times as big, and well protected from the sharp May breezes by a soft,
fluffy silk wrap. Then some day in early June the walker shall note
groups of long, sword-shaped leaves, rising in clusters here and there
from the ground. He may not handle them with impunity, for they are
strong and sharp-edged, and somewhat later the beauty they are set to
guard is revealed. A stem or two, heavy and loaded with hard green
balls, pushes itself up among them day by day, till some morning he
stands spellbound before the full-blown bells of the yucca, cream-tinted
or pink, and fragrant as the breath of summer.
Before the Nature-lover is tired of feasting his eyes upon that stately
flower, shall begin to unfold the crumpled draperies of the great
Mexican poppy, dotting the hillsides and the mesa with white, as far as
the eye can reach. Meanwhile, the earth itself shall suddenly turn to
pink, and a close look disclose a tiny, low-growing blossom, sweet as
the morning, with the glow of the sunrise in its face; a little bunch of
crazy-looking stamens, and tiny snips of petals standing out at all
angles, and of all shades on one stem, from white to deep red; the whole
no bigger than a gauzy-winged fly, and shaped not unlike one, with a
delicious odor that scents the air.
Next day--or next week--wandering over the pathless barrens, the
observer may come upon a group of cream-colored satin flowers, wide open
to the sun, innocent looking and most tempting to gather. But the great
fleshy leaves from which they spring give warning; they belong to the
cactus family, and are well armed to protect their treasures from the
vagrant hand. The walker--if he be wise--will content himself with
looking, nor seek a nearer acquaintance.
While these royal beauties are adorning the highlands, others, perhaps
even more lovely, are blooming in the canyons, under the trees, and
beside the noisy brooks. First, there is a "riot of roses"--the only
expression that adequately suggests the profusion of these beautiful
flowers. They grow in enormous bushes, far above one's head, in
impenetrable thickets, extending for yards each way.
"Rose hedges
Abloom to the edges."
Every country road is walled in by them; every brookside is glorified by
their rich masses of color; and no rocky wall is so bare but here and
there a tiny shoot finds root, and open its rosy bloom. All these
bushes, from the low-growing sort that holds its mottled and shaded
petals three inches above the ground, to that whose top one cannot
reach, are simply loaded with blossoms of all shades, from nearly white
to deepest rose-color, filling the air with perfume.
The first time one comes upon this lavish display, he--or more probably
she--picks a spray from the first bush; she cannot resist the next
variety, and before she knows it her arms are full, with temptations as
strong as ever before her. She may at last, like "H. H.," take home her
roses by the carriage load, or, overwhelmed by their numbers, leave them
all on their stems, and enjoy them in mass.
Shyly hiding under the taller shrubs beside the running water, the
experienced seeker will find the gilia, one of the gems of Colorado's
bouquet. This plant consists of one slender stem two feet or more tall,
swayed by every breeze, and set for several inches of its length with
daintiest blossoms,--
"Like threaded rubies on its stem."
They are like fairy trumpets, in many shades, from snow white to deep
rose, and brilliant scarlet, with great variety of delicate marking
visible only under a glass. The stem is so sticky that the flowers must
be arranged as they are gathered; for they cling to each other more
closely than the fabled "brother," and an attempt to separate them will
result in torn flowers.
Anything more exquisite than a vase of gilias alone is rarely seen. The
buds are as lovely as the blossoms; new ones open every day, and even
the faded ones are not unsightly; their petals are simply turned
backward a little. One minute every morning spent in snipping off
blossoms that are past their prime insures the happy possessor a
bouquet that is a joy forever, even in memory; lovely and fresh, in
ever-changing combinations of color and form.
Some day shall be made memorable to the enthusiast by the discovery of a
flower which should be named for "H. H.,"--the one which looked so
charming from the moving train that her winning tongue brought the iron
horse to a pause while it was gathered, "root and branch," for her
delectation. Finding the gorgeous spike of golden blossoms without a
common name, she called it--most happily--the golden prince's feather.
It is to be presumed that it has an unwieldy scientific cognomen in the
botanies; but I heard of no common one, except that given by the poet.
While this royal flower is still in bloom, may be found the mariposa, or
butterfly lily, small and low on the burning mesa, but more generous in
size, and richer of hue, in the shaded canyons.
"Like a bubble borne in air
Floats the shy Mariposa's bell,"
says Susan Coolidge in her beautiful tribute to her beloved friend and
poet. The three petals of this exquisite flower form a graceful cup of
differing degrees of violet hue, some being nearly white, with the color
massed in a rich, deep-toned crescent, low down at the heart of each
petal, while others are glowing in the most regal purple.
All these weeks, too, have been blossoming dozens, yes, hundreds of
others; every nook and corner is full; every walk brings surprises. Some
of our most familiar friends are wanting. One is not surprised that the
most common wayside flower of that golden region is the yellow daisy, or
sunflower it is called; but she remembers fondly our fields of white
daisies, and clumps of gay little buttercups, and she longs for
cheery-faced dandelions beside her path. A few of the latter she may
find, much larger and more showy than ours; but these--it is said in
Colorado Springs--are all from seed imported by an exile for health's
sake, who pined for the flowers of home.
Several peculiarities of Colorado flowers are noteworthy. Some have
gummy or sticky stems, like the gilia, already mentioned, and others
again are "clinging," by means of a certain roughness of stem and leaf.
The mentzelia is of this nature; half a dozen stalks can with difficulty
be separated; and they seem even to attract any light substance, like
fringe or lace, holding so closely to it that they must be torn apart.
Many of the prettiest flowers are, like our milkweed, nourished by a
milky juice, and when severed from the parent stem, not only weep thick
white tears, which stain the hands and the garments, but utterly refuse
to subsist on water, and begin at once to droop. Is it the vitality in
the air which forces even the plants to eccentricities? Or can it be
that they have not yet been subdued into uniformity like ours? Are they
unconventional--nearer to wild Nature? So queries an unscientific lover
of them all.
This slight sketch of a few flowers gives hardly a hint of the richness
of Colorado's flora. No words can paint the profusion and the beauty. I
have not here even mentioned some of the most notable: the great golden
columbine, the State flower, to which our modest blossom is an
insignificant weed;
"The fairy lilies, straight and tall,
Like torches lit for carnival;"
the primrose, opening at evening a disk three or four inches across,
loaded with richest perfume, and changed to odorless pink before
morning; exquisite vetches, with bloom like our sweet pea, and of more
than fifty varieties; harebells in great clumps, and castilleias which
dot the State with scarlet; rosy cyclamens "on long, lithe stems that
soar;" and mertensias, whose delicate bells, blue as a baby's eyes, turn
day by day to pink; the cleome, which covers Denver with a purple veil;
the whole family of pentstemons, and hundreds of others.
An artist in Colorado Springs, who has given her heart, almost her life,
to fixing in imperishable color the floral wealth about her, has painted
over three hundred varieties of Colorado wild-flowers, and her list is
still incomplete.
It is not pleasant to mar this record of beauty, but one thing must be
mentioned. The luxuriance of the flowers is already greatly diminished
by the unscrupulousness of the tourists who swarm in the flower season,
especially, I am sorry to say, women. Not content with filling their
hands with flowers, they fill their arms and even their carriage, if
they have one. Moreover, the hold of the plant on the light, sandy soil
is very slight; and the careless gatherer, not provided with knife or
scissors, will almost invariably pull the root with the flower, thus
totally annihilating that plant. When one witnesses such greediness, and
remembers that these vandals are in general on the wing, and cannot stay
to enjoy what they have rifled, but will leave it all to be thrown out
by hotel servants the next morning, he cannot wonder at the indignation
of the residents toward the traveler, nor that "No admittance" notices
are put up, and big dogs kept, and that "tourist" is a name synonymous
with "plunderer," and bitterly hated by the people.
I have seen a party of ladies--to judge by their looks--with arms so
full of the golden columbine that it seemed they could not hold another
flower, whose traveling dress and equipments showed them to be mere
transient passers through, who could not possibly make use of so many.
Half a dozen blossoms would have given as much pleasure as half a
hundred, and be much more easily cared for, besides leaving a few for
their successors to enjoy. The result is, of course, plain to see: a few
more years of plunder, and Colorado will be left bare, and lose half her
charm.
One beautiful place near Colorado Springs, Glen Eyrie, belonging to
General Palmer, was generously left open for every one to enjoy by
driving through; but, incredible as it seems, his hospitality was so
abused, his lovely grounds rifled, not only of wild-flowers, but even of
cultivated flowers and plants, that he was forced at last to put up
notices that the public was allowed to "drive through _without
dismounting_."
VII.
CLIFF-DWELLERS IN THE CANYON.
Glad
With light as with a garment it is clad
Each dawn, before the tardy plains have won
One ray; and often after day has long been done
For us, the light doth cling reluctant, sad to leave its brow.
H. H.
The happiest day of my summer in the Rocky Mountains was passed in the
heart of a mountain consecrated by the songs and the grave of its lover,
"H. H.,"--beautiful Cheyenne, the grandest and the most graceful of its
range.
Camp Harding, my home for the season, in its charming situation, has
already been described. The fortunate dwellers in this "happy valley"
were blessed with two delectable walks, "down the road" and "up the
road." Down the road presented an enchanting procession of flowers,
which changed from day to day as the season advanced; to-day the scarlet
castilleia, or painter's-brush, flaming out of the coarse grasses;
to-morrow the sand lily, lifting its dainty face above the bare sand;
next week the harebell, in great clumps, nodding across the field, and
next month the mariposa or butterfly lily, just peeping from behind the
brush,--with dozens of others to keep them company. As one went on, the
fields grew broader, the walls of the mesa lowered and drew apart, till
the canyon was lost in the wide, open country.
This was the favorite evening walk, with all the camp dogs in
attendance,--the nimble greyhound, the age-stiffened and sedate spaniel,
the saucy, ill-bred bull-terrier, and the naive baby pug. The loitering
walk usually ended at the red farmhouse a mile away, and the walkers
returned to the camp in the gloaming, loaded with flowers, saturated
with the delicious mountain air, and filled with a peace that passeth
words.
Up the road led into the mountain, under thick-crowding trees, between
frowning rocks, ever growing higher and drawing nearer together, till
the carriage road became a burro track, and then a footpath; now this
side the boisterous brook, then crossing by a log or two to the other
side, and ending in the heart of Cheyenne in a _cul-de-sac_, whose high
perpendicular sides could be scaled only by flights of steps built
against the rocks. From high up the mountain, into this immense rocky
basin, came the brook Shining Water, in seven tremendous leaps, each
more lovely than the last, and reached at bottom a deep stone bowl,
which flung it out in a shower of spray forbidding near approach, and
keeping the rocks forever wet.
The morning walk was up the road, in the grateful shade of the trees,
between the cool rocks, beside the impetuous brook. This last was an
ever fresh source of interest and pleasure, for nothing differs more
widely from an Eastern brook than its Western namesake. The terms we
apply to our mountain rivulets do not at all describe a body of water on
its way down a Rocky Mountain valley. It does not murmur,--it roars and
brawls; it cannot ripple,--it rages and foams about the bowlders that
lie in its path. The name of a Colorado mountain stream, the Roaring
Fork, exactly characterizes it.
One warm morning in June, a small party from the camp set out for a walk
up the road. By easy stages, resting here and there on convenient rocks,
beguiled at every step by something more beautiful just ahead, they
penetrated to the end of the canyon. Of that party I was one, and it was
my first visit. I was alternately in raptures over the richness of
color, the glowing red sandstone against the violet-blue sky, and
thrilled by the grandeur of places which looked as if the whole
mountain had been violently rent asunder.
But no emotion whatever, no beauty, no sublimity even, can make me
insensible to a bird note. Just at the entrance to the Pillars of
Hercules, two towering walls of perpendicular rock that approach each
other almost threateningly, as if they would close up and crush between
them the rash mortal who dared to penetrate farther,--in that impressive
spot, while I lingered, half yielding to a mysterious hesitation about
entering the strange portal, a bird song fell upon my ear. It was a
plaintive warble, that sounded far away up the stern cliff above my
head. It seemed impossible that a bird could find a foothold, or be in
any way attracted by those bare walls, yet I turned my eyes, and later
my glass that way.
At first nothing was to be seen save, part way up the height, an
exquisite bit of nature. In a niche that might have been scooped out by
a mighty hand, where scarcely a ray of sunlight could penetrate, and no
human touch could make or mar, were growing, and blooming luxuriantly, a
golden columbine, Colorado's pride and glory, a rosy star-shaped blossom
unknown to me, and a cluster of
"Proud cyclamens on long, lithe stems that soar."
When I could withdraw my eyes from this dainty wind-sown garden, I
sought the singer, who proved to be a small brown bird with a
conspicuous white throat, flitting about on the face of the rock,
apparently quite at home, and constantly repeating his few notes. His
song was tender and bewitching in its effect, though it was really
simple in construction, being merely nine notes, the first uttered
twice, and the remaining eight in descending chromatic scale.
Now and then the tiny songster disappeared in what looked like a slight
crack in the wall, but instantly reappeared, and resumed his siren
strains. Spellbound I stood, looking and listening; but alas! the hour
was late, the way was long, and others were waiting; I needs must tear
myself away. "To-morrow I will come again," I said, as I turned back.
"To-morrow I shall be here alone, and spend the whole day with the canyon
wren."
Then we retraced our steps of the morning, lingering among the pleasant
groves of cottonwood, oak, and aspen; pausing to admire the cactus
display of gorgeous yellow, with petals widespread, yet so wedded to
their wildness that they resented the touch of a human hand, resisting
their ravisher with needle-like barbs, and then sullenly drawing
together their satin petals and refusing to open them more; past great
thickets of wild roses, higher than our heads and fragrant as the
morning; beside close-growing bushes, where hid the
"Golden cradle of the moccasin flower,"
and the too clever yellow-breasted chat had mocked and defied me; and so
home to the camp.
At an early hour the next morning, the carriage of my hostess set me
down at the entrance of Cheyenne Canyon proper, with the impedimenta
necessary for a day's isolation from civilization. I passed through the
gate,--for even this grand work of nature is claimed as private
property; but, happily, through good sense or indifference,
"improvements" have not been attempted, and one forgets the gate and the
gate-keeper as soon as they are passed.
Entering at that unnatural hour, and alone, leaving the last human being
behind,--staring in astonishment, by the way, at my unprecedented
proceeding,--I began to realize, as I walked up the narrow path, that
the whole grand canyon, winding perhaps a mile into the heart of this
most beautiful of the Rocky Mountains, was mine alone for three hours.
Indeed, when the time arrived for tourists to appear, so little did I
concern myself with them that they might have been a procession of
spectres passing by; so, in effect, the canyon was my solitary possession
for nine blissful hours.
The delights of that perfect day cannot be put into words. Strolling up
the path, filled with an inexpressible sense of ownership and seclusion
from all the world, I first paused in the neighborhood of the small
cliff-dweller whose music had charmed me, and suggested the enchanting
idea of spending a day with him in his retreat. I seated myself opposite
the forbidding wall where the bird had hovered, apparently so much at
home. All was silent; no singer to be heard, no wren to be seen. The
sun, which turned the tops of the Pillars to gold as I entered, crept
down inch by inch till it beat upon my head and clothed the rock in a
red glory. Still no bird appeared. High above the top of the rocks, in
the clear thin air of the mountain, a flock of swallows wheeled and
sported, uttering an unfamiliar two-note call; butterflies fluttered
irresolute, looking frivolous enough in the presence of the eternal
hills; gauzy-winged dragonflies zigzagged to and fro, their intense blue
gleaming in the sun. The hour for visitors drew near, and my precious
solitude was fast slipping away.
Slowly then I walked up the canyon, looking for my singer. Humming-birds
were hovering before the bare rock as before a flower, perhaps sipping
the water-drops that here and there trickled down, and large hawks, like
mere specks against the blue, were soaring, but no wren could I see. At
last I reached the end, with its waterfall fountain. Close within this
ceaseless sprinkle, on a narrow ledge that was never dry, was placed--I
had almost said grew--a bird's nest; whose, it were needless to ask. One
American bird, and one only, chooses perpetual dampness for his
environment,--the American dipper, or water ouzel.
Here I paused to muse over the spray-soaked cradle on the rock. In this
strange place had lived a bird so eccentric that he prefers not only to
nest under a continuous shower, through which he must constantly pass,
but to spend most of his life in, not on the water. Shall we call him a
fool or a philosopher? Is the water a protection, and from what? Has
"damp, moist unpleasantness" no terrors for his fine feathers? Where now
were the nestlings whose lullaby had been the music of the falling
waters? Down that sheer rock, perhaps into the water at its foot, had
been the first flight of the ouzel baby. Why had I come too late to see
him?
But the hours were passing, while I had not seen, and, what was worse,
had not heard my first charmer, the canyon wren. Leaving these perplexing
conundrums unsolved, I turned slowly back down the walk, to resume my
search. Perhaps fifty feet from the ouzel nest, as I lingered to admire
the picturesque rapids in the brook, a slight movement drew my attention
to a little projection on a stone, not six feet from me, where a small
chipmunk sat pertly up, holding in his two hands, and eagerly
nibbling--was it, could it be a strawberry in this rocky place?
Of course I stopped instantly to look at this pretty sight. I judged him
to be a youngster, partly because of his evident fearlessness of his
hereditary enemy, a human being; more on account of the saucy way in
which he returned my stare; and most, perhaps, from the appearance of
absorbing delight, in which there was a suggestion of the unexpected,
with which he discussed that sweet morsel. Closely I watched him as he
turned the treasure round and round in his deft little paws, and at last
dropped the rifled hull. Would he go for another, and where? In an
instant, with a parting glance at me, to make sure that I had not moved,
he scrambled down his rocky throne, and bounded in great leaps over the
path to a crumpled paper, which I saw at once was one of the bags with
which tourists sow the earth. But its presence there did not rouse in my
furry friend the indignation it excited in me. To him it was a
treasure-trove, for into it he disappeared without a moment's
hesitation; and almost before I had jumped to the conclusion that it
contained the remains of somebody's luncheon, he reappeared, holding in
his mouth another strawberry, bounded over the ground to his former
seat, and proceeded to dispose of that one, also. The scene was so
charming and his pleasure so genuine that I forgave the careless
traveler on the spot, and only wished I had a kodak to secure a
permanent picture of this unique strawberry festival.
As I loitered along, gazing idly at the brook, ever listening and
longing for the wren song, I was suddenly struck motionless by a loud,
shrill, and peculiar cry. It was plainly a bird voice, and it seemed to
come almost from the stream itself. It ceased in a moment, and then
followed a burst of song, liquid as the singing of the brook, and
enchantingly sweet, though very low. I was astounded. Who could sing
like that up in this narrow mountain gorge, where I supposed the canyon
wren was king?
At the point where I stood, a straggling shrub, the only one for rods,
hung over the brink. I silently sank to a seat behind it, lest I disturb
the singer, and remained without movement. The baffling carol went on
for some seconds, and for the only time in my life I wished I could put
a spell upon brook-babble, that I might the better hear.
Cautiously I raised my glass to my eyes, and examined the rocks across
the water, probably eight feet from me. Then arose again that strange
cry, and at the same instant my eye fell upon a tiny ledge, level with
the water, and perhaps six inches long, on which stood a small
fellow-creature in great excitement. He was engaged in what I should
call "curtsying"; that is, bending his leg joint, and dropping his plump
little body for a second, then bobbing up to his fullest height,
repeating the performance constantly,--looking eagerly out over the
water the while, evidently expecting somebody. This was undoubtedly the
bird's manner of begging for food,--a very pretty and well-bred way,
too, vastly superior to the impetuous calls and demands of some young
birds. The movement was "dipping," of course, and he was the dipper, or
ouzel baby, that had been cradled in that fountain-dashed nest by the
fall. He was not long out of it, either; for though fully dressed in his
modest slate-color, with white feet, and white edgings to many of his
feathers, he had hardly a vestige of a tail. He was a winsome baby, for
all that.