The Landlord Said He
Thought Not; The Snow Was Very Deep, And No One Had Been Up For
Five Weeks, But For My Satisfaction He Would Send To A Stable And
Inquire.
The amusing answer came back, "If it's the English lady
traveling in the mountains, she can have a horse, but not any one
else."
Letter XIII
The blight of mining - Green Lake - Golden
City - Benighted - Vertigo - Boulder Canyon - Financial straits - A
hard ride - The last cent - A bachelor's home - "Mountain Jim" - A
surprise - A night arrival - Making the best of it - Scanty fare.
BOULDER, November.
The answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was
given to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in
and asked my name and if I were the lady who had crossed from
Link's to South Park by Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast. In
five minutes the horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned
side-saddle, and I started at once for the upper regions. It was
an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension. The evening
shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2,000 feet to
climb, or give up Green Lake. I shall forget many things, but
never the awfulness and hugeness of the scenery. I went up a
steep track by Clear Creek, then a succession of frozen
waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen
sides looked 5,000 feet high. That is the region of enormous
mineral wealth in silver. There are the "Terrible" and other
mines whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in
the Times, sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to
25 discount.
These mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their
stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have
been established near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub,
and smoke by night and day; but I had turned altogether aside
from them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was
grubbing for himself, and confiding to none his finds or
disappointments. Agriculture restores and beautifies, mining
destroys and devastates, turning the earth inside out, making it
hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually blights
man's heart and soul. There was mining everywhere along that
grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its
digging, burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the
seemingly inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log
supported, in which solitary and patient men were selling their
lives for treasure. Down by the stream, all among the icicles,
men were sluicing and washing, and everywhere along the heights
were the scars of hardly-passable trails, too steep even for
pack-jacks, leading to the holes, and down which the miner packs
the ore on his back. Many a heart has been broken for the few
finds which have been made along those hill sides. All the
ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of desolation,
where nature had made everything grand and fair.
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