It Has Two Or Three Immense
Hotels, And A Few Houses Picturesquely Situated.
It is thronged
by thousands of people in the summer who come to drink the
waters, try the camp cure, and make mountain excursions; but it
is all quiet now, and there are only a few lingerers in this
immense hotel.
There is a rushing torrent in a valley, with
mountains, covered with snow and rising to a height of nearly
15,000 feet, overhanging it. It is grand and awful, and has a
strange, solemn beauty like death. And the Snowy Mountains are
pierced by the torrent which has excavated the Ute Pass, by
which, to-morrow, I hope to go into the higher regions. But all
may be "lost for want of a horseshoe nail." One of Birdie's
shoes is loose, and not a nail is to be got here, or can be got
till I have ridden for ten miles up the Pass. Birdie amuses
every one with her funny ways. She always follows me closely,
and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlor door
open. She walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder,
licking my face and teasing me for sugar, and sometimes, when any
one else takes hold of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious
bronco soul comes into her eyes. Her face is cunning and pretty,
and she makes a funny, blarneying noise when I go up to her. The
men at all the stables make a fuss with her, and call her "Pet."
She gallops up and down hill, and never stumbles even on the
roughest ground, or requires even a touch with a whip.
The weather is again perfect, with a cloudless sky and a hot sun,
and the snow is all off the plains and lower valleys.
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