Hot weather is pleasant to have—in Denver—and I didn’t escape because
of hot weather. But I have lived there a long time and know a number of
people, and every time I met a fellow on the street he was sure to say:
“Hot, ain’t it?” Five minutes after, if I met the same man, he would
pull off his hat, mop his head with a handkerchief, and as if it had
just occurred to him, tell me the same thing, with an emphatic prefix.
By way of change it is interesting to see a couple of fellows meet on
the sidewalk, shake hands, and hear them tell each other “it’s hot.” The
amount of information mutually imparted is gratifying, and makes one
think, at first, that life is worth living. But when this delight is
experienced a hundred times a day for a couple of weeks, one begins to
sigh for the old stand-by: “What’s new?” “Nothing.” The monotony becomes
exasperating, and even one not given to profanity stands in imminent
peril of falling into the prevailing habit. Shakespeare, Mother Goose,
or some other mortal plethoric with wisdom, has informed us that evil
associations corrupt good manners. I was being led astray; I knew it, in
fact.
The air was becoming thickly freighted with expletives; heat and
profanity, as I had been taught to believe, before “the new version,”
were inseparable. The maternal admonition came back to me in all its
bitter sweetness, and I had the fortitude to shun the temptation. In the
classic language of this age, “I lit out” for lighter air and a purer
atmosphere; I did not find what I wanted until I got beyond Golden. When
the train entered the cañon the sublime grandeur of—but I promised not
to say anything about Clear Creek Cañon, as that has been written about
once before. I took it all in, however, cinders included; all except
“that mule.” I have never been able to find “that mule.” Several years
since I was advised of the existence of “the mule,” and though I firmly
believed at the time that my informant was only trying to make himself
agreeable, I have, upon every occasion, faithfully looked out from the
mouth of the cañon to Beaver Brook for the picture of that much-abused
hybrid. The nearest approach to success in my efforts was a spotted cow,
three years ago, browsing among the rocks—but she is not there now.
At Dumont a friend of mine climbed on the train, and the first thing he
said to me was: “It’s hot in Denver.” He did not speak interrogatively,
but the remark was affirmative, in a tone of defiance. I asked him if he
had ever heard of Billy the Kid. He said he had and that he was dead. I
told him that was a mistake, “He is not dead,” said I, “he’s on the
train with me. I have hired him to go as far as Empire to kill the first
man who says the word ‘hot’ to me. There he sits,” and I pointed to our
very sedate fellow-townsman, Judge ——, who sat behind us deeply
immersed in a formidable bundle of law papers.
“The devil!” said my friend.
“Yes, he is, and a dead shot; let me introduce you—come.”
“Excuse me, my wife is in the other car, just up from Denver, and I
havn’t seen her for a week. Some other time I’ll be happy.”
I do not understand why it is that this generation is so given to lying.
That friend of mine is not married, and he must know that I am aware of
it; yet he slid out of the car with all the bustle of a conscientious
man of family. In fact he was too anxious, except for a Benedict in the
honey-moon. When he left I went over and sat down by the Judge. In the
meantime the latter had folded up his papers and wanted to know of me,
first thing, if I had ever read Pompelli or some other fellow, who had
traveled in Abyssinia, where the mercury stood habitually at 150°, when
you could find a shady place for the thermometer; where the natives cut
steaks out of the live oxen, sewed up the wounds and cooked the meat in
the sun; where these same natives went about naked with raw hide
umbrellas, and each fellow carried a pair of tweezers in his pocket to
pull the cactus thorns out of his feet. While being entertained with
these veracious statements, I discovered that our car had suddenly
become quite full, and that the Judge and I were objects of interest.
Just then the engineer sounded the whistle for Empire, and I gathered up
my creel and grip-sack of commissaries, and made for the door. As I got
off the platform I heard one passenger tell another that “the reward is
$2,000,” and as the train started on I noticed the Judge in animated
conversation with a burly fellow whose prominent features were a heavy
moustache and a square jaw. The Judge is a good man—physically, I
mean—but I shall not see him again for a month, and if it comes to the
worst, roughing it in the hills has a tendency to take off flesh and put
on muscle. I take comfort in the reflection.
At Empire I found my conveyance awaiting me—a light wagon and a pair of
playful mules; little fellows with coats of satin and gentle eyes. Some
fellow would say they had “sinews of steel,” but these mules were not
built that way; they were the natural sort. I dearly love a mule, and
were I a poet, would write a sonnet to a mule’s eye. I admire a mule’s
eye; always feel interested in that portion of his anatomy, and, as one
likes to be in the vicinity of that which is pleasing, so I, when I have
any business with a mule, find his head the attractive feature. These
mules behaved remarkably well; they took us to the top of Berthoud Pass
in about three hours, and climbed over each other only twice during the
trip. That, however, was only in playfulness; they pretended to be
frightened, in one instance at a laborer’s coat lying by the roadside,
and in the other at an empty fruit can. I thought on both occasions that
the mountain side was steeper, the gulch ever so many million feet
deeper, and the road narrower than any other place I had ever been in.
But as the mules were only in fun, I did not feel scared. After the
first exhibition of hilarity the driver told me that the last stranger
who rode behind those mules had his neck broken by jumping out of the
wagon. I know the driver to be an innocent young man, unversed in the
wicked ways of this world, and it was comforting to be in congenial
company.
On the summit Captain Gaskill handed me his thermometer. I don’t know
why he did it; I had not said anything about the temperature. But I saw
the mercury rise in the tube the moment I touched it; I told him to take
the blasted thing away or I would melt right there; with my heavy
overcoat on I would have been a mere spot in ten minutes. He hung the
agitator on the side of the house, and it registered 45°. I felt cool,
and he took me to the fire. No one that I know of except Hamlet’s father
has returned to give us any authentic information from beyond the sea;
and how it was ascertained that “in the twinkling of an eye” we mortals
should realize the end of our journey from this shore, I am not prepared
to say. But I can vouch for the fact that it was just eight hours from
Denver to happiness. If dissatisfied humanity demands a country better
adapted to its wants than Colorado, it will have to die to find it.
Upon a former occasion several years ago, I took upon myself to say
publicly through the columns of a Denver daily, that I thought Coates
Kinney’s “Rain on the Roof” a satire. But the night before I had lain in
a pool of water on the banks of the Blue with nothing between me and the
angry heavens except my prayers for daylight; they, of course, were thin
but earnest. This night, however, I had, as the preacher used to say, “a
realizing sense” of the effect of surrounding circumstances, repented me
of my harsh verdict, and hope to be forgiven. I had supper, a not
uncommon event on the top of the range at this particular point. Thanks
to the mules (they had allowed me to walk a mile or more) and the light
air, and wholesome food well cooked, and the obliging host and his wife
(think of their hibernating, the snow level with the ridge-pole, and
never a soul to visit them except the mail carrier on snow-shoes), I had
an appetite, and made good use of it, while the clouds gathered outside
for a jubilee. After supper came the indispensable pipe and chat, and
then to bed, right under the rafters, with the rain pattering on the
shingles.
“It seemed as if the music
Of the birds in all the bowers,
Had been gathered into rain-drops
And was coming down in showers.”
There is only one line of Kinney’s poem that ever troubled me (the
foregoing is not his):
“Then in fancy comes my mother.”
When I was a boy I didn’t fancy my mother coming around my bed after I
had crawled into it. It meant something besides prayers for me; we had
hard timber in the country where I was born and bred,—how pliant the
young twigs were! Coates must have been a good boy, especially with such
a name; I can solve the mystery in no other way. But all that about
“another,”
“With her eyes delicious blue,”
will do “passing well,” except the color; mine were not blue, and she
played the same game on me.
With the “patter of the soft rain overhead,” I soon forgot all about the
thermometer and the other misfortunes, being wrapped in—forty pounds of
blankets.
Having gone to bed, it is a very good place to stop; and as to the trip
down to the Springs, if those mules give me any trouble I will let you
know about it.