I Was Sorry For Mrs. Chalmers, Who
Had Had Several Falls, And Bore Her Aches Patiently, And Had Said
Several
Times to her husband, with a kind meaning, "I am real
sorry for this woman." I was so tired with
The perpetual
stumbling of my horse, as well as stiffened with the bitter cold,
that I walked for the last hour or two; and Chalmers, as if to
cover his failure, indulged in loud, incessant talk, abusing all
other religionists, and railing against England in the coarsest
American fashion. Yet, after all, they were not bad souls; and
though he failed so grotesquely, he did his incompetent best.
The log fire in the ruinous cabin was cheery, and I kept it up
all night, and watched the stars through the holes in the roof,
and thought of Long's Peak in its glorious solitude, and resolved
that, come what might, I would reach Estes Park.
I. L. B.
Letter VI
A bronco mare - An accident - Wonderland - A sad story - The children
of the Territories - Hard greed - Halcyon hours -
Smartness - Old-fashioned prejudices - The Chicago colony - Good
luck - Three notes of admiration - A good horse - The St.
Vrain - The Rocky Mountains at last - "Mountain Jim" - A death
hug - Estes Park.
LOWER CANYON, September 25.
This is another world. My entrance upon it was signalized in
this fashion. Chalmers offered me a bronco mare for a reasonable
sum, and though she was a shifty, half-broken young thing, I came
over here on her to try her, when, just as I was going away, she
took into her head to "scare" and "buck," and when I touched her
with my foot she leaped over a heap of timber, and the girth gave
way, and the onlookers tell me that while she jumped I fell over
her tail from a good height upon the hard gravel, receiving a
parting kick on my knee.
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