My Host There, They All Said, Would Be
"Strung" Before Long.
Did I know that a man was "strung" there
yesterday?
Had I not seen him hanging? He was on the big tree
by the house, they said. Certainly, had I known what a ghastly
burden that tree bore, I would have encountered the ice and gloom
of the gulch rather than have slept there. They then told me a
horrid tale of crime and violence. This man had even shocked the
morals of the Alma crowd, and had a notice served on him by the
vigilants, which had the desired effect, and he migrated to
Hall's Gulch. As the tale runs, the Hall's Gulch miners were
resolved either not to have a groggery or to limit the number of
such places, and when this ruffian set one up he was
"forewarned." It seems, however, to have been merely a pretext
for getting rid of him, for it was hardly a crime of which even
Lynch law could take cognizance. He was overpowered by numbers,
and, with circumstances of great horror, was tried and strung on
that tree within an hour.[19]
[19] Public opinion approved this execution, regarding it
as a fitting retribution for a series of crimes.
I left the place this morning at ten, and have had a very
pleasant day, for the hills shut out the hot sun. I only rode
twenty-two miles, for the difficulty of riding on ice was great,
and there is no blacksmith within thirty-five miles of Hall's
Gulch. I met two freighters just after I left, who gave me the
unwelcome news that there were thirty-miles of ice between that
and Denver. "You'll have a tough trip," they said. The road
runs up and down hill, walled in along with a rushing river by
high mountains. The scenery is very grand, but I hate being shut
into these deep gorges, and always expect to see some startling
object moving among the trees. I met no one the whole day after
passing the teams except two men with a "pack-jack," Birdie hates
jacks, and rears and shies as soon as she sees one. It was a bad
road, one shelving sheet of ice, and awfully lonely, and between
the peril of the mare breaking her leg on the ice and that of
being crushed by windfalls of timber, I had to look out all day.
Towards sunset I came to a cabin where they "keep travelers," but
the woman looked so vinegar faced that I preferred to ride four
miles farther, up a beautiful road winding along a sunny gulch
filled with silver spruce, bluer and more silvery than any I have
yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which the view in all
the ecstasy of sunset color was perfectly glorious. It was
enjoyment also in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which I
had been immured all day. There is a train of twelve freight
wagons here, each wagon with six horses, but the teamsters carry
their own camping blankets and sleep either in their wagons or
on the floor, so the house is not crowded.
It is a pleasant two-story log house, not only chinked but lined
with planed timber. Each room has a great open chimney with logs
burning in it; there are pretty engravings on the walls, and
baskets full of creepers hanging from the ceiling. This is the
first settler's house I have been in in which the ornamental has
had any place. There is a door to each room, the oak chairs
are bright with rubbing, and the floor, though unplaned, is so
clean that one might eat off it. The table is clean and
abundant, and the mother and daughter, though they do all the
work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh
heartily. The ranchman neither allows drink to be brought into
the house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he
"keeps travelers." The freighters come in to supper quite well
washed, and though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine
o'clock there was not a sound. This freighting business is most
profitable. I think that the charge is three cents per pound
from Denver to South Park, and there much of the freight is
transferred to "pack-jacks" and carried up to the mines. A
railroad, however, is contemplated. I breakfasted with the
family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting down
to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh table-cloth
and hot food. The buckets are all polished oak, with polished
brass bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make
them; and, more wonderful still, the girls black their boots.
Blacking usually is an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept
in houses. My boots have only been blacked once during the last
two months.
DENVER, November 9.
I could not make out whether the superiority of the Deer Valley
settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster I met in
the evening said it "made him more of a man to spend a night in
such a house." In Colorado whisky is significant of all evil and
violence and is the cause of most of the shooting affrays in the
mining camps. There are few moderate drinkers; it is seldom
taken except to excess. The great local question in the
Territory, and just now the great electoral issue, is drink or no
drink, and some of the papers are openly advocating a prohibitive
liquor law. Some of the districts, such as Greeley, in which
liquor is prohibited, are without crime, and in several of the
stock-raising and agricultural regions through which I have
traveled where it is practically excluded the doors are never
locked, and the miners leave their silver bricks in their wagons
unprotected at night. People say that on coming from the Eastern
States they hardly realize at first the security in which they
live.
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