Boulder Is A
Hideous Collection Of Frame
Houses On The Burning Plain, But It Aspires To Be A "City" In
Virtue Of Being A "Distributing Point" For The Settlements Up The
Boulder Canyon, And Of The Discovery Of A Coal Seam.
LONGMOUNT, November.
I got up very early this morning, and on a hired horse went nine
miles up the Boulder Canyon, which is much extolled, but I was
greatly disappointed with everything except its superb wagon
road, and much disgusted with the laziness of the horse. A ride
of fifteen miles across the prairie brought me here early in the
afternoon, but of the budget of letters which I expected there is
not one. Birdie looks in such capital condition that my host
here can hardly believe that she has traveled over 500 miles. I
am feeling "the pinch of poverty" rather severely. When I have
paid my bill here I shall have exactly twenty-six cents left.
Evans was quite unable to pay the hundred dollars which he owed
me, and, to save themselves, the Denver banks, though they remain
open, have suspended payment, and would not
cash my circular notes. The financial straits are very serious,
and the unreasoning panic which has set in makes them worse. The
present state of matters is - nobody has any money, so nothing is
worth anything. The result to me is that, nolens volens, I must
go up to Estes Park, where I can live without ready money, and
remain there till things change for the better. It does not seem
a very hard fate! Long's Peak rises in purple gloom, and I long
for the cool air and unfettered life of the solitary blue hollow
at its base.
ESTES PARK, November 20.
Would that three notes of admiration were all I need give to my
grand, solitary, uplifted, sublime, remote, beast-haunted lair,
which seems more indescribable than ever; but you will wish to
know how I have sped, and I wish you to know my present singular
circumstances. I left Longmount at eight on Saturday morning,
rather heavily loaded, for in addition to my own luggage I was
asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy with newspapers.
Edwards, with his wife and family, were still believed to be
here. A heavy snow-storm was expected, and all the sky - that
vast dome which spans the Plains - was overcast; but over the
mountains it was a deep, still, sad blue, into which snowy peaks
rose sunlighted. It was a lonely, mournful-looking morning, but
when I reached the beautiful canyon of the St. Vrain, the sad
blue became brilliant, and the sun warm and scintillating. Ah,
how beautiful and incomparable the ride up here is, infinitely
more beautiful than the much-vaunted parts I have seen elsewhere.
There is, first, this beautiful hill-girdled valley of fair
savannas, through which the bright St. Vrain curves in and out
amidst a tangle of cotton-wood and withered clematis and Virginia
creeper, which two months ago made the valley gay with their
scarlet and gold. Then the canyon, with its
fantastically-stained walls; then the long ascent through
sweeping foot hills to the gates of rock at a height of 9,000
feet; then the wildest and most wonderful scenery for twenty
miles, in which you cross thirteen ranges from 9,000 to 11,000
feet high, pass through countless canyons and gulches, cross
thirteen dark fords, and finally descend, through M'Ginn's Gulch,
upon this, the gem of the Rocky Mountains. It was a weird ride.
I got on very slowly. The road is a hard one for any horse,
specially for a heavily-loaded one, and at the end of several
weeks of severe travel. When I had ridden fifteen miles I
stopped at the ranch where people usually get food, but it was
empty, and the next was also deserted. So I was compelled to go
to the last house, where two young men are "baching."
There I had to decide between getting a meal for myself or a feed
for the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty,
trusted me "till next time." His house, for order and neatness,
and a sort of sprightliness of cleanliness - the comfort of
cleanliness without its severity - is a pattern to all women,
while the clear eyes and manly self-respect which the habit of
total abstinence gives in this country are a pattern to all men.
He cooked me a splendid dinner, with good tea. After dinner I
opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an accumulation of
letters from you; but I sat much too long there, forgetting that
I had twenty miles to ride, which could hardly be done in less
than six hours. It was then brilliant. I had not realized the
magnificence of that ride when I took it before, but the pony was
tired, and I could not hurry her, and the distance seemed
interminable, as after every range I crossed another range. Then
came a region of deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, only a few
feet wide, and many fords, and from their cold depths I saw the
last sunlight fade from the brows of precipices 4,000 feet high.
It was eerie, as darkness came on, to wind in and out in the
pine-shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the
bottom of these tremendous chasms. Wolves howled in all
directions. This is said to denote the approach of a storm.
During this twenty-mile ride I met a hunter with an elk packed on
his horse, and he told me not only that the Edwardses were at the
cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain for two
weeks longer, no matter how uncongenial. The ride did seem
endless after darkness came on. Finally the last huge range was
conquered, the last deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which
craved for human companionship, I rode up to "Mountain Jim's"
den, but no light shone through the chinks, and all was silent.
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