our enthusiasm. Indeed we experienced an exhilaration which was quite phenomenal. Was it the very light wine we partook at luncheon? Perish the suspicion! Possibly it was the popularly asserted effect of the rarefied atmosphere. But kinder to our self-esteem than either of these was the thought that our approaching journey had something to do with our elevation, and we accepted it as an explanation.

But we had yet a few days to spare, and we could employ them profitably in looking over this Denver, the marvelous city of the plains. We studied it first from Capitol Hill, as our artist has done, though his picture, so excellently reproduced, can convey but the shadow of the substance. Then we nearly encompassed the town, going southward on Broadway until we had passed Cherry Creek, and détouring across Platte River to the westward and northward, on the high plateau which stretches away to the foothills. The city lies at an altitude of 5,197 feet, near the western border of the plains, and within twelve miles of the mountains,—the Colorado or front range of which may be seen for an extent of over two hundred miles. In the north, Long’s Peak rears its majestic proportions against the azure sky. Westward, Mounts Rosalie and Evans rise grandly above the other summits of the snowy range, and Gray’s and James’ Peaks peer from among their gigantic brethren; while historic Pike’s Peak, the mighty landmark that guided the gold-hunters of ’59, plainly shows its white crest eighty miles to the south. The great plains stretch out for hundreds of miles to the north, east and south. Near the smelting works at Argo, we retrace our way and re-enter the city.

It is the metropolis of the Rocky Mountains, and a stroll through these scores of solid blocks of salesrooms and factories exhibits at once the fact that it is as the commercial center of the mountainous interior that Denver thrives, and congratulates herself upon the promise of a continually prosperous future. She long ago safely passed that crisis which has proved fatal to so many incipient Western cities. Every year proves anew the wisdom and foresight of her founders; and I think her assertion that she is to be the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco is likely to be realized. Most of her leading business men came here at the beginning, but their energies were hampered when every article had to be hauled six hundred miles across the plains by teams. It frequently used to happen that merchants would sell their goods completely out, put up their shutters and go a-fishing for weeks, before the new semi-yearly supplies arrived. Everybody therefore looked forward, with good reason, to railway communication as the beginning of a new era of prosperity, and watched with keen interest the approach of the Union Pacific lines from Omaha and Kansas City. These were completed, by the northern routes, in 1869 and 1870; and a few months later the enterprising Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe sent its tracks and trains through to the mountains, and then came the Burlington route, a most welcome acquisition, adding another link to the transcontinental chain, which now binds the East to the West, the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. At Pueblo, the Denver and Rio Grande, meeting the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, was already prepared to make this new route available to Denver and much of Colorado, and adopting a liberal policy, at once exerted an immense influence upon the speedy development and prosperity of the State.

Thus, in a year or two, the young city found itself removed from total isolation to a central position on various railways, east and west, and to its mill came the varied grist of a circle hundreds of miles in radius. Now blossomed the booming season of business which sagacious eyes had foreseen. The town had less than four thousand inhabitants in 1870. A year from that time her population was nearly fifteen thousand, and her tax-valuation had increased from three to ten millions of dollars. It was a time of happy investment, of incessant building and improvement, and of grand speculation. Mines flourished, crops were abundant, cattle and sheep grazed in a hundred valleys hitherto tenanted by antelope alone, and everybody had plenty of money. Then came a shadow of storm in the East, and the sound of the thunder-clap of 1873 was heard in Denver, if the bolt of the panic was not felt. The banks suddenly became cautious in loans; speculators declined to buy, and sold at a sacrifice. Merchants found that trade was dull, and ranchmen got less for their products. It was a “set-back” to Denver, and two years of stagnation followed. But she only dug the more money out of the ground to fill her depleted pockets, and survived the “hard times” with far less sacrifice of fortune and pride than did most of the Eastern cities. None of her banks went under, nor even certifieda check, and most of her business houses weathered the storm. The unhealthy reign of speculation was effectually checked, and business was placed upon a compact and solid foundation. Then came 1875 and 1876, which were “grasshopper years,” when no crops of consequence were raised throughout the State, and a large amount of money was sent East to pay for flour and grain. This was a particularly hard blow, but the bountiful harvest of 1877 compensated, and the export of beeves and sheep, with their wool, hides and tallow, was the largest ever made up to that time.

DENVER

The issue of this successful year with miner, farmer and stock-ranger, yielding them more than $15,000,000, a large proportion of which was an addition to the intrinsic wealth of the world, had an almost magical effect upon the city. Commerce revived, a buoyant feeling prevailed among all classes, and merchants enjoyed a remunerative trade. Money was “easy,” rents advanced, and the real estate business assumed a healthier tone. Generous patronage of the productive industries throughout the whole State was made visible in the quickened trade of the city, which rendered the year an important one in the history of Denver’s progress. So, out of the barrenness of the cactus-plain, and through this turbulent history, has arisen a cultivated and beautiful city of 75,000 people, which is truly a metropolis. Her streets are broad, straight, and everywhere well shaded with lines of cottonwoods and maples, abundant in foliage and of graceful shape. On each side of every street flows a constant stream of water, often as clear and cool as a mountain brook. The source is a dozen miles southward, whence the water is conducted in an open channel. There are said to be over 260 miles of these irrigating ditches or gutters, and 250,000 shade-trees.

For many blocks in the southern and western quarter of the town,—from Fourteenth to Thirtieth streets, and from Arapahoe to Broadway and the new suburbs beyond—you will see only elegant and comfortable houses. Homes succeed one another in endlessly varying styles of architecture, and vie in attractiveness, each surrounded by lawns and gardens abounding in flowers. All look new and ornate, while some of the dwellings of wealthy citizens are palatial in size and furnishing, and with porches well occupied during the long, cool twilight characteristic of the summer evening in this climate, giving a very attractive air of opulence and ease. Even the stranger may share in the general enjoyment, for never was there a city with so many and such pleasant hotels, the largest of which, the Windsor and the St. James, are worthy of Broadway or Chestnut street.

The power which has wrought all this change in a short score of years, truly making the desert to bloom, is water; or, more correctly, that is the great instrument used, for the power is the will and pride of the intelligent men and women who form the leading portion of the citizens. Water is pumped from the Platte, by the Holly system, and forced over the city with such power that in case of fire no steam-engine is necessary to send a strong stream through the hose. The keeping of a turf and garden, after it is once begun, is merely a matter of watering. The garden is kept moist mainly by flooding from the irrigating ditch in the street or alley, but the turf of the lawn and the shrubbery owe their greenness to almost incessant sprinkling by the hand-hose. Fountains are placed in nearly every yard. After dinner (for Denver dines at five o’clock as a rule), the father of the house lights his cigar and turns hose-man for an hour, while he chats with friends; or the small boys bribe each other to let them lay the dust in the street, to the imminent peril of passers-by; and young ladies escape the too engrossing attention of complimentary admirers by busily sprinkling heliotrope and mignonette, hinting at a possible different use of the weapon if admiration becomes too ardent. The swish and gurgle and sparkle of water are always present, and always must be; for so Denver defies the desert and dissipates the dreaded dust.

Their climate is one of the things Denverites boast of. That the air is pure and invigorating is to be expected at a point right out on a plateau a mile above sea-level, with a range of snow burdened mountains within sight. From the beginning to the end of warm weather it rarely rains, except occasional thunder and hail storms in July and August. September witnesses a few storms, succeeded by cool, charming weather, when the haze and smoke is filtered from the bracing air, and the landscape robes itself in its most enchanting hues. The coldest weather occurs after New Year’s Day, and lasts sometimes until April. Then come the May storms and floods, followed by a charming summer. The barometer holds itself pretty steady throughout the year. There is a vast quantity of electricity in the air, and the displays of lightning are magnificent and occasionally destructive. Sunshine is very abundant. One can by no means judge from the brightest day in New York of the wonderful glow sunlight has here. During 1884 there were 205 clear days, 126 fair, and 34 cloudy, the sun being totally obscured on only 18 days; and yet this record is more unfavorable than the average for a number of years. Summer heat often reaches a hundred in the shade at midday; but with sunset comes coolness, and the nights allow refreshing sleep. In winter the mercury sometimes sinks twenty degrees below zero; but one does not feel this severity as much as he would a far less degree of cold in the damp, raw climate of the coast. Snow is frequent, but rarely plentiful enough for sleighing.

Denver is built not only with the capital of her own citizens, but constructed of materials close at hand. Very substantial bricks, kilned in the suburbs, are the favorite material. Then there is a pinkish trachyte, almost as light as pumice, and ringing under a blow with a metallic clink, that is largely employed in trimmings. Sandstone, marble and limestone are abundant enough for all needs. Coarse lumber is supplied by the high pine forests, but all the hard wood and fine lumber is brought from the East. The fuel of the city was formerly wholly lignite coal, which comes from the foothills; but the extension of the railway to Cañon City, El Moro and the Gunnison, have made the harder and less sulphurous coals accessible and cheap.

DEPOT AT PALMER LAKE.

And while she has been looking well after the material attractions, Denver has kept pace with the progress of the times in modern advantages. She is very proud of her school-buildings, constructed and managed upon the most improved plans; of her fine churches, of her State and county offices, her seminaries of higher learning, and of her natural history and historical association. Her Grand Opera House is the most elegant on the continent, her business blocks are extensive and costly, and the Union Depot ranks with the best of similar structures. Gas was introduced several years ago, and the system, which now includes nearly all sections of the city, is being constantly improved and extended. The Brush electric light has been in very general use for nearly three years, and the Edison incandescent lamps are now being employed. The telephone is found in hundreds of business places and residences, the exchange at the close of last year numbering 709 subscribers. The water supply is distributed through forty miles of mains, the consumption averaging three million gallons per day, exclusive of the contributions of the irrigating ditches and the numerous artesian wells. The steam heating works evaporate one hundred thousand gallons of water daily, delivering the product through three miles of mains and nearly two miles of service pipes; this being the only company out of twenty seven of its nature in the country which has proved a financial success. Street car lines traverse the thoroughfares in all directions, and transport over two million passengers annually. Two district messenger companies are generously patronized. The regular police force consists of some forty-five patrolmen and detectives, aside from the Chief and his assistants; and a distinct organization is the Merchant’s Police, numbering twenty men. A paid Fire Department is maintained, at an annual expense of $56,000, and the alarm system embraces twenty-six miles of wire and fifty signal boxes. There are published six daily newspapers, one being in German, and a score of weeklies. All are well conducted and prosperous.

PHEBE’S ARCH.

A branch of the United States Mint is located here, but is used for assays only, and not for coinage. An appropriation has been made by Congress for a handsome building, the site has been selected, and work is now being pushed forward. The post-office is a source of considerable revenue to the Government. There are six National and two State banks, with a paid in capital of $870,000, and showing a surplus of $754,000 at the close of 1883. The deposits for the year amounted to $8,396,200, and the loans and discounts approximated $4,500,000. The shops of the Denver and Rio Grande railway are doubtless the most extensive in the West, employing over 800 men, and turning out during the year 2 express, 8 mail, 4 combination, 522 box, 303 stock, 25 refrigerator, 197 flat, and 300 coal cars, together with 8 cabooses. In addition they have produced 350 frogs, 200 switch stands, and all the iron work for the bridges on 350 miles of new road, The year’s shipments of the Boston and Colorado Smelting Company aggregate, in silver, gold, and copper, $3,907,000; and in the same time the Grant smelter has treated, in silver, lead and gold, $6,348,868. Finally, from the statistics at hand it appears that the volume of Denver’s trade for the year referred to, apart from the industries above mentioned, and real estate transactions, has exceeded the snug sum of $58,856,998. In the meantime the taxable valuation of property in Arapahoe county has increased $6,600,000.

These facts establish, beyond the slightest doubt, the truth that Denver stands upon a firm financial basis. This the casual stranger can hardly fail to surmise when he glances at her magnificent buildings, and statistics will confirm the surmise.

Denver society is cosmopolitan. Famous and brilliant persons are constantly appearing from all quarters of the globe. Five hundred people a day, it is said, enter Colorado, and nine-tenths of this multitude pass through Denver. Nowadays, “the tour” of the United States is incomplete if this mountain city is omitted. Thus the registers of her hotels bear many foreign autographs of world-wide reputation. Surprise is often expressed by the critical among these visitors (why, I do not understand) at the totally unexpected degree of intelligence, appreciation of the more refined methods of thought and handiwork, and the knowledge of science, that greet them here. Matters of art and music, particularly, find friends and cultivation among the educated and generous families who have built up society; and there are schools and associations devoted to sustaining the interest in them, just as there are reading circles and literary clubs. And, withal, there is the most charming freedom of acquaintance and intercourse—the polish and good-breeding of rank, delivered from all chill and exclusiveness or regard for “who was your grandfather.” Yet this winsome good-fellowship by no means descends to vulgarity, or permits itself to be abused. After all, it is only New York and New England and Ohio, transplanted and considerably enlivened.

Returning to our consideration of Denver’s resources, it will readily be seen that she stands as the supply-depot and money-receiver of three great branches of industry and wealth, namely, mining, stock-raising and agriculture.

The first of these is the most important. Many of the richest proprietors live and spend their profits here. Then, too, the machinery which the mining and the reduction of the ores require, and the tools, clothing and provisions of the men, mainly come from here. Long ago ex-Governor Gilpin, worthily one of the most famous of Colorado’s representative men, and an enthusiast upon the subject of her virtues and loveliness, prophesied the immense wealth which would continue to be delved from the crevices of her rocky frame, and was called a visionary for his pains; but his prophesies have aggregated more in the fulfillment than they promised in the foretelling, and his “visions” have netted him a most satisfactory fortune. About 75,000 lodes have been discovered in Colorado, and numberless placers. Only a small proportion of these, of course, were worked remuneratively, but the cash yield of the twenty years since the discovery of the precious metals, has averaged over $7,000,000 a year, and has increased from $200,000 in 1869 to over $26,376,562 in 1883. Not half of this is gold, yet it is only since 1870 that silver has been mined at all in Colorado. These statistics show the total yield of the State in gold and silver thus far to exceed $154,000,000, not to mention tellurium, copper, iron, lead and coal. Surely this alone is sufficient employment of capital and production of original wealth—genuine making of money—to ensure the permanent support of the city.

The second great source of revenue to Denver, is the cattle and sheep of the State. The wonderful worthless-looking buffalo grass, growing in little tufts so scattered that the dust shows itself everywhere between, and turning sere and shriveled before the spring rains are fairly over, has proved one of Colorado’s most prolific avenues of wealth. The herds now reported in the State count up 1,461,945 head, and the annual shipments amount to 100,000, at an average of $20 apiece, giving $2,000,000 as the yearly yield. Add the receipts for the sales of hides and tallow, and the home consumption, amounting to about $60,000, and you have a figure not far from $3,500,000 to represent the total annual income from this branch of productive industry. The whole value of the cattle investments in the State is estimated by good judges at $14,000,000, nearly one-fourth of which is the property of citizens of Denver. Yet this sum, great as it is for a pioneer region, represents only two-thirds of Colorado’s live stock. Last year about 1,500,000 sheep were sheared, and more capital is being invested in them. Perhaps the total value of sheep ranches is not less than $5,000,000, the annual income from which approaches $1,300,000.

The third large item of prosperity is agriculture, although it advances in the face of much opposition. In 1883 the production of the chief crops was as follows: hay, 266,500 tons; wheat, 1,750,840 bushels; oats, 1,186,534 bushels; corn, 598,975 bushels; barley, 265,180 bushels; rye, 78,030 bushels, and potatoes, 851,000 bushels. Add to this vegetables and small fruits, and the yield of the soil in Colorado is brought to over $9,000,000 in value. Farmers are learning better and better how to produce the very best results by means of scientific irrigation, and the tillage is annually wider.

Nor is this the whole story. Denver is rapidly growing into a manufacturing center. Here are rolling mills, iron foundries, smelters, machine shops, woolen mills, shoe factories, glass works, carriage and harness factories, breweries, and so on through a long list. The flouring mills are very valuable, representing an investment of $350,000, and handling half the wheat crop of Colorado. I have dwelt upon these somewhat prosy statements in order to point out fully what rich resources Denver has behind her, and how it happens that she finds herself, at twenty-three years of age, amazingly strong commercially. Not only a large proportion of the money which gives existence to these enterprises (nearly every householder in the city has a financial interest in one or several mines, stock-ranges or farms), but, as I have intimated, the current supplies that sustain them, are procured in Denver, and a very large percentage of their profits finds its way directly to this focus.

MONUMENT PARK.

Denver thus becomes to all Colorado what Paris is to France. Through all the enormous area, from Wyoming far into New Mexico, and westward to Utah, she has had no formidable rival until South Pueblo rose to contest the trade of all the southern half of this commercial territory. That she advances with the rapidly thickening population of the State and its increasing needs, is apparent to every one who has noted the gigantic strides with which Denver has grown, and the ease with which she wears her imperial honors. Every extension of the railways, every good crop, every new mineral district developed, every increase of stock-ranges, directly and instantly affects the great central mart. This sound business basis being present, the opportunity to pleasantly dispose of the money made is, of course, not long in presenting itself. It thus happens that Denver shows, in a wonderful measure, the amenities of intellectual culture that make life so attractive in the old-established centers of civilization, where selected society, thoughtful study, and the riches of art, have ripened to maturity through long time and under gracious traditions. There is an abundance here, therefore, to please the eye and touch the heart as well as fill the pockets, and year by year the city is becoming more and more a desirable place in which to dwell as well as to do business.

II
ALONG THE FOOTHILLS.

We’ve left behind the busy town,

Its woof and warp of care;

Our course is down the foothills brown

To a Southern city fair.

—Stanley H. Ray.

While we were codifying our impressions of Denver, the workmen at the shops had been busy. We were busy, too, in other than literary ways, and badgered our new acquaintances at the railway offices at all sorts of times and with every manner of want. The butcher and baker were harassed, and jolly old Salomon, the grocer, came in for his share of the nuisance. But it didn’t last long, for one afternoon, just three days from the birth of the happy thought, we were in our special train and rushing away to the South.

Not till then did this haphazard crowd—for we had enlisted three gentlemen into our company—inquire seriously whither we were going. What did it matter? We were wild with joy because of going at all. Had we not bed and provender with us? Why could we not go on always? have it said of us when living, Going, going, and written over us when dead—Gone!

I have mentioned three companions besides the Madame. At least two of the gentlemen you would recognize at once, were I to give you their names. The Artist is famed on both sides of the Atlantic for the masterly productions of his brush. He is a wide traveler and an enthusiast over mountain scenery. The Photographer is likewise a genius, and literally a compendium of scientific knowledge and exploration. Connected for many years with the Geological Surveys of this region, his practical experience renders him an especially valuable coadjutor. The Musician is young in years, with the scroll of fame before him. But he comes of good stock, and faith is strong. And there is still another, our Amos, of sable hue, who has our fortunes, to a large extent, in his keeping, for does he not preside over our commissary? We shall know him better by and by.

Our train consisted of three cars; and when we had passed the great works at Burnham, we resolved ourselves into an investigating committee and started on a tour of inspection. We found our quarters exceedingly well-arranged and comfortable, although in some confusion from the hasty manner in which our loose supplies had been tumbled in. So the committee postponed its report.

“How smoothly we bowl along!” remarked the Musician.

“And in what superb condition are the roadbed and track,” added the Photographer.

Yet so gentle and noiseless was the motion that it required the testimony of the speed-indicator to convince us that we were making thirty-five miles per hour. We had passed the huge Exposition building at our left, flitted by the picturesque village of Littleton, with its neat stone depot and white flouring-mills, and were approaching Acequia (which you must pronounce A-sáy-ke-a) along a shelving embankment overlooking the Platte. Away to the west and across the valley, we could discern a yellow band, which the Photographer explained was the new canal under construction by an English company, and which was intended to convey the water of the Platte, from a point far up its cañon, to Denver. The canal or ditch here emerges from the mountains and bears away to the southward for some distance, until it nears Plum Creek, crossing which, by means of an aqueduct, it turns sharply to the northward, and apparently climbs the higher table-lands in the direction of Denver. As observed from the car window the anomaly seems indisputable, the deception of course being attributable to the ascending grade of the railway. This is one of several cases in the State which will be pointed out, by old-timers to new-comers, as veritable instances where water runs up hill.

The valleys of Plum Creek and its branches are of good width, and hollowed out of the modern deposits so as to form beautiful and fertile lands, while on each side a terrace extends down from the mountains, like a lawn. Following up the main valley we reach Castle Rock, with its immense hay ranches and fortress-butte, and beyond is Larkspur, named after one of the most striking of the plains birds. Thence the run is through a section of billowy plains or depressed foot-hills, up a steady ninety-feet grade to the Divide, in whose vicinity we encounter a succession of high buttes and mesas, the lower portions being composed of sandstone, while the tops are of igneous rock or lava. These constantly suggest artificial forms of towers, castles and fortifications, in some places rising nearly a thousand feet above the railway. Not infrequently the cliffs are so regularly disposed that it is hard to believe them merely natural formations. The entire scenery of this great ridge, and extending far out into the plains, is of an unique and interesting character. Near the summit there are remarkable evidences of its having been the coast-line of an ancient sea. The streams which rise on the northern slope of this watershed find their way into the Platte, while those on the southern declivity flow into the Arkansas. The Divide has a good covering of pines, often arranged by nature with park-like symmetry, and forming a charming contrast with the bare but beautifully colored cliffs. This region has been a chief source of Denver’s lumber supply, and the timber tract is estimated to contain about 70,000 acres.

IN QUEEN’S CAÑON.

On the Divide is a beautiful sheet of water, known as Palmer Lake from which is derived a large quantity of the purest ice. Here a novel and attractive depot has been erected by the railway company, and extensive improvements, including a dancing pavilion and summer hotel, cottages and boat-houses, have been made. In the hottest seasons the temperature is always cool and invigorating, and no spot within accessible distance is so well adapted for an economical and delightful resort for Denverites. On the southern face of the hill the rock-formations break out into still more marked resemblances to ruined castles, showing moats, arches and turrets. It follows that our Artist was enraptured with the romantic features of the place, and the Photographer insisted on taking out his camera and getting at work. One of his results, Phebe’s Arch, is contributed to the pictorial fund of this volume. The descent from the Divide is rapid, and our attention is absorbed by the swiftly changing panorama. Close by are the mountains—their snowy pyramids holding entranced your eyes from far, far out on the plains. “In variety and harmony of form,” said Bayard Taylor of them: “in effect against the dark blue sky, in breadth and grandeur, I know of no external picture of the Alps which can be placed beside it. If you could take away the valley of the Rhone, and unite the Alps of Savoy with the Bernese Oberland, you might obtain a tolerable idea of this view of the Rocky Mountains.” Pike’s Peak is constantly in sight, and every curve in the steel road presents it in a different aspect.

Presently we find ourselves on the bank of Monument Creek, pass the station of the same name, and soon encounter a series of small basins, and side valleys, green-carpeted and with gently sloping and wooded sides.

“Observe those odd rocks!” suddenly exclaims the Madame. “Notice how, all along the bluff, stand rows of little images, like the carved figure-friezes of the Parthenon; and how those great isolated rocks have been left like the discarded and broken furniture of Gog and Magog.”

“Yes,” I say, “but the tone of your imagery is low. Long, long ago a higher sentiment called them ‘monuments,’ and this whole illy-defined region of grotesquely-cut sandstones, Monument Park.”

And then we all fall into a discussion of the process of formation of these quaint obelisks, which is interrupted by the Artist.

“Here is some pertinent testimony in Ludlow’s admirable book, the ‘Heart of the Continent,’ which by your leave I will read to you. Ready?”

“Fire away!” we reply, and do the same with our cigars, making a treaty of amity in the blaze of a mutual match.

“‘I ascended one of the most practicable hills among the number crowned by sculpturesque formations. The hill was a mere mass of sand and débris from decayed rocks, about a hundred feet high, conical, and bearing on its summit an irregular group of pillars. After a protracted examination, I found the formation to consist of a peculiar friable conglomerate, which has no precise parallel in any of our Eastern strata. Some of the pillars were nearly cylindrical, others were long cones; and a number were spindle-shaped, or like a buoy set on end. With hardly an exception, they were surmounted by capitals of remarkable projection beyond their base. These I found slightly different in composition from the shafts. The conglomerate of the latter was an irregular mixture of fragments from all the hypogene rocks of the range, including quartzose pebbles, pure crystals of silex, various crystalline sandstones, gneiss, solitary horn-blende and feldspar, nodular iron stones, rude agates and gun-flint; the whole loosely cemented in a matrix composed of clay, lime (most likely from the decomposition of gypsum), and red oxide of iron. The disk which formed the largely projecting capital seemed to represent the original diameter of the pillar, and apparently retained its proportions in virtue of a much closer texture and larger per cent. of iron in its composition. These were often so apparent that the pillars had a contour of the most rugged description, and a tinge of pale cream yellow, while the capitals were of a brick-dust color, with excess of red oxide, and nearly as uniform in their granulation as fine millstone-grit. The shape of these formations seemed, therefore, to turn on the comparative resistance to atmospheric influences possessed by their various parts. Many other indications ... led me to narrow down all the hypothetical agencies which might have produced them, to a single one,—air, in its chemical or mechanical operations, and usually in both.... One characteristic of the Rocky Mountains is its system of vast indentations, cutting through from the top to the bottom of the range. Some of these take the form of funnels, others are deep, tortuous galleries known as passes or cañons; but all have their openings toward the plains. The descending masses of air fall into these funnels or sinuous canals, as they slide down, concentrating themselves and acquiring a vertical motion. When they issue from the mouth of the gorge at the base of the range, they are gigantic augers, with a revolution faster than man’s cunningest machinery, and a cutting-edge of silex, obtained from the first sand heap caught up by their fury. Thus armed with their own resistless motion and an incisive thread of the hardest mineral next to the diamond, they sweep on over the plains to excavate, pull down, or carve in new forms, whatever friable formation lies in their way.’”

By this time Colorado Springs was at hand, and as we had decided, like all other sensible people who come to Colorado, to sojourn awhile there and at Manitou, our cars were side-tracked. And while Amos betook himself to the preparation of our evening meal, we admired the gorgeous sunset, and disposed our effects for the first night out.

Henry Ward Beecher once said that while the new birth was necessary to a true Christian life, it was very important that one be born well the first time. Colorado Springs was born well. It was organized on the colony plan, and the first stake was driven in July, 1871. Intelligent and far-seeing men were leaders of the enterprise, and in no way was their sagacity more apparent than in the insertion, in every deed of transfer, of a clause prohibiting, upon pain of forfeiture, the sale or manufacture of alcoholic beverages on the premises conveyed. This temperance clause was introduced by General W. J. Palmer, the president of the colony, who during his services as engineer of railway extensions, had observed the destruction which the unrestrained traffic in intoxicants worked to life and property. It was not sentiment, but a sound business precaution, as the result has proved. Of course this provision has been contested, but it has been legally sustained, and has given the town the best moral tone of any in Colorado. The location was also wisely chosen, broad and regular streets were carefully laid out, a system of irrigation established, thousands of trees planted, and reservations for parks set aside. Some of the avenues running north and south might with propriety be designated boulevards, being 140 feet in width, with double roadways separated by parallel rows of trees. Other trees shade the walks at either side, and at their roots flow rapid streamlets of clearest water. The drives are smooth and hard, and the soil never becomes muddy, the moisture penetrating rapidly through the light gravelly loam. The gentle inclination southward renders drainage a very simple matter.

Seen from the railway, the town appears to be located upon a considerable elevation. In fact it stands upon a plateau in the midst of a valley. The thirty-five miles of streets and avenues are closely lined with substantial business blocks, pretentious residences, or tasty cottages. The pink and white stone of the Manitou quarries is largely used; and pent-roofs, ornamental gables, red chimneys, and the whole category of renaissance peculiarities, have representation in the architecture. The dwellers in these abodes are principally of the cultured and refined classes. Invalids from the intellectual centers of the East find health and congenial society here, while numbers of opulent mine owners and stockmen make the Springs their winter home.

The public buildings are all creditable; the Deaf-Mute Institute, Colorado College, the churches and schools being specially noteworthy. The Opera House is a veritable bijou, handsome and convenient in all its appointments, and with a single exception not surpassed west of the Missouri. The new hotel, The Antlers, erected at a cost of over $125,000, is of stone, and is without doubt the most artistic and elegant structure of its kind in the State. It occupies a sightly position at the edge of the plateau, and from its balconies and verandas a marvelous and most inspiring view is presented. The foothills lie along the west, about five miles distant, the massive outlines of Cheyenne Mountain a little to the left, and the huge red towers that mark the gateway to the Garden of the Gods lifting their crests over the Mesa at the right, while above them all is reared the snow-crowned summit of Pike’s Peak. To the north, is seen in the foreground the gray shoulders of the buttes, and in the distance the dark pine-covered elevation of the Divide. Easterly the land rises gently in a gray, grass-clad plain, until it cuts the blue horizon with a level line; while southward the mountains trend away, purple in the distance.

Colorado Springs lies under the shadow of Pike’s Peak; and in the short autumn days the sun drops out of sight behind the mountain with startling suddenness at four o’clock. Then come the cool shadows, when fires have to be replenished, and doors and windows closed. From ten o’clock until the sun hides behind the hills, the blue skies, the soft breezes, the grateful warmth, suggest that month in which, if ever, come perfect days. The June roses are absent but the days are as rare as a day in June. The average temperature here is sixty degrees, and there are about three hundred days of sunshine in the year.

Within a radius of ten miles about the Springs are to be found more “interesting, varied and famous scenic attractions than in any similar compass the country over,” we are told by the guide, and we are quite ready to believe when they are recounted. A drive of three miles across the Mesa, with its magnificent mountain view, brings you to Glen Eyrie, the secluded home of General Palmer, originator of the Denver and Rio Grande railway. “At the entrance you pass a little lodge—a sonnet in architecture, if one may so express it—the small but perfect rendering of a harmonious thought; you cross and recross a rushing, tumbling mountain brook over a dozen different bridges, some rustic, some of masonry, but each a gem in design and fitness; then at last, after the mind is properly tuned, as it were, to perfect accord, the full symphony bursts upon you. In the shadow of the eternal rock, with the wonderful background of mountains, surrounded by all that art can lend nature, is this delicious anachronism of a Queen Anne house, in sage-green and deep dull red, with arched balconies under pointed gables, and carved projections over mullioned windows, and trellised porches, with stained glass loopholes and an avalanche of roofs.” A little distance from the house strange forms of red sandstone lift their heads far above the foliage, like a file of genii marching down on solemn mission from their abodes in mountain caves, while on the ledges of the gray bluffs opposite the eagles have built their nests. Farther up the Glen, and yet a part of it, is Queen’s Cañon, a most rugged gorge, in which the wildness of nature has been for the most part unopposed. The same turbulent brook comes dashing down, in a series of cascades and rapids, from the Devil’s Punch-Bowl, near the head of the Cañon. Rustic bridges cross it near the foot, one of which is made the subject of an engraving; but soon the pathway breaks into a mere trail, which leads over boulders and fallen tree-trunks, or clings to precipitous cliffs which tower high overhead.

One mile north of Glen Eyrie is Blair Athol, with its exquisitely tinted pink sandstone pillars; while about the same distance to the south is the Garden of the Gods, which it seems, however, more proper to classify with Manitou’s environs. Five miles northeasterly from the Springs are Austin’s Bluffs, and a few miles west of these, Monument Park. Nearer by, and due west, are the Red and Bear Creek Cañons. An excellent way of reaching Pike’s Peak is by the Cheyenne Mountain toll road, which terminates in a good trail passing the Seven Lakes. The Cheyenne Cañons, at the northern base of the mountain of the same name, are greatly frequented, and justly rank high in the category. They are two in number.

South Cheyenne Cañon is full of surprises. “The vulgar linear measure of its length is out of harmony with the winding path over rocks, between straight pines, and across the rushing waters of the brook that boils down the whole rocky cut. The stream, tossing over its rough bed and dropping into sandy pools, drives one from side to side of the narrow passage-way for foothold. Eleven times one crosses it, by stepping from one rolling and uncertain stone to another, by balancing across the lurching trunk of a felled tree, or by dams of driftwood; and, finally, skirting a huge boulder that juts out into the water, and jumping from rock to rock, the head of the Cañon is reached. The narrow gorge ends in a round well of granite, down one side of which leaps, slides, foams and rushes a series of waterfalls. Seven falls in line drop the water from the melted snow above into this cup. Looking from below, one sees (as in our illustration) only three, that, starting down the last almost perpendicular wall and striking ledges in the rock, and oblique crevices, send their jet shooting in a curved spray to the pool. In this deep hollow only the noonday sun ever shines, and a narrow bank of snow lies against one side in the shadow of the cliff. Going up the Cañon, with the roar of the waters ahead and the wild path before one, the loftiness and savage wildness of the walls catch only a dizzying glance, but coming out, their sides seem to touch the heavens and to be measureless. The eye can hardly take in the vast height, and with the afternoon sun touching only the extreme tops, one realizes in what a crevice and fissure of the rocks the Cañon winds. Across the widest place between the walls a girl could throw a stone, and from that it narrows even more. The cool, dim light down at the base contrasts strangely with the red blaze that reflects from the top of the high walls; and emerging from one group of pine trees, a turn in the Cañon confronts one with a whole wall of sandstone burning in the intense sunlight. A comparison between this and the Via Mala and the other wild gorges of the Alps is impossible, but had legend and history and poetry followed it for centuries, South Cheyenne Cañon would have its great features acknowledged. Let a ruined tower stand at its entrance, whence robber knights had swooped down upon travelers and picked out the teeth of wealthy Hebrews; let a nation fight for its liberty through its chasm; and then let my Lord Byron turn loose the flood of his imagery upon it. After all, its wildness and untouched solitude are most impressive; and without history, save of the seasons, or sound, save of the wind, the water and the eagles, centuries have kept it for the small world that knows it now.” So discourses a very charming lady writer.

IN NORTH CHEYENNE CAÑON.

North Cheyenne Cañon is scarcely less interesting, though less widely known. Its beauty is of a milder type, the walls advancing and retreating, and anon breaking into gaily-colored pinnacles on which the sunlight plays in strange freaks of light and shade. The little brook winds like a silver band beside the path, encircling the boulders which it cannot leap, and all the while singing softly to the rhythm of swaying vines. The birds chirp in unison as they skip from rock to rock, and in the harmony and essence of the scene all are subdued—save the Artist, whose deft pencil cannot weary in so much loveliness. When words fail, it is fortunate he is at hand to rescue writer and reader alike.

It was during our stay at Colorado Springs we made acquaintance with the burro. It is the nightingale of Colorado; its range of voice is limited, consisting indeed of only two notes; but the amount of eloquence, the superb quality, the deep resonance and flexible sinuosity which can be thrown by this natural musician into such a small compass are tremendous. As they lope down the street, the larboard ear in air, while the starboard droops limply, the long tapir-like nose quivering with the mighty volume of sound which is pouring through it, the sloping Chinese eyes looking at you sideways with the lack-lustre expression of their race, and an artistic kick thrown in occasionally to produce the tremolo that adds the last touch of grace to the ringing voice, you are overwhelmed.

We betook ourselves to the train one evening, after our by no means thorough exploration of the neighborhood, and began our preparations for a few days’ absence at Manitou. It was only five miles away, and we had decided not to take our cars up. Retiring early, we fell asleep to dream of new pleasures, for which our appetites were already whetted.

III
A MOUNTAIN SPA.

... And the ray

Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday,

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,

And shining in the brawling brook, whereby,

Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours

With a calm languor, which, though to the eye

Idlesse it seem, hath its morality.

—Petrarch.

As well omit the Lions of St. Mark from a visit to Venice, as to pass by Manitou in a tour of Colorado. Manitou, the sacred health-fountains of Indian tradition, the shrine of disabled mountaineers, the “Saratoga” of the Rockies.

Leaving Colorado Springs, a branch of the railway swings gracefully around the low hills in which the Mesa terminates, and points for the gap in the mountains directly to the west. Nearly three miles from the junction we pass the driving park, and immediately after run up to Colorado City, the first capital of the Territory, and now a quiet little hamlet, whose chief industry is the production of much beer. Recalling the temperance proclivities of the Springs, it is unfortunately not strange that a drive to Colorado City in the long summer evenings should prove so attractive to the ardent youth of untamed blood. Then the road passes into the clusters of cottonwoods and willows which fringe the brook, crossing, recrossing, and dashing through patches of sunlight, whence the huge colored pinnacles in the Garden of the Gods are descried over the broken hills at the right. It is a striking ride, and curiously the location of the railway has not been allowed to mar its native beauty. Describing the contour of a projecting foothill, we obtain our first glimpse of Manitou, with its great hotels, its cut-stone cottages, and its picturesque station. Just across the way, and in the lowest depression of the narrow vale, is a charming villa, embowered in shrubbery, with quaint gables and porches, and phenomenal lawns and flower-beds. It is the home of Dr. W. A. Bell, for years vice-president of the Denver and Rio Grande railway.

The village itself is grouped in careless ease along the steep and bushy slopes of the valley, straggling about and abounding in miniature chalets, precisely as a mountain village ought to do. The Fontaine-qui-Bouille, full of the sprightliness of its youth in Ute Pass, and its escapade at Rainbow Falls, comes dashing and splashing, and singing its happy song:

“I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trebles;

I bubble into eddying bays,

I babble on the pebbles.”

A GLIMPSE OF MANITOU AND PIKE’S PEAK.

Down close to this frolicsome, icy-cold stream, are built the larger hotels, the Beebee and Manitou, surrounded by groves of cottonwood, aspen, wild cherry and box elder. They are cheery, clean, homelike, and handsomely furnished. The broad piazzas afford the finest views of Pike’s Peak, Cameron’s Cone, and their confreres. Here gather the “beauty and chivalry” of many climes, and in the long, soft evenings, devoid of dew or moisture, the cozy nooks offer the seclusion for—we had nearly said, flirtation—or cool refuge from the heated dancing-hall. Rustic bridges cross the brook, leading into a labyrinth of shade and on up to the crags behind. At the rear of the hotels, Lover’s Lane, a most romantic ramble, starts out in a half-mile maze through arbors, and flowering shrubs, and over little precipices, for the springs. Beside the path, and in out of-the-way spots among the bushes, are alluring seats, only large enough for two, where you may sit, while at your feet the selfsame brooklet murmurs:

“I steal by lawns and grassy plots;

I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.”

Further up stream, a little way, are the homes of the citizens, and more hotels and boarding places—the Cliff House, Barker’s, and a dozen others. Here, too, on the banks of the creek, boiling up in basins of their own secretion, and hidden under rustic kiosks of a later date, are the springs themselves. They are six in number, varying in temperature from 43° to 56° F., and are strongly charged with carbonic acid. “Coming up the valley,” writes an authority, “the first is the Shoshone, bubbling up under a wooden canopy, close beside the main road of the village, and often called the Sulphur Spring, from the yellow deposit left around it. A few yards further on, and in a ledge of rock overhanging the right bank of the Fontaine, is the Navajo (shown in the foreground of our picture), containing carbonates of soda, lime and magnesia, and still more strongly charged with carbonic acid, having a refreshing taste similar to seltzer water. From this rocky basin, pipes conduct the water to the bath-house, which is situated on the stream a little below. Crossing by a pretty rustic bridge, we come to the Manitou, close to an ornamental summer-house; its taste and properties nearly resemble the Navajo. Recrossing the stream and walking a quarter of a mile up the Ute Pass road, following the right bank of the Fontaine, we find, close to its brink, the Ute Soda. This resembles the Manitou and Navajo, but is chemically less powerful, though much enjoyed for a refreshing draught. Retracing one’s steps to within two hundred yards of the Manitou Spring, we cross a bridge leading over a stream which joins the Fontaine at almost a right angle from the southwest; following up the right bank of this mountain brook, which is called Ruxton’s Creek, we enter the most beautiful of the tributary valleys of Manitou. Traversing the winding road among rocks and trees for nearly half a mile, we reach a pavilion close to the right bank of the creek, in which we find the Iron Ute, the water being highly effervescent, of the temperature of 44° 3´ F., and very agreeable in spite of its marked chalybeate taste. Continuing up the left bank of the stream for a few hundred yards, we reach the last of the springs that have been analyzed—the Little Chief; this is less agreeable in taste, being less effervescent and more strongly impregnated with sulphate of soda than any of the other springs, and containing nearly as much iron as the Iron Ute.

“These springs have from time immemorial enjoyed a reputation as healing waters among the Indians, who, when driven from the glen by the inroads of civilization, left behind them wigwams to which they used to bring their sick; believing, as they did, that the Good Spirit breathed into the waters the breath of life, they bathed and drank of them, thinking thereby to find a cure for every ill; yet it has been found that they thought most highly of their virtues when their bones and joints were racked with pain, their skins covered with unsightly blotches, or their warriors weakened by wounds or mountain sickness. During the seasons that the use of these waters has been under observation, it has been noticed that rheumatism, certain skin diseases, and cases of debility have been much benefited, so far confirming the experience of the past. The Manitou and Navajo have also been highly praised for their relief of old kidney and liver troubles, and the Iron Ute for chronic alcoholism and uterine derangements. Many of the phthisical patients who come to this dry, bracing air in increasing numbers are also said to have drunk of the waters with evident advantage.

“Professor Loew (chemist to the Wheeler expedition), speaking of the Manitou Springs as a group, says, very justly, they resemble those of Ems, and excel those of Spa—two of the most celebrated in Europe.

“On looking at the analyses of the Manitou group it will be seen that they all contain carbonic acid and carbonate of soda, yet they vary in some of their other constituents. We will, therefore, divide them into three groups of carbonated soda waters: 1. The carbonated soda waters proper, comprising the Navajo, Manitou and Ute Soda, in which the soda and carbonic acid have the chief action. 2. The purging carbonated soda waters, comprising the Little Chief and Shoshone, where the action of the soda and carbonic acid is markedly modified by the sulphates of soda and potash. 3. The ferruginous carbonated soda waters where the action of the carbonic acid and soda is modified by the carbonate of iron, comprising the Iron Ute and the Little Chief, which latter belongs to this group as well as to the preceding one.”

Such are the medicinal fountains that not only have proved themselves blessings to thousands of invalids, sick of pharmacy, but cause the summer days here to be haunted by pleasure seekers, who make the health of some afflicted friend, or weariness from overwork in them selves, excuse for coming; or boldly assert themselves here purely for pleasure. Time was when this entrance to a score of glens was a rendezvous for game and primitively wild. Even a dozen years ago it would answer to this description, and now one need not go far in winter to find successful shooting. “In summer time,” to quote the Earl of Dunraven, “beautiful but dangerous creatures roam the park. The tracks of tiny little shoes are more frequent than the less interesting, but harmless footprints of mountain sheep. You are more likely to catch a glimpse of the hem of a white petticoat in the distance than of the glancing form of a deer. The marks of carriage wheels are more plentiful than elk signs, and you are not now so liable to be scared by the human-like track of a gigantic bear as by the appalling impress of a number eleven boot.”

THE MINERAL SPRINGS.

Do not imagine, however, that all the boot-tracks mark “the appalling impress of a number eleven.” The Madame tells me they dress as well at Manitou as at Saratoga; to me this seems a doubtful kind of compliment, but she intended it to cover the perfection of summer toilets. At Manitou, indeed, you do all you think it proper to do in the Green Mountains, or at White Sulphur, or any other upland resort, but in far more delightfully unconventional ways, and the enjoyment is proportionately increased.

No Eastern watering-place affords opportunity for so many desirable excursions, each distinct from the other in interest, each superb and of itself a sufficient inducement to come to Colorado. Just overhead towers the glorious old crest of Pike’s Peak, the beacon of ’59, and ever since the type of American mountains. He who does not ascend the Peak (if he is in fair health) can never get a good character from Manitou. Of course all of the present party went. Moreover we went fancy-free and note-book forgotten—a happiness as great as Patti’s when she saw there was no piano on the ocean steamer in which she was to take passage. “How was this?” do you ask? Lillian Scidmore had been there before us, and reaped with her keen sickle every spear of wheat in the whole field. To show our gleanings would amount to nothing; so here is her whole sheaf:

“The tenth of June having left the world upon its axis, a little band of heroic spirits made ready to mount the bony bronchos, and toil upward from the green and lovely vale of Manitou to the rocky height above. The noonday sun was sending down its most scorching rays, and the idlers on the hotel piazza were mopping their brows and repeating the wearisome formula of ‘the hottest day ever known in Colorado.’ The sun was ardent, to say the least, but the crisp breeze that came rustling down from the higher cañons tempered its effects.

“The sympathetic chambermaid of the Beebee House had been hovering in my doorway for a half hour before the start, urging me to take more and more wraps, and relating horrible anecdotes of the Chicago lady ‘who had her nose burned to a white blister and her face so raw, ma’am, that we could hardly touch it with a feather for three days.’ With such gentle admonition there was no struggle when the kind-hearted one proceeded to apply her preventive, and under a triple layer of cold cream, powder and barege veils we made the trip, and returned rather fairer in skin for the bleaching process. The perspiration ran off the guide’s forehead before he had strapped on the first bundle of overcoats, ulsters, shawls, rugs and furs, but the grateful sensation they imparted to us a few hours later will cheer me through many midsummer days. The party included, among others, a gentleman and his wife from St. Louis, and the same wicked Colorado editor who is the author of all the fine spun yarns about the Pike’s Peak volcano and the mountain lions.

“Such horses as we rode can be raised and trained only on a mountain trail, and if they could but speak, what tales of timidity, stupidity and absurdity they might relate. My own Arabian was a tan-colored beast, shading off to drab and old gold, known in the vernacular of the country as a buckskin horse, and rejoiced in the sweet name of ‘Bird.’ It was a veritable misnomer, for birds do not generally sit down and roll at every piece of green grass or cool water that they come to, nor try to shake their riders off over their necks. My sudden flights to earth were heralded in all the turgid and flamboyant rhetoric of the circus ring, and equestrian feats, each outrivaling the other in novelty and unexpectedness, diversified the route. It was proposed to call the creature Jordan, because she rolled; and again it was suggested that as it was ‘sinched’ out of all shape it had mistaken itself for an hourglass, and concluded that it was time to turn. Another horse for a lady rider answered to ‘Annie,’ and this gentle beast was only kept from lying down in every stream by energetic pullings and vigorous thrashings. The good son of St. Louis, bidden, like Louis XVI at the guillotine, to ‘mount to heaven,’ when he leaped upon his dappled gray, in a linen coat, broad-brimmed hat and full-spread umbrella, had a truly ministerial air as he preceded the line up the road. The editor rode a pensive nag that hung its head and coughed timidly now and then, but chirruped to as ‘Camille’ would push forward and crowd the other horses off the trail, until a kicking and lashing from the heels of ‘Bird’ brought things in order.

“The Pike’s Peak trail is one series of picturesque surprises. All that green cañons, tremendous boulders and turbulent little streams can do for beauty are there, and from the rustic spot where a small bandit on the rock demanded toll, there was a succession of grand and lovely scenes. The trail, worn deep into the grassy places by the procession of horses that goes up and down it from May to October, winds on between great rocks, along the steep and dizzy sides of cañons, past cascades and waterfalls (one of which is the subject of a sketch), and continually upward, opening boundless views out upon the broad plains that stretch like a yellow sea from the foothills of the Peak eastward. With every rise there came a greater one beyond, and above it all, seeming to move and rise further and higher from us, was the rose-red summit, with streaks and patches of snow bringing out its beautiful colors. Over giant boulders, creeping a cramped path beside and under them, or along a narrow ledge of sliding sand with colossal rocks miraculously suspended above our pathway, the panting horses toiled along. Ascending into higher and rarer air it was necessary every few minutes to stop and give the poor creatures a chance to breathe.

“As we rose higher on the mountain side more extended views were opened backward over the plains. The lowering sun fell fiercely on the red sandstone gateways of the Garden of the Gods, until they burned in flame-colored light against the yellow-gray grass. The hotels and cottages of Manitou were tiny dots in a green hollow far below, and the courses of the winding streams could be traced for miles over the plains by their green borders of cottonwood and willow trees. Wild flowers grew luxuriantly all the way, and in a little park half way to the summit, where the guides rest by a spring and wait for ascending and descending parties to pass, the ground was thick with big columbines, wild roses, harebells, white daisies, pale lavender geraniums with their petals streaked with maroon, and the beautiful blue-eyed penstemon of early June. At timber-line the wild box covered the sandy slopes with a thick and tangled mat of green, and higher than the hardiest pines stretched a rolling mountain meadow, a mile of emerald turf jeweled with the brilliant blossoms of bluebells, buttercups, dwarf sunflowers and dainty little Quaker-lady forget-me-nots.

“Sixteen people passed us in the half-way park on their way down. The terrified countenance of one lady on a mule would have made the hard-hearted to laugh. She pitched back and forth in her saddle, and shot a pitiful gaze at us as she went by that plainly indicated her estimate of us and mountain climbers in general. The twelve miles of steep, hard riding to the summit is trying to the most practiced rider; and for women, who have never sat a horse before, to attempt to make the trip up and down in one day is a folly that fully deserves the punishment it gets. Twenty-four miles of horseback riding on a level road even is apt to be remembered by the inexperienced. Added to the fatigue is the sea-sickness consequent upon the great altitude, and few who make the ascent escape that ill. It is a certificate of a rock-bound constitution to spend a night on the summit and not be grievously ill. After the mountain meadow come three miles of broken and ragged rock, the most wearisome and discouraging part of the road. The horses’ sides throbbed frightfully, the keen winds made a halt for overcoats necessary, and the scramble over these steep rocks is a fearful thing in a nipping sunset breeze. The rocks of the summit, that seem only reddish brown from below, are of the softest pink and rose-red shades, dotted with black and golden moss-patches until they strongly remind one of the exquisite colors of speckled trout. Above this sea of loose and broken granite a low, square house of stone at last arose, and over the ultimate rock we finally stood on the highest inhabited point on the continent.

“The officer of the signal service, who lives in that lofty house, stood in his doorway shooting at a tin can on a pole, and in that thin open air the pop of the pistol was a short, faint little noise without crash or echo. The red ball of the sun sinking down behind the snowy edges of the mountains beyond Leadville sent strange lights and mists across the tossed and uneven stretch of mountains and parks that lay between it and the gaunt old Peak. The seventy acres of wildly scattered rock-fragments that crown the top afford a vantage ground for views to every point of the compass. Eastward across the vast prairie land there seems no limit to the vision, and beyond the green lines of the Platte and Arkansas rivers we amused ourselves by imagining the steeples of St. Louis in the rose and purple vapors of the horizon. The clouds, mists, shadows and faint opalescent lights on the plains, shifting, changing and fading each moment, are more fascinatingly beautiful than the dark, upheaved and splintered ridges of the mountains. Stretching out over the plains, at first in a blue cone upon the grass, and then sweeping outward and upward to the sky-line, the vast shadow of the mountain was thrown sharply against the sky.

“Wrapped in furs and bundled in all the woolen warmth of heaviest winter clothes, the chill air of evening penetrated like a knife-edge, and we sat shivering on the rocks with pitiable, pinched and purple faces and chattering teeth. The afterglow in the east, when the sky and the plains melted in one purple line and a band of rose-color went up higher and higher, was more lovely even than the pure crimson and gold and blue of the sunset clouds.

“Around the crackling fire in the station we thawed our benumbed fingers and watched the observations taken from the various instruments and sent clicking off on the telegraph wires to Washington headquarters. The sergeant wound the alarm-clock to rouse us at four o’clock the next morning, and, giving up the one sleeping-room to the ladies, retired with the gentlemen of the party to a bed of buffalo-robes in the kitchen. The awful stillness, the stealthy puffs of wind, and the sense of isolation and remoteness, were distressing at first; but the tobacco-laden air dulled us to sleep. As the fire died out, dreams of Greenland—glaciers and giddy snow-banks on impossible summits—seized and held us, until a shivering voice gave the alarm: ‘It is all red in the east.’

“We had climbed all those miles purposely to see the spectacle of dawn, but there was unhappiness among the pinched and pallid enthusiasts who crept out on the rocks and watched the half-light on the plains deepen. A pale and withered moon hung overhead, and miles away on the plain lay a vast white cloud like a lake, until the rising sun touched it and sent it rolling and tossing like angry waves. A crimson ball sprang suddenly from the outermost rim of the earth, glared with a red and sleepy eye upon the world, and pulled the cover of a cloud above it for a second nap before it came forth in full splendor. The shadow of the Peak projected westward fell this time on the uneven mountains, whose sides and clefts were filled and floating with faint pearl, lilac and roseate mists. The black patch where Denver lay on the plains, the snowy top of Gray’s Peak, the green basin of South Park, and seemingly everything from end to end of the State, could be seen. Shivering, freezing, on that mountain top, with a fur cloak about me, besides all the other wraps, it seemed that there never was a winter day half as cold.

“In all the crevices of the rocks, wherever there was enough powdered granite to form a soil for their roots, were tiny little white blossoms, fairy stars or flowers, with just their heads above the ground, and an exquisite perfume breathing from them. Bidding the guide to sinch up quickly for the down trip, we partook of the signal sergeant’s coffee, and listened to his anecdotes of his lonesome life of two weeks on the mountain and two weeks in town.

“‘You are the best crowd that’s been up,’ said the brave man of barometers. ‘They all get sick when they stay over night. It took me a month to get used to it. You ought to stay until noon and see the tender-feet come up and get sick. Oh, Lord! there was an old lady up here the other day, and she says to me: “Sergeant, don’t people ever die of this sickness up here?” “Oh, yes, ma’am,” says I, “a lady died the other day, and as there wasn’t any one to identify her we just put her over in that snow-bank there.”’

PIKE’S PEAK TRAIL.

“With a lot more of such mountain horrors he kept his rafters ringing, and then bade us climb the ladder to the top of his house, which would make up the difference of fifteen feet between his abode and Gray’s Peak. We looked at the grave of the imaginary child destroyed by mountain rats, gave a last glance at the enchanted view, and left the chilling region.”

Another entertaining jaunt is a couple of miles or less up the Ute Pass wagon-road to Rainbow Falls, one of the finest cascades in the West—where such things are more of a curiosity than in wetter regions of the world. The water comes down here with a more than ordinarily desperate plunge, and it is great sport to climb about the angular rocks that hem it in.

Ute Pass leads over into South Park, and before the days of railways it was greatly traveled by passengers and by freight wagons to Leadville and Fairplay. There is less transit there now, but in summer pleasure-parties constantly traverse the Pass, partly for its own sake and partly to enjoy a sight of Manitou Park on the opposite side, whence a magnificent array of the snowy interior ranges is to be seen, northward and westward, while Pike’s Peak presents itself to superior advantage from that point of view. In the park is a good little hotel and dairy, and a trout stream and pond where the Eastern brook-trout has been assiduously cultivated. In the fall Manitou Park is the resort of deer hunters and grouse shooters.

Then there is the already mentioned Garden of the Gods, hidden behind those garish walls of red and yellow sandstone, so stark and out of place in the soberly-toned landscape that they travesty nature, converting the whole picture into a theatrical scene, and a highly spectacular one at that. Passing behind these sensational walls, one is not surprised to find a sort of gigantic peep-show in pantomime. The solid rocks have gone masquerading in every sort of absurd costume and character. The colors of the make-up, too, are varied from black through all the browns and drabs to pure white, and then again through yellows and buffs and pinks up to staring red. Who can portray adequately these odd forms of chiseled stone? I have read a dozen descriptions, and so have you, no doubt. But one I have just seen, in a letter by a Boston lady, is so pertinent you should have the pleasure of reading it:

“The impression is of something mighty, unreal and supernatural. Of the gods surely—but the gods of the Norse Walhalla in some of their strange outbursts of wild rage or uncouth playfulness. The beauty-loving divinities of Greece and Rome could have nothing in common with such sublime awkwardness. Jove’s ambrosial curls must shake in another Olympia than this. Weird and grotesque, but solemn and awful at the same time, as if one stood on the confines of another world, and soon the veil would be rent which divided them. Words are worse than useless to attempt such a picture. Perhaps if one could live in the shadow of its savage grandeur for months until his soul were permeated, language would begin to find itself flowing in proper channels, but in the first stupor of astonishment one must only hold his breath. The Garden itself, the holy of holies, as most fancy, is not so overpowering to me as the vast outlying wildness.

“To pass in between massive portals of rock of brilliant terra-cotta red, and enter on a plain miles in extent, covered in all directions with magnificent isolated masses of the same striking color, each lifting itself against the wonderful blue of a Colorado sky with a sharpness of outline that would shame the fine cutting of an etching; to find the ground under your feet, over the whole immense surface, carpeted with the same rich tint, underlying arabesques of green and gray, where grass and mosses have crept; to come-upon masses of pale velvety gypsum, set now and again as if to make more effective by contrast the deep red which strikes the dominant chord of the picture; and always, as you look through or above, to catch the stormy billows of the giant mountain range tossed against the sky, with the regal snow-crowned massiveness of Pike’s Peak rising over all, is something, once seen, never to be forgotten. Strange, grotesque shapes, mammoth caricatures of animals, clamber, crouch, or spring from vantage points hundreds of feet in air. Here a battlemented wall is pierced by a round window; there a cluster of slender spires lift themselves; beyond, a leaning tower slants through the blue air, or a cube as large as a dwelling-house is balanced on a pivot-like point at the base, as if a child’s strength could upset it. Imagine all this scintillant with color, set under a dazzling sapphire dome, with the silver stems and delicate frondage of young cottonwoods in one space, or a strong young hemlock lifting green symmetrical arms from some high rocky cleft in another. This can be told, but the massiveness of sky-piled masonry, the almost infernal mixture of grandeur and grotesqueness, are beyond expression. After the first few moments of wild exclamation one sinks into an awed silence.”

The reader must see for himself these grotesque monuments, these relics of ruined strata, these sportive, wind-cut ghosts of the old regime here, these fanciful images of things seen and unseen, which stand thickly over hundreds of acres like the moldering ruins of some half-buried city of the desert, if he would fully understand.

Out of the many other sources of enjoyment near Manitou, the visitor will by no means neglect the Cave of the Winds. Though you may ride, if you wish, it is just a pleasant walk up Williams’ Cañon, one of the prettiest of the gorges that seam the rugged base of the great Peak. The walls are limestone, stained bright red and Indian yellow, lofty, vertical, and broken into a multitude of bastions, turrets, pinnacles and sweeping, hugely carved façades, whose rugged battlements tower hundreds of feet overhead against a sky of violet. At their bases these upright walls are so close together that much of the way there is not room for one carriage to pass another, and the track lies nearly always in the very bed of the sparkling brook. You seem always in a cul de sac among the zigzags of this irregular chasm, and sometimes the abundant foliage, rooted in the crevices above, meets in an arch across the brightly-painted but narrow space you are tortuously threading.

Half a mile up the cañon, at the end of the roadway, a trail goes by frequent turnings up the precipitous sides of the ravine to where a sheer cliff begins, about three hundred feet higher. Floundering up this steep and slippery goat-path, we arrived breathless at a stairway leading through an arch of native rock into a great chimney, opening out to the sunlight above, and found opposite us a niche which served as ante-room and entrance to the cave.

The history of this cave is entertaining, for it was the discovery, in June, 1880, of two boys of Colorado Springs, who were members of an “exploring society,” organized by the pastor of the Congregational Church there to provide the boys of his Sunday-school with some safe and healthful outlet for their adventurous spirits.

The cave, as we saw it, is a labyrinth of narrow passages, occasionally opening out into chambers of irregular size (and never with very high ceilings), into which protrude great ledges and points of rock from the stratified walls, still further limiting the space. These passages are often very narrow, and in many cases you must stoop in crowding through, or, if you insist upon going to the end, squirm along, Brahmin-like, on your stomach. The avenues and apartments are not all upon the same level, but run over and under each other, and constantly show slender fox holes branching off, which the guide tells you lead to some stygian retreat you have visited or are about to see. In remote portions of the cave there are very large rooms, like Alabaster Hall, some of which are encumbered with fallen masses and with pillars of drip stone.

The cave is not remarkable for large stalactites and stalagmites, but excels in its profusion of small ornaments, produced by the solution of the rock and its re-deposition in odd and pretty forms. From many of the ledges hang rows of small stalactites like icicles from wintry eaves, and often these have fine musical tones, so that by selecting a suitable number, varied in their pitch, simple tunes can easily and very melodiously be played by tapping. In some parts of the cave, the stalactites are soldered together into a ribbed mass, like a cascade falling over the ledges. Elsewhere the “ribbon” or “drapery” form of flattened stalactites recalls to you the Luray Caves, though here it is carried out on a smaller scale; while in this particular, as in many others, reminding one of the magnificent Virginia caverns only by small suggestions, in one respect this cave far surpasses in beauty its Eastern prototype. The floors of many rooms are laid, several inches deep, with incrustations of lime-work, which is embroidered in raised ridges of exquisite carving. Again, where water has been caught in depressions, these basins have been lined with a continuous, crowding plush of minute lime crystals,—like small tufted cushions of yellow and white moss. Such depressed patches occur frequently; moreover, the rapid evaporation of these pools, in confined spaces, has so surcharged the air with carbonated moisture, that particles of lime have been deposited on the walls of the pocket in a thousand dainty and delicate forms,—tiny stalactites and bunches of stone twigs,—until you fancy the most airy of milleporic corals transferred to these recesses. Here often the air seems foggy as your lamp-rays strike it, and the growing filigree-work gleams alabaster-white under the spray that is producing its weird and exquisite growth. In this form of minute and frost-like ornamentation, the cave excels anything I know of anywhere, and is strangely beautiful.

RAINBOW FALLS.

This cavern, however, is sadly deficient in a proper amount of legendary interest. No human bones have been found, and no lover’s leap has been designated. This misfortune must be remedied; and I have selected a dangerous kind of a place at which, hereafter, the following touching tradition will cause the tourist to drop a tear: Many, many years ago an Indian maiden discovered this cave while eagerly pursuing a woodchuck to its long home; the home proving longer than she thought, she crept quite through into the unsuspected enlargement of a cave-chamber, and a startled congregation of pensive bats. She told no one of her discovery, because she had not, after all, caught the woodchuck, and went without meat for supper. A noble warrior, who had done marvelous deeds of valor, loved the maiden. He wooed and she would but the swarthy papa wouldn’t. Sadness, anger, surreptitious trysting where the fleecy cottonwood waves melodiously above the crystal streamlet, etc., etc. The irate old warrior brings an aged brave, who has spent his whole life in doing nothing of more account than cronifying with the heart-sick girl’s father. This man she must marry, and the young suitor must go. Refusals by the maiden, loud talk by the youth, sneers from the old cronies, flight of the lovers to the woodchuck’s hole, vermicular but affectionate concealment, like another Æneas and Dido. The woodchuck, stealing forth, sees a wolf outside, trying to make him pay his poll-tax; so he sits quietly just inside his safe doorway, obscuring the light. Endeavoring to find their way about in the consequent darkness, the imprisoned lovers pitch headlong over the precipice I have referred to. Guide-books please copy.

Our train bore a pensive party down the valley of the Fontaine, as it headed for Pueblo. The Musician drew a plaintive air from his violin, and as the friendly mountain range receded and dipped away in the West, we fell to wondering when, if ever, we should tread those vales again.

IV
PUEBLO AND ITS FURNACES

In Steyermark—old Steyermark,

The mountain summits are white and stark;

The rough winds furrow their trackless snow,

But the mirrors of crystal are smooth below;

The stormy Danube clasps the wave

That downward sweeps with the Drave and Save,

And the Euxine is whitened with many a bark,

Freighted with ores of Steyermark.

In Steyermark—rough Steyermark,

The anvils ring from dawn till dark;

The molten streams of the furnace glare,

Blurring with crimson the midnight air;

The lusty voices of forgemen chord,

Chanting the ballad of Siegfried’s Sword,

While the hammers swung by their arms so stark

Strike to the music of Steyermark!

—Bayard Taylor.

It is a fortunate introduction the traveler, fresh from the Eastern States and weary with his long plains journey, gets at Pueblo to the lively, progressive, booming spirit of Colorado. Here are the oldest and the newest in the Centennial State—the fragments of tradition that go back to the thrilling, adventurous days of fur-trapping and Indian wars; the concentrated essence of later improvements; and the most practical present, mingled in a single tableau, for a telephone line crosses the ruins of the old adobe fort or Spanish “pueblo,” which gave to the locality its name when it was an outpost for the traders from New Mexico.

In its modern shape the town is one of the longest settled in the State, and a great flurry began and ended there years ago. Then, neglected by men of money, Pueblo languished and was spoken chidingly of by its sister cities in embryo. Now all this has changed, and, perhaps aroused by the prosperity of Leadville, Pueblo began about three years ago to assert herself, and to-day stands next to Denver in rank both as a populous and as a money-making center. No business man or statistician could find a more deeply entertaining study than the investigation of how this rejuvenation has arisen and been made to produce so striking results. Such an inquirer would find several large industries claiming to have furnished the turning point; but it is evident that the few who faithfully stood by the comatose town, and steadily struggled toward its commercial revival, were prompt to seize upon the altered flood and take advantage of the tide which led to fortune. The impression once advertised that Pueblo was shaking off her lethargy and about to become a second Pittsburgh, a thousand men of business were quick to catch the idea and make the “boom” a fact. Thus from 5,000 inhabitants in 1875 she has come to over 15,000 in 1883.

It is undoubtedly true that the Denver and Rio Grande railway has done more to aid this advancement than any other one agency; but an important impetus was given to Pueblo in 1878, when a company of gentlemen decided to build a smelter here. The work was put under the charge of its present superintendent, and ninety days from breaking ground the furnace was in operation. There was only a single small one at first; but fourteen are running now. Then there was a diminutive shed to cover the whole affair; now there are acres of fine buildings. Then a dozen men did all the work; now from 380 to 400 are employed, and the pay-roll reaches $375,000 per annum. That’s the way they do things in Pueblo.

This smelter is on the northern bank of the river, just under the bluff. From a distance, all that you can discern over the trees is a collection of lofty brick and iron chimney-stacks, and wide black roofs. Coming nearer, the enormous slag-dump discloses the nature of the industry, and testifies to the quantity of ore that has passed through the furnaces. Though on the banks of a swift river, the works are run by steam, which can be depended upon for steady service, and on which winter makes no impression. A thousand tons of coal and seven hundred tons of coke a month are used, the cheapness and proximity of this fuel forming one of the inducements to place the smelter here. Cañon City and El Moro coals are mixed, but the coke all comes from the latter point. At the start an engine of 60-horse power supplied all needs, but a new one of 175-horse power has been found necessary, and Denver was able to manufacture it. As for the machinery, it is not essentially different from that in other smelters, except in small details, where the most approved modern methods are made use of. There are great rooms full of roasting-ovens, immense bins where the pulverized and roasted ore cools off, elevators that hoist it to the smelting furnaces, and all the usual appliances, in great perfection, for charging the furnaces, drawing off and throwing aside the slag, and for casting the precious pigs of bullion. All walls and floors are stone and brick; everywhere order and neatness prevail. This plant has already cost the firm $200,000, and they have enough more money constantly put into ore and bullion to make $750,000 invested at the works. The ore is bought outright, according to a scale of prices which is about as follows: Gold, $18.00 per ounce; silver, $1.00 per ounce; and copper, $1.50 per unit.

GARDEN OF THE GODS.

This is reckoned by “dry” assay, being two per cent. off from “wet.” For the lead in the ore, 30 cents per unit up to 30 per cent., 40 cents up to 40 per cent., and 45 when over 40 per cent.; but both lead and copper will not be paid for in the same ore. From the total is deducted $20.00 as fee for treating it. For the assaying a capital laboratory of several rooms is provided, where two assayers and two chemists are continually busy. Every lot, as purchased, is kept separate and subjected to a homeopathic process of dilution, until a sample is obtained that represents most exactly the whole. The arrangements for crushing and sampling the ore are very complete, and a large number of lots can be handled at once. When the final sample has been reached it is subjected to a very careful assay, not only to determine what shall be paid for it, but to find out what are its qualities in relation to the process of smelting. This process requires a certain percentage of lead, a certain amount of silica, and a certain proportion of iron and lime in each charge. It is the duty of the assayers and chemists to ascertain precisely the proportions of these ingredients in the ore under consideration, in order to know how much lead, iron, lime or silica, to add in order to make a compound suitable to fuse thoroughly, even to the dissolution of the desperately refractory zinc and antimony; and which, also, shall yield up every particle of silver and gold. The iron and lime have usually to be added outright in this smelter; but the proper proportions of lead and silica are obtained by combining an ore deficient in one of these elements, but containing an excess of the other, with ores oppositely constituted. It is one of the advantages of the smelter at Pueblo, that, being centrally placed and down hill from every mining district, it can draw to its bins ores of every variety; thus it is able to mix to the greatest advantage, and in this economy and the attendant thoroughness of treatment, lie the possibilities (and actuality) of profit.

The lime for flux is procured three miles from town, and costs only $1.00 a ton, while every other smelter in the State must pay from $2.50 to $5.00. Its building-stone is a splendid quality of cream-tinted sandstone procured in the mesa only a short distance away. So widely satisfactory have been its results that the Pueblo smelter does the largest business of any in Colorado. I saw ore there from away beyond Silverton; from Ouray and the Lake City region; from the Gunnison country and the Collegiate range this side; from Leadville (competitive with Leadville’s own smelters); from Silver Cliff and Rosita; and, finally, from numerous camps in the northern part of the State. The last was surprising; for it meant that all that weight of ore had been brought hither past the furnaces at Golden and Denver, because the owners realized more for it, in spite of excess of freight, than they could get at home. The superintendent told me that they handled more ore from Clear Creek county than all the other smelters of the State; and he explained it by showing how his nearness to fuel, and consequent saving in this important item, with his cheap labor, permitted him to bid and pay more than any other smelter could for choice ores, for which a premium is given. These facts were held in mind when, encouraged by the railway, the smelter was placed here, and the expectations of its projectors have been more than gratified. The present capacity of the establishment is 125 tons of ore a day in the fourteen blast furnaces, and 100 tons a day in nine large calcining furnaces. Expensive improvements, and of the most solid character, are being made constantly in all parts of the works. The most important of these has been the erection of machinery for refining the bullion, which has a capacity of twenty-five hundred tons a month, and is constructed on the best known principles. It has been customary in the West to send to New York the lead which results from silver refining; it is made into sheet-lead and leaden pipe, in which form it is bought by wholesale houses in Chicago and St. Louis, to be again sent to Colorado, at the rate of perhaps a thousand tons a year. Now it is proposed to keep at home the profits and freightage of this costly and heavy material in house construction. Machinery has therefore been added to make up all the lead into sheets, bars, and piping. This is done so cheaply, that Pueblo can now send it across the plains and undersell Chicago and St. Louis in the Mississippi valley. The supply largely exceeds the home demand, and a new export for this State has thus been created. Utah will henceforth yield a large portion of the bullion to be refined. Another experiment will be the refining of copper. There are various mines in New Mexico and Arizona—many of them worked in ancient days by the Spaniards—which supply a base form of metallic copper. This crude copper is now nearly all sent to Baltimore, and there refined and rolled. The New Mexico division of the Denver and Rio Grande will soon penetrate the region of some of these mines, while the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe makes others accessible. Side-tracks from both these roads run into the smelter’s enclosure. To bring the copper here will therefore be an easy matter: and it can be produced in shape for commercial use much more cheaply than any Eastern factory is able to turn it out.

Another large factor in Pueblo’s revival was the establishment there of the steel works. These are the property of the Colorado Coal and Iron company, composed of the leading men in the Denver and Rio Grande railway, so that, though the two corporations are distinct, their interests are closely allied. This powerful association was formed in 1879 by the consolidation of two or three other companies having similar aims, and it became the owner not only of the steel and iron works here, and of a great deal of real estate, but also of nearly all the mines of coal and iron now being developed in this State. Its capital is ten millions, and its principal offices are located at South Pueblo. It employs over two thousand men in its various enterprises, and is constantly enlarging its operations and perfecting its methods. Many of its coal banks will be referred to in other paragraphs of this volume. The ore derived from all its iron mines is exceptionally free from phosphorus, and therefore well adapted to the manufacture of steel. The subjoined analyses exhibit the character of these ores:

A conservative estimate places the amount of iron ore the company has developed at over two millions of tons. Besides these high-grade ores, there are others of an inferior grade, which, being mixed with mill-cinders, will produce the commoner sorts of pig-iron, suitable for foundry-work. Limestone, valuable as flux, is quarried from a ledge within seven miles of the furnace, with which it is connected by rail, and the supply is practically inexhaustible. Gannister and fire-clay, also, are found in abundance in the vicinity. With coal, coke, iron and all the furnace ingredients radiated about this point, which, at the same time is nearest to the Eastern forges whence must be brought the massive machinery to equip the works, it requires no second thought to perceive that South Pueblo offers altogether the most profitable site for vast factories like these.

Immediately following this decision, in the spring of 1879 a large tract of mesa-land was secured, beside the track of the Denver and Rio Grande railway, about a mile south of the Union Depot, where not only the foundations of the mills, but a village-site was laid out and numerous side-tracks were put down. Very soon the tall chimneys of the blast furnaces began to rise into the ken of the people of Pueblo. Simultaneously a large number of fine cottages were built as homes for workmen, and other structures were set on foot, among them a commodious hospital, for joint use of the mills and the railway company. It is a very pleasant, well-ordered and growing little town, known as Bessemer, and even now the space between it and the city is rapidly filling up. The present daily output of the blast furnaces is one hundred tons of pig-iron, but soon a twin furnace will double the productive capacity of the works. Besides the furnaces, the plant includes Bessemer steel converting works, a rolling and rail mill, 450 by 60 feet, a nail mill, a puddling mill and foundry. All of these establishments are in every way equal to the best of their kind in the East. The blast furnace is fifteen feet base and sixty-five feet high, with fire-brick, hot-blast stoves, and a Morris blowing engine. In the steel-converting works the arrangement of the plant is similar to that of the new Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company, which has given exceptionally good results. The rail mill plant consists of Siemen’s heating furnaces and heavy blooming and rail trains, and the puddling and nail mills are equipped with the best modern machinery. At Denver the same company owns a rolling mill, where bar and railroad iron and mine rails are manufactured: these in the future will mainly be supplied from South Pueblo. The effect upon Colorado of this forging of native iron for home consumption must be very important. All iron and iron ware is nearly doubled in value by the necessarily high rates of freight across the plains. Manufacturing, now that the crude material can be obtained on the spot, is cheaper than importing, and in the wake of the blast furnace must follow a long train of iron industries. Already negotiations are on foot for the establishment of extensive stove works (a million of dollars was sent East last year from Colorado in payment for stoves alone), and the erection of car-wheel shops is also contemplated. Indeed, in this mining country, which also is a region that is rapidly filling up with large towns, the demand for manufactured iron of all sorts is very large. It is another step in the gradual movement of trade-centers westward.

ENTRANCE TO CAVE OF THE WINDS.

A still clearer idea of the great value of its interests to the State, and of its local works to Pueblo may be obtained from the report of the productions of the Colorado Coal and Iron company for the year 1882 which, briefly summarized, aggregates as follows: Coal, 511,239 tons; coke, 92,770 tons; iron ores, 53,425 tons; merchant iron, mine rails, etc., 3,883 tons; castings, 2,752 tons; pig-iron, 24,303 tons; muck bar, in four months, 1,253 tons; steel ingots, eight months, 20,919 tons; steel blooms, eight months, 18,068 tons; steel rails, eight months, 16,139 tons; nails, four months, 16,158 kegs; and spikes, six months, 5,022 kegs.

The economy of location, and the successful results attending the establishment here of the great enterprises referred to, are attracting many others. During the past season one of Leadville’s largest smelters, having been destroyed by fire, has been rebuilt at Pueblo, and more will naturally follow.

The mercantile part of the community, however, while admitting all the claims of the steel works and the smelter to their great and beneficent influence upon the destiny of the new town, puts forward its own claim to the credit of commencing the progressive movement. When, by the extensions of the railway into the back country of Colorado, merchants began to perceive that at Pueblo they could buy goods of precisely such grades as they desired a trifle more cheaply, and get them home a trifle more expeditiously, than by going to Denver or Kansas City, Pueblo began to feel the impulse of new commercial vigor. When it came to reckoning upon a whole year’s purchases, the slight advantage gained in freight over Denver, to all southern and middle interior points, amounted to a very considerable sum. Here, far more than in the Eastern States, the freight charges must be taken into account by the country merchant; particularly in the provision business, where the staples are the heaviest articles, as a rule, and, at the same time, those on which the least profit accrues. This consideration, impressing itself more and more upon the good judgment of the mountain dealers, is bringing a larger and larger trade to Pueblo, until now she is beginning to boast herself mistress of all southern and middle Colorado and of northern New Mexico. She can not hope to compete with Denver for the northern half of the State, but she does not intend to lose her grip upon the great, rapidly-developing, money-producing San Juan, Gunnison and Rio Grande regions. And as the visitor sees the railway yards crowded with loaded freight trains destined for every point of the compass; notes the throng of laden carts in the furrowed streets; observes how every warehouse is plethoric with constantly changing merchandise, often stacked on the curbstone under the cover of a canvas sheet because room within doors can not be found; witnesses the temporary nature of so many scores of buildings for business and for domiciles, and learns how most of their owners are putting up permanent houses, multitudes of which are rising substantially on every side;—when he has caught the meaning of all this, he finds that Pueblo has an idea that her opportunities are great, and that she does not propose to neglect them in the least particular. There is much wealth there now, and more is being introduced by Eastern investors, or accumulated on the spot, not only in trade, but in the very extensive herds of cattle and sheep that center there. Yet this seems to be but the incipience of her prosperity,—a prosperity which rests on solid foundations, existing not alone in the industries I have catalogued and the trade which has centered there, but in the fact that values are not inflated and that the real property of the city is mortgaged to a remarkably small degree.

Pueblo, though I have treated it as a unit, really consists of two cities, having the rushing flood of the Arkansas between them. Each has water-works, and civic institutions separately, but I have no doubt this cumbersome duality will be done away with in time. It is on the South Pueblo side that the railways center at the Union Depot. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe sends hither daily its trains from Kansas City, and hence the Denver and Rio Grande forwards its passengers northward to Denver, westward to Silver Cliff, Leadville, Salt Lake City and Ogden, and southward to El Moro, Alamosa, Del Norte, Durango, Silverton and Santa Fe. It is on this side, also, that the factories are, and that others will stand. Here, too, are being placed the great wholesale depots.

There is too much rush and dust and building and general chaos in the lowlands, where the business part of the town is to make a residence there as pleasant as it will be a few years later; but upon the high mesa, Whose rounded bluffs of gravel form the first break upon the shore of the great plains that extend thence in uninterrupted level to the Missouri River, a young city has grown up, which is admirable as a place for a home. Here are long, straight, well-shaded streets of elegant houses; here are churches and school buildings and all the pleasant appurtenances of a fine town, overlooking the city, the wooded valley of the Arkansas, the busy railway junctions, and the measureless plateaus beyond. One gets a new idea of the possibilities of a delightful home in Pueblo after he has walked upon these surprising highlands.

Nowhere, either, will you get a more inspiring mountain landscape—the far scintillations of the Sangre de Cristo; the twin breasts of Wahatoya; the glittering, notched line and clustering foothills of the Sierra Mojada; the great gates that admit to the upper Arkansas; and Pike’s “shining mountain,” surrounded by its ermined courtiers, only a little less in majesty than their prince.

V
OVER THE SANGRE DE CRISTO.

Raleigh: Fain would I climb.

But that I fear to fall,

Elizabeth: If thy heart fail thee,

Why, then, climb at all?

Toward the middle of one bright afternoon we were pulled out of Pueblo, our three cars having been attached to the regular south-bound express. We had fully discussed the matter, and determined to go on to the end of the track, or, more literally, to one end—for there are many termini to this wide-branching system—on to the warm old plazitas and dreamily pleasant pueblos of New Mexico. Why not?

But so inconsequential and careless an “outfit” was this, that no sooner had our minds been fairly settled to the plan (while the shadow of the Greenhorn came creeping out toward Cuchara and we were heading straight into its gloom) than somebody proposed our spending the night quietly in Veta Pass.

This mountain pass and its “Muleshoe,” dwarfing in interest the celebrated “Horseshoe curve” in Pennsylvania, because occupying far less space, just as the foot of a mule may be set within a horse’s track—these have been famous ever since railroading in southern Colorado began, and naturally we did not like to go past them in the darkness. We wanted to see how the track was laid away around the head of the long ravine, whether it doubled upon itself in as close a loop as they said it did; and whether the train really climbed through the clouds about the brow of Dump Mountain, as the pictures represented. So we told the conductor to drop us.

It was dark by the time we had been left in good shape on the terrace-like siding in Veta Pass, and, weary with our swift run, we were quite ready to shut out the gathering shades and be merry over our dinner; but first, all eyes must watch the departing express begin its climb up Dump Mountain. Think of swinging a train round a curve of only thirty degrees, on a very stiff grade, and with a bridge directly in the center of the turn! That is what this audacious railway does every few hours in the “toe” of the Muleshoe. From our lonely night-gripped dot of a house on the wild hill side, we could see squarely facing us both the Cyclopean blaze of the fierce headlight, and the two watchful red eyes glaring scornfully from the rear platform; by that we knew that the train had doubled on its own length of only six cars. Then, with hoarse panting and grinding of tortured wheels and rails, the two powerful locomotives began to force their way up the hill side right opposite us, the slanting line of bright windows showing how amazingly steep a grade of two hundred and seventeen feet to the mile really is. The beam of the headlight thrust itself forward, not level, as is its wont, but aimed at a planet that glimmered just above a distant ghostly peak.

“Do you remember,” murmurs the Madame in a low voice, as she stands with bated breath beside me; “do you remember how Thoreau advises one of his friends to ‘hitch his chariot to a star’? Doesn’t this scene come near his splendid ambition? Will that train stop short of the sky, do you think?”

Surely it seemed that it would not, for only when the stokers opened the doors of the laboring furnaces, and volumes of red light suddenly illumined the overhanging masses of smoke, touching into strange prominence for an instant the rocks and trees beside the engines, could we see that the train stood upon anything solid, or was moving otherwise than as a slow meteor passes athwart the midnight sky. It was easy to imagine that long line of uncanny lights a fiery motto emblazoned upon the side of the dark mountain, and to read in it, Per aspera ad astra.

Yet the scene was far from fanciful. It was very real, and a fine sight for a man interested in mechanical progress, to watch those great machines walk up that hill, spouting two geysers of smoke and sparks, and dragging the ponderous train slowly but steadily along its upward course. Now and again they would be lost behind the fringe of woods through which the track passed, and then we would see the cone-like, rugged spruces sharply outlined against the luminous volumes of smoke. A moment later and the train disappeared around Dump Mountain, with a sardonic wink of the red guard-lights at the last; but presently we had knowledge of it again, for a fountain of sparks and black smoke from the engines blotted out the scintillating sky just above the highest crest of the ridge.

“Suppose it had broken in two on that hill-side,” remarks the Artist, as I am carving the roast, five minutes later.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” is the reply. “I once saw a heavier train than that break on this very mountain, the three rear coaches parting company with the forward portion of the train.”

“But wasn’t that criminal carelessness?” cries the Madame, who is death on inattention to railway duties. I should hate to be a neglectful brakeman before her gray eyes as judge!

“Not at all,” she is informed. “The cars were properly coupled with what, for all any one could see, was a sufficiently strong link, but the strain proved too great for the tenacity of the iron.”

“Well, I suppose they went down the track a-flying, or else over the precipice.”

“Not a bit of it. The two parts of the train stopped not more than twenty feet apart. When the accident occurred the engineer knew it instantly by the jerking of the bell-rope, and stopped short. As for the rear cars, they were brought to a standstill at once by means of the automatic brakes. I tell you they are a great institution, and indispensable to success on any road which has heavy grades to overcome.”

“How do they operate?”

“Well, it is the Westinghouse patent and rather complicated. Better go out to-morrow and see the apparatus on the engine. It works somewhat in this manner: When the valve on the retort under each car is set in a particular way, the letting off of the ‘straight’ or ordinary air-brakes causes the compression of an exceedingly powerful spring on each set of brakes. If, however, you destroy the equilibrium by forcibly parting the air connection between that car and the locomotive, as of course occurs when a train breaks in two, the great springs are released and jam the brake-shoes hard against the wheels, gripping them with tremendous force. That’s what happened instantly in this case, and those heavy cars, which otherwise would have carried their cargoes to almost certain destruction, halted in a single second.”

ALABASTER HALL.

“But—what if—” began our lady member in an alarmed tone; whereupon she was speedily interrupted by the learned gentleman who was dividing his time between dinner and lecture:

“My dear Madame, our cars, like all the rest on this admirably-guarded railway, are provided with the automatic apparatus I have described. Since it is useless to pretend to one’s-self, or anybody else, that an accident will never happen, it is well to understand that every precaution known to intelligent management has been provided against any serious harm resulting when things do go wrong. In consideration of all which profound explanations I think we deserve a second glass of claret. My toast is: The Automatic Brake!”

And we all responded, “May it never be broken!”

Sleep that night was deep and refreshing. The next morning broke cool and clear, and the Photographer proposed, with nearly his first words, that we all go to the top of Veta Mountain. Only the crest of one of the spurs could be seen, and this did not appear very far away, so that those who had never climbed mountains afoot were enthusiastic on the subject. Now in the humble, but dearly experienced opinion of the present author, the old saw,—

“Where ignorance is bliss

’T were the height of folly to be otherwise,”

fits no situation better than mountain climbing. I have said in the bitterness of my soul, on some cloud-splitting peak, as I tried to gulp enough air to fill a small corner of my lungs, that the man who belonged to an Alpine Club was prima facie a fool. Scaling mountains for some definitely profitable purpose, like finding or working a silver mine, or getting a wide view so as properly to map out the region, or for a knowledge of its fauna and flora, is disagreeable but endurable, because you are sustained by the advantages to accrue; but to toil up there for fun—bah! Yet people will go on doing it, and those who know better will follow after, and the heart of the grumbler will grow sick as he sees of how little avail are his words and the testimony of his sufferings.

It was so this time. Admonitions that upright distances were the most deceiving of all aspects of nature; that the higher you went the steeper the slope and the more insecure and toilsome the foothold; these, with other remonstrances, were totally unheeded, and three misguided mortals decided to go. Then the growler yielded—what else could he do? He had survived many a previous ascent, and could not afford to assume a cowardice that really didn’t belong to him. So he chose that horn of the dilemma, and left the reader to the conclusion that in telling this tale, after the previous paragraph, he “writ himself down an ass.”

All went but the Musician. Among the gentlemen were divided the photographic camera and materials, and the whisky, while the Madame set off sturdily with field-glasses over her shoulder, and a revolver strapped around her shapely waist. Dinner was ordered for two o’clock, and up we started. The Madame wrote to her friend about it as follows (the letter, I declare, smelled of camphor):

“I assure you, my dear Mrs. McAngle, that not more than a hundred feet had been gone over before the inexperienced of our party began to feel the effects of rarefied air, although thus far it was easy enough walking. There was no path, of course, and we simply tramped over a grassy slope sprinkled with flowers and covered by trees that shaded us from the sun. Gorges which were hardly perceptible as such from the valley, now proved to be uncomfortably deep gashes in the broad mountain-side, and tiny streams came down each one of them, to water dense thickets along their banks. In one place, about a thousand feet above our starting point, we came across the remains of a camp made by some man who thought he had found precious metal. Dreary enough it looked now, with its dismantled roof and wet and moldy bed of leaves.

“By this time breathing has become a conscious difficulty. I speak in the present tense, my dear, because the recollection is very vivid, and it seems almost as though I am again trudging over those sharp-edged rocks. Every ten minutes further progress becomes an utter impossibility for me, and rest absolutely necessary; but one recuperates in even less time than it takes to become exhausted, and starts on again. Nevertheless I can not go as fast as the gentlemen, who have no skirts to drag along.

“Now the comparatively easy climbing is over. Flowers and grass have grown scarce, and almost all the trees have disappeared. Nausea is beginning to annoy me, and I was never more glad in my life than now, when I discover some raspberry bushes and eagerly gather the ripe fruit, whose pleasant acid brings moisture to my parched mouth and comforts my sad stomach, for there is no water or snow here, and I know it would not be best to drink if there were.

“Even the berries are gone now. Far above and on all sides I see nothing but fragments of rocks. For centuries, wind, frost, rain and snow have been hard at work leveling the mountains. They have broken up the hard masses of yellowish white trachyte, and the dikes of black basalt into small pieces—some as minute as walnuts, but most of them much larger, with sharp-pointed edges that cut my feet. Across these vast fields the wild sheep, thinking nothing of jumping and gamboling over such steep slopes of broken stones, have made trails that cross and criss-cross everywhere. Availing ourselves of these is some help, as we all settle down to persistent, never-ending climbing.

“Up, up, up. You have forgotten how to breathe; your back and head are aching; you have found a stick, and lean more and more upon it; you look down on the back of a hawk far below you with sullen envy; you devoutly wish you had never come, but will not give up. At length a stupor creeps over you. You never expect to reach the top, but you do not care; old long-forgotten songs go through your brain and seem to try to lull you to sleep. You see in the distance one of the strong ones reach the summit and wave his hat; you are beyond sensation, and it is all a dream. Finally you stagger over the last ledge and throw yourself down on the top and feebly call for—whisky. Mrs. McAngle, I am a teetotaller; I hate whisky! But just then I would have given half my fortune had it been necessary for the one swallow which did me so much good.”

Well, her companions having more strength, didn’t feel quite so bad, though near enough so, to make their sympathies strong. The crest having been gained, the Madame lay down on a rubber coat under the cap rock to rest, while the remainder of us dispersed in search of water. But let me quote that long letter again:

“The rocks, when I had recovered strength to look about me, I saw were crumbling lavas of two colors, light drab and dark brown. Covered, as they were, with lichens of brown, green and red, they were very pretty. At last one of the gentlemen came back, carefully carrying his hat in both hands, which he had made into a sort of bowl by pressing in the soft crown. This I soon saw contained water, but such water—foul and bad tasting, for it had been squeezed from moss. But we drank it through a ‘straw,’ made by rolling up a business card, and were thankful.

“Refreshed, and becoming interested in life again, the old hymn occurred to me,—

‘Lo, on a narrow neck of land

’Twixt two unbounded seas I stand.’

Only the seas, in this case, were broad green valleys, and were bounded in the distance by lofty mountains, best of all Sierra Blanca, across whose peaks the clouds were winding their long garments as if to hide somewhat the sterility and ruggedness of their friends. Above them how intensely blue was the sky, and how the soft green foothills leaning against them satisfied your eyes with their graceful curves. Trailing among them, as though a long white string had been carelessly tossed down, ran the serpentine track of the railway, and the famous Dump Mountain sank into the merest foot-ridge at our feet. On the other side of the ledge we gazed out on the misty and limitless plains, past the rough jumble of the Sierra Mojada, and could trace where we had come across the valley of the Cuchara. Nearer by lay dozens of snug and verdant vales, in one of which glistened a little lake tantalizing to our still thirsty throats.

“We all had our photographs taken, with this magnificent scenery for a background—better even than the cockney-loved Niagara, we thought—and strolled about. Not far away we hit upon a prospect-hole. The miner was absent, but had left pick and shovel behind as tokens of possession. How intense must be the love of money that would induce a man to undertake such a terrible climb, and live in this utter loneliness and exposure! Yet they say that many of the best silver mines in Colorado are on the very tops of such bald peaks as this.

“At last, on asking my husband if he did not think he appeared like an Alpine tourist, I found him recovered sufficiently to say that we should all pine if we didn’t have dinner soon, so we turned our faces homeward. Now I hope I haven’t wasted all my adjectives, for I need the strongest of them to tell of that descent. It was frightful. Feet and knees became so sore that every movement was torture. The sun blinded and scorched me, and the fields of barren, sharp and cruel stones stretched down ahead in endless succession. Mrs. McAngle, however foolish I may be in the future in climbing up another mountain, I never, never will come down, but will cheerfully die on the summit, and leave my bones a warning to the next absurdly ambitious sight-seer. When I was on the crest, I thought what an idiot the youth in ‘Excelsior’ was, but now I hold him in high respect, for he had the great good sense, having reached the top, to stay there!”

Returning to Veta Pass, the promontory where the track winds cautiously around the brow of Dump Mountain—the name is given because of a resemblance in shape to the dump at the entrance of a mine tunnel—has been called Inspiration Point. I don’t know who christened it; perhaps some would-be hero of a novel by G. P. R. James. If, to be in character, he “paused at this point in involuntary admiration,” there was plenty of excuse, for one of the loveliest panoramas in Colorado unrolls itself at the observer’s feet.

Coming up is fine enough, if you see it on such a day as the gods gave us. The Spanish Peaks, as we approached from Cuchara, were as blue as blue could be, with half-transparent, vaporous masses hovering tenderly about them; but these mists stopped short of Veta, which stood out distinct against its cloud-flecked background, majestic in full round outlines beyond the majority of mountains,—in hue purple and sunny white, with the mingling of forests and vast sterile slopes. North of it the landscape was almost hidden under rain-veils, into which the sun shot a great sheaf-full of slanting arrows of light, and beyond, range behind range were marked with phantom-like faintness of outline. A broad canopy of leaden clouds hung overhead, down from the further eaves of which was shed a wide halo radiating from the invisible sun above; and this snowy shower had stood long unchanged before our entranced eyes, making us believe that the brown cliffs, toward which we were running so swiftly, were the gates of an enchanted land.