We had eight miles farther to
go - most of the way through a forest, which I always dislike when
alone, from the fear of being frightened by something which may
appear from behind a tree.
I saw a beautiful white fox, several
skunks, some chipmunks and gray squirrels, owls, crows, and
crested blue-jays. As the sun was getting low I reached Bergens
Park, which was to put me out of conceit with Estes Park. Never!
It is long and featureless, and its immediate surroundings are
mean. It reminded me in itself of some dismal Highland
strath - Glenshee, possibly. I looked at it with special
interest, as it was the place at which Miss Kingsley had
suggested that I might remain. The evening was glorious, and the
distant views were very fine. A stream fringed with cotton-wood
runs through the park; low ranges come down upon it. The south
end is completely closed up, but at a considerable distance, by
the great mass of Pike's Peak, while far beyond the other end are
peaks and towers, wonderful in blue and violet in the lovely
evening, and beyond these, sharply defined against the clear
green sky, was the serrated ridge of the Snowy Range, said to be
200 miles away. Bergens Park had been bought by Dr. Bell, of
London, but its present occupant is Mr. Thornton, an English
gentleman, who has a worthy married Englishman as his manager.
Mr. Thornton is building a good house, and purposes to build
other cabins, with the intention of making the park a resort for
strangers. I thought of the blue hollow lying solitary at the
foot of Long's Peak, and rejoiced that I had "happened into it."
The cabin is long, low, mud roofed, and very dark. The middle
place is full of raw meat, fowls, and gear. One end, almost
dark, contains the cooking-stove, milk, crockery, a long deal
table, two benches, and some wooden stools; the other end houses
the English manager or partner, his wife, and three children,
another cooking-stove, gear of all kinds, and sacks of beans and
flour. They put up a sheet for a partition, and made me a
shake-down on the gravel floor of this room. Ten hired men sat
down to meals with us. It was all very rough, dark, and
comfortless, but Mr. T., who is not only a gentleman by birth,
but an M.A. of Cambridge, seems to like it. Much in this way (a
little smoother if a lady is in the case) every man must begin
life here. Seven large dogs - three of them with cats upon their
backs - are usually warming themselves at the fire.
TWIN ROCK, SOUTH FORK OF THE PLATTE, November 1.
I did not leave Mr. Thornton's till ten, because of the
slipperiness. I rode four miles along a back trail, and then was
so tired that I stayed for two hours at a ranch, where I heard,
to my dismay, that I must ride twenty-four miles farther before I
could find any place to sleep at.
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