They have neither seen a woman nor slept under a roof for six
months.
Negro songs are being sung, and before that "Yankee
Doodle" was played immediately after "Rule Britannia," and it
made every one but the strangers laugh, it sounded so foolish
and mean. The colder weather is bringing the beasts down from
the heights. I heard both wolves and the mountain lion as I
crossed to my cabin last night.
I. L. B.
LETTER IX
"Please Ma'ams" - A desperado - A cattle hunt - The muster - A mad
cow - A snowstorm - Snowed up - Birdie - The Plains - A prairie
schooner - Denver - A find - Plum Creek - "Being
agreeable" - Snowbound - The grey mare.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO.
This afternoon, as I was reading in my cabin, little Sam Edwards
ran in, saying, "Mountain Jim wants to speak to you." This
brought to my mind images of infinite worry, gauche servants,
"please Ma'am," contretemps, and the habit growing out of our
elaborate and uselessly conventional life of magnifying the
importance of similar trifles. Then "things" came up, with
the tyranny they exercise. I REALLY need nothing more than this
log cabin offers. But elsewhere one must have a house and
servants, and burdens and worries - not that one may be hospitable
and comfortable, but for the "thick clay" in the shape of
"things" which one has accumulated. My log house takes me about
five minutes to "do," and you could eat off the floor, and
it needs no lock, as it contains nothing worth stealing.
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