The Snow Which Had Melted In The Sun Had
Re-Frozen, And Was One Sheet Of Smooth Ice.
Birdie slipped so
alarmingly that I got off and walked, but then neither of us
could keep our feet,
And in the darkness she seemed so likely to
fall upon me, that I took out of my pack the man's socks which
had been given me at Perry's Park, and drew them on over her
fore-feet - an expedient which for a time succeeded admirably, and
which I commend to all travelers similarly circumstanced. It was
unutterably dark, and all these operations had to be performed by
the sense of touch only. I remounted, allowed her to take her
own way, as I could not see even her ears, and though her hind
legs slipped badly, we contrived to get along through the
narrowest part of the canyon, with a tumbling river close to the
road. The pines were very dense, and sighed and creaked
mournfully in the severe frost, and there were other EERIE noises
not easy to explain. At last, when the socks were nearly worn
out, I saw the blaze of a camp-fire, with two hunters sitting by
it, on the hill side, and at the mouth of a gulch something which
looked like buildings. We got across the river partly on ice and
partly by fording, and I found that this was the place where, in
spite of its somewhat dubious reputation, I had been told that I
could put up.
A man came out in the sapient and good-natured stage of
intoxication, and, the door being opened, I was confronted by a
rough bar and a smoking, blazing kerosene lamp without a chimney.
This is the worst place I have put up at as to food, lodging, and
general character; an old and very dirty log cabin, not chinked,
with one dingy room used for cooking and feeding, in which a
miner was lying very ill of fever; then a large roofless shed
with a canvas side, which is to be an addition, and then the bar.
They accounted for the disorder by the building operations. They
asked me if I were the English lady written of in the Denver
News, and for once I was glad that my fame had preceded me, as it
seemed to secure me against being quietly "put out of the way."
A horrible meal was served - dirty, greasy, disgusting. A
celebrated hunter, Bob Craik, came in to supper with a young man
in tow, whom, in spite of his rough hunter's or miner's dress, I
at once recognized as an English gentleman. It was their
camp-fire which I had seen on the hill side. This gentleman was
lording it in true caricature fashion, with a Lord Dundreary
drawl and a general execration of everything; while I sat in the
chimney corner, speculating on the reason why many of the upper
class of my countrymen - "High Toners," as they are called out
here - make themselves so ludicrously absurd.
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