My Life Is Embittered By The Abundance Of These Reptiles - Rattlesnakes And Moccasin Snakes, Both Deadly, Carpet Snakes And "Green Racers," Reputed Dangerous, Water Snakes, Tree Snakes, And Mouse Snakes, Harmless But Abominable.

Seven rattlesnakes have been killed just outside the cabin since I came.

A snake, three feet long, was coiled under the pillow of the sick woman. I see snakes in all withered twigs, and am ready to flee at "the sound of a shaken leaf." And besides snakes, the earth and air are alive and noisy with forms of insect life, large and small, stinging, humming, buzzing, striking, rasping, devouring!

[8] The curative effect of the climate of Colorado can hardly be exaggerated. In traveling extensively through the Territory afterwards I found that nine out of every ten settlers were cured invalids. Statistics and medical workers on the climate of the State(as it now is) represent Colorado as the most remarkable sanatorium in the world. I. L. B.

Letter V

A dateless day - "Those hands of yours" - A Puritan - Persevering shiftlessness - The house-mother - Family worship - A grim Sunday - A "thick-skulled Englishman" - A morning call - Another atmosphere - The Great Lone Land - "Ill found" - A log camp - Bad footing for horses - Accidents - Disappointment.

CANYON, September.

The absence of a date shows my predicament. THEY have no newspaper; _I_ have no almanack; the father is away for the day, and none of the others can help me, and they look contemptuously upon my desire for information on the subject. The monotony will come to an end to-morrow, for Chalmers offers to be my guide over the mountains to Estes Park, and has persuaded his wife "for once to go for a frolic"; and with much reluctance, many growls at the waste of time, and many apprehensions of danger and loss, she has consented to accompany him. My life has grown less dull from their having become more interesting to me, and as I have "made myself agreeable," we are on fairly friendly terms. My first move in the direction of fraternizing was, however, snubbed. A few days ago, having finished my own work, I offered to wash up the plates, but Mrs. C., with a look which conveyed more than words, a curl of her nose, and a sneer in her twang, said "Guess you'll make more work nor you'll do. Those hands of yours" (very brown and coarse they were) "ain't no good; never done nothing, I guess." Then to her awkward daughter: "This woman says she'll wash up! Ha! ha! look at her arms and hands!" This was the nearest approach to a laugh I have heard, and have never seen even a tendency towards a smile. Since then I have risen in their estimation by improvizing a lamp - Hawaiian fashion - by putting a wisp of rag into a tin of fat. They have actually condescended to sit up till the stars come out since. Another advance was made by means of the shell-pattern quilt I am knitting for you.

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