Seven Men, Smoking, Were Lying About On The
Floor, A Sick Man Lay On The Couch, And A Middle-Aged Lady Sat At
The Table Writing.
I went out again and asked Evans if he could
take me in, expecting nothing better than a shakedown; but, to my
joy, he told me he could give me a cabin to myself, two minutes'
walk from his own.
So in this glorious upper world, with the
mountain pines behind and the clear lake in front, in the "blue
hollow at the foot of Long's Peak," at a height of 7,500 feet,
where the hoar frost crisps the grass every night of the year, I
have found far more than I ever dared to hope for.
[13] A corral is a fenced enclosure for cattle. This word, with
bronco, ranch, and a few others, are adaptations from the
Spanish, and are used as extensively throughout California and
the Territories as is the Spanish or Mexican saddle.
I. L. B.
Letter VII
Personality of Long's Peak - "Mountain Jim" - Lake of the Lilies - A
silent forest - The camping ground - "Ring" - A lady's bower - Dawn
and sunrise - A glorious view - Links of diamonds - The ascent of
the Peak - The "Dog's Lift" - Suffering from thirst - The
descent - The bivouac.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO, October.
As this account of the ascent of Long's Peak could not
be written at the time, I am much disinclined to write it,
especially as no sort of description within my powers could
enable another to realize the glorious sublimity, the majestic
solitude, and the unspeakable awfulness and fascination of the
scenes in which I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Long's Peak, 14,700 feet high, blocks up one end of Estes Park,
and dwarfs all the surrounding mountains. From it on this side
rise, snow-born, the bright St. Vrain, and the Big and Little
Thompson. By sunlight or moonlight its splintered grey crest is
the one object which, in spite of wapiti and bighorn, skunk and
grizzly, unfailingly arrests the eyes. From it come all
storms of snow and wind, and the forked lightnings play round its
head like a glory. It is one of the noblest of mountains, but in
one's imagination it grows to be much more than a mountain. It
becomes invested with a personality. In its caverns and abysses
one comes to fancy that it generates and chains the strong winds,
to let them loose in its fury. The thunder becomes its voice,
and the lightnings do it homage. Other summits blush under the
morning kiss of the sun, and turn pale the next moment; but it
detains the first sunlight and holds it round its head for an
hour at least, till it pleases to change from rosy red to deep
blue; and the sunset, as if spell-bound, lingers latest on its
crest. The soft winds which hardly rustle the pine needles down
here are raging rudely up there round its motionless summit. The
mark of fire is upon it; and though it has passed into a grim
repose, it tells of fire and upheaval as truly, though not as
eloquently, as the living volcanoes of Hawaii. Here under its
shadow one learns how naturally nature worship, and the
propitiation of the forces of nature, arose in minds which had no
better light.
Long's Peak, "the American Matterhorn," as some call it, was
ascended five years ago for the first time. I thought I should
like to attempt it, but up to Monday, when Evans left for Denver,
cold water was thrown upon the project. It was too late in the
season, the winds were likely to be strong, etc.; but just before
leaving, Evans said that the weather was looking more settled,
and if I did not get farther than the timber line it would be
worth going. Soon after he left, "Mountain Jim" came in, and
said he would go up as guide, and the two youths who rode here
with me from Longmount and I caught at the proposal. Mrs.
Edwards at once baked bread for three days, steaks were cut from
the steer which hangs up conveniently, and tea, sugar, and butter
were benevolently added. Our picnic was not to be a luxurious or
"well-found" one, for, in order to avoid the expense of a pack
mule, we limited our luggage to what our saddle horses could
carry. Behind my saddle I carried three pair of camping blankets
and a quilt, which reached to my shoulders. My own boots were so
much worn that it was painful to walk, even about the park, in
them, so Evans had lent me a pair of his hunting boots, which
hung to the horn of my saddle. The horses of the two young men
were equally loaded, for we had to prepare for many degrees of
frost. "Jim" was a shocking figure; he had on an old pair of
high boots, with a baggy pair of old trousers made of deer hide,
held on by an old scarf tucked into them; a leather shirt, with
three or four ragged unbuttoned waistcoats over it; an old
smashed wideawake, from under which his tawny, neglected ringlets
hung; and with his one eye, his one long spur, his knife in his
belt, his revolver in his waistcoat pocket, his saddle covered
with an old beaver skin, from which the paws hung down; his
camping blankets behind him, his rifle laid across the saddle in
front of him, and his axe, canteen, and other gear hanging to the
horn, he was as awful-looking a ruffian as one could see. By way
of contrast he rode a small Arab mare, of exquisite beauty,
skittish, high spirited, gentle, but altogether too light for
him, and he fretted her incessantly to make her display herself.
Heavily loaded as all our horses were, "Jim" started over the
half-mile of level grass at a hard gallop, and then throwing his
mare on her haunches, pulled up alongside of me, and with a grace
of manner which soon made me forget his appearance, entered into
a conversation which lasted for more than three hours, in spite
of the manifold checks of fording streams, single file, abrupt
ascents and descents, and other incidents of mountain travel.
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