Mrs.
Chalmers Repents Of Having Consented, And Conjures Up Doleful
Visions Of What The Family Will Come To When Left Headless, And
Of Disasters Among The Cows And Hens.
I could tell her that the
eldest son and the "hired man" have plotted to close the saw-mill
and go on a hunting and fishing expedition, that the cows will
stray, and that the individual spoken respectfully of as "Mr.
Skunk" will make havoc in the hen-house.
NAMELESS REGION, ROCKY MOUNTAINS, September.
This is indeed far removed. It seems farther away from you than
any place I have been to yet, except the frozen top of the
volcano of Mauna Loa. It is so little profaned by man that if
one were compelled to live here in solitude one might truly say
of the bears, deer, and elk which abound, "Their tameness is
shocking to me." It is the world of "big game." Just now a
heavy-headed elk, with much-branched horns fully three feet long,
stood and looked at me, and then quietly trotted away. He was so
near that I heard the grass, crisp with hoar frost, crackle under
his feet. Bears stripped the cherry bushes within a few yards of
us last night. Now two lovely blue birds, with crests on their
heads, are picking about within a stone's-throw. This is "The
Great Lone Land," until lately the hunting ground of the Indians,
and not yet settled or traversed, or likely to be so, owing to
the want of water. A solitary hunter has built a log cabin up
here, which he occupies for a few weeks for the purpose of
elk-hunting, but all the region is unsurveyed, and mostly
unexplored. It is 7 A.M. The sun has not yet risen high enough
to melt the hoar frost, and the air is clear, bright, and cold.
The stillness is profound. I hear nothing but the far-off
mysterious roaring of a river in a deep canyon, which we spent
two hours last night in trying to find. The horses are lost, and
if I were disposed to retort upon my companions the term they
invariably apply to me, I should now write, with bitter emphasis,
"THAT man" and "THAT woman" have gone in search of them.
The scenery up here is glorious, combining sublimity with beauty,
and in the elastic air fatigue has dropped off from me. This is
no region for tourists and women, only for a few elk and bear
hunters at times, and its unprofaned freshness gives me new life.
I cannot by any words give you an idea of scenery so different
from any that you or I have ever seen. This is an upland valley
of grass and flowers, of glades and sloping lawns, and
cherry-fringed beds of dry streams, and clumps of pines
artistically placed, and mountain sides densely pine clad, the
pines breaking into fringes as they come down upon the "park,"
and the mountains breaking into pinnacles of bold grey rock as
they pierce the blue of the sky.
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