I Think I Should
Like Playing At Being A "Hired Girl" If It Were Not For The
Bread-Making!
But it would suit me better to ride after cattle.
The men don't like "baching," as it is called in the wilds - i.e.
"doing for themselves." They washed and ironed their clothes
yesterday, and there was an incongruity about the last
performance. I really think (though for the fifteenth time) that
I shall leave to-morrow. The cold has moderated, the sky is
bluer than ever, the snow is evaporating, and a hunter who has
joined us to-day says that there are no drifts on the trail which
one cannot get through.
LONGMOUNT, COLORADO, October 20.
"The Island Valley of Avillon" is left, but how shall I finally
tear myself from its freedom and enchantments? I see Long's
snowy peak rising into the night sky, and know and long after the
magnificence of the blue hollow at its base. We were to have
left at 8 but the horses were lost, so it was 9:30 before we
started, the WE being the musical young French Canadian and
myself. I have a bay Indian pony, "Birdie," a little beauty,
with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with
luggage for some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my
saddle, I am tolerably independent. It was a most glorious ride.
We passed through the gates of rock, through gorges where the
unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-colored aspens; caught
glimpses of far-off, snow-clad giants rising into a sky of deep
sad blue; lunched above the Foot Hills at a cabin where two
brothers and a "hired man" were "keeping bach," where everything
was so trim, clean, and ornamental that one did not miss a woman;
crossed a deep backwater on a narrow beaver dam, because the log
bridge was broken down, and emerged from the brilliantly-colored
canyon of the St. Vrain just at dusk upon the featureless
prairies, when we had some trouble in finding Longmount in the
dark.
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