The Broncos
Stopped And Smelt It, Not Liking It, But Some Encouraging Speech
Induced Them To Go Over.
On the other side was a log cabin,
partially ruinous, and the very rudest I ever saw, its roof of
plastered mud being broken into large holes.
It stood close to
the water among some cotton-wood trees. A little higher there
was a very primitive saw-mill, also out of repair, with some logs
lying about. An emigrant wagon and a forlorn tent, with a
camp-fire and a pot, were in the foreground, but there was no
trace of the boarding-house, of which I stood a little in dread.
The driver went for further directions to the log cabin, and
returned with a grim smile deepening the melancholy of his face
to say it was Mr. Chalmers', but there was no accommodation
for such as him, much less for me! This was truly "a sell." I
got down and found a single room of the rudest kind, with the
wall at one end partially broken down, holes in the roof, holes
for windows, and no furniture but two chairs and two unplaned
wooden shelves, with some sacks of straw upon them for beds.
There was an adjacent cabin room, with a stove, benches, and
table, where they cooked and ate, but this was all. A hard,
sad-looking woman looked at me measuringly. She said that they
sold milk and butter to parties who camped in the canyon, that
they had never had any boarders but two asthmatic old ladies, but
they would take me for five dollars per week if I "would make
myself agreeable." The horses had to be fed, and I sat down on a
box, had some dried beef and milk, and considered the matter.
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