especially in a cabin full of people, and wholesome fatigue may make my
letter flat when it ought to be enthusiastic. I was awake all night at
Longmount owing to the stifling heat, and got up nervous and miserable,
ready to give up the thought of coming here, but the sunrise over the
Plains, and the wonderful red of the Rocky Mountains, as they reflected
the eastern sky, put spirit into me. The landlord had got a horse, but
could not give any satisfactory assurances of his being quiet, and
being much shaken by my fall at Canyon, I earnestly wished that the
Greeley Tribune had not given me a reputation for horsemanship, which
had preceded me here. The young men who were to escort me "seemed very
innocent," he said, but I have not arrived at his meaning yet. When
the horse appeared in the street at 8:30, I saw, to my dismay, a
high-bred, beautiful creature, stable kept, with arched neck, quivering
nostrils, and restless ears and eyes. My pack, as on Hawaii, was
strapped behind the Mexican saddle, and my canvas bag hung on the horn,
but the horse did not look fit to carry "gear," and seemed to require
two men to hold and coax him. There were many loafers about, and I
shrank from going out and mounting in my old Hawaiian riding dress,
though Dr. and Mrs. H. assured me that I looked quite "insignificant
and unnoticeable." We got away at nine with repeated injunctions from
the landlord in the words, "Oh, you should be heroic!"
The sky was cloudless, and a deep brilliant blue, and though the sun
was hot the air was fresh and bracing. The ride for glory and delight
I shall label along with one to Hanalei, and another to Mauna Kea,
Hawaii. I felt better quite soon; the horse in gait and temper turned
out perfection--all spring and spirit, elastic in his motion, walking
fast and easily, and cantering with a light, graceful swing as soon as
one pressed the reins on his neck, a blithe, joyous animal, to whom a
day among the mountains seemed a pleasant frolic. So gentle he was,
that when I got off and walked he followed me without being led, and
without needing any one to hold him he allowed me to mount on either
side. In addition to the charm of his movements he has the catlike
sure-footedness of a Hawaiian horse, and fords rapid and rough-bottomed
rivers, and gallops among stones and stumps, and down steep hills, with
equal security. I could have ridden him a hundred miles as easily as
thirty. We have only been together two days, yet we are firm friends,
and thoroughly understand each other. I should not require another
companion on a long mountain tour. All his ways are those of an animal
brought up without curb, whip, or spur, trained by the voice, and used
only to kindness, as is happily the case with the majority of horses in
the Western States. Consequently, unless they are broncos, they
exercise their intelligence for your advantage, and do their work
rather as friends than as machines.
I soon began not only to feel better, but to be exhilarated with the
delightful motion. The sun was behind us, and puffs of a cool elastic
air came down from the glorious mountains in front. We cantered across
six miles of prairie, and then reached the beautiful canyon of the St.
Vrain, which, towards its mouth, is a narrow, fertile, wooded valley,
through which a bright rapid river, which we forded many times, hurries
along, with twists and windings innumerable. Ah, how brightly its
ripples danced in the glittering sunshine, and how musically its waters
murmured like the streams of windward Hawaii! We lost our way over and
over again, though the "innocent" young men had been there before;
indeed, it would require some talent to master the intricacies of that
devious trail, but settlers making hay always appeared in the nick of
time to put us on the right track. Very fair it was, after the brown
and burning plains, and the variety was endless. Cotton-wood trees
were green and bright, aspens shivered in gold tremulousness, wild
grape-vines trailed their lemon-colored foliage along the ground, and
the Virginia creeper hung its crimson sprays here and there, lightening
up green and gold into glory. Sometimes from under the cool and bowery
shade of the colored tangle we passed into the cool St. Vrain, and then
were wedged between its margin and lofty cliffs and terraces of
incredibly staring, fantastic rocks, lined, patched, and splashed with
carmine, vermilion, greens of all tints, blue, yellow, orange, violet,
deep crimson, coloring that no artist would dare to represent, and of
which, in sober prose, I scarcely dare tell. Long's wonderful peaks,
which hitherto had gleamed above the green, now disappeared, to be seen
no more for twenty miles. We entered on an ascending valley, where the
gorgeous hues of the rocks were intensified by the blue gloom of the
pitch pines, and then taking a track to the north-west, we left the
softer world behind, and all traces of man and his works, and plunged
into the Rocky Mountains.
There were wonderful ascents then up which I led my horse; wild
fantastic views opening up continually, a recurrence of surprises; the
air keener and purer with every mile, the sensation of loneliness more
singular. A tremendous ascent among rocks and pines to a height of
9,000 feet brought us to a passage seven feet wide through a wall of
rock, with an abrupt descent of 2,000 feet, and a yet higher ascent
beyond. I never saw anything so strange as looking back. It was a
single gigantic ridge which we had passed through, standing up
knifelike, built up entirely of great brick-shaped masses of bright red
rock, some of them as large as the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, piled
one on another by Titans. Pitch pines grew out of their crevices, but
there was not a vestige of soil. Beyond, wall beyond wall of similar
construction, and range above range, rose into the blue sky. Fifteen
miles more over great ridges, along passes dark with shadow, and so
narrow that we had to ride in the beds of the streams which had
excavated them, round the bases of colossal pyramids of rock crested
with pines, up into fair upland "parks," scarlet in patches with the
poison oak, parks so beautifully arranged by nature that I momentarily
expected to come upon some stately mansion, but that afternoon crested
blue jays and chipmunks had them all to themselves. Here, in the early
morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk, come down to feed, and
there, in the night, prowl and growl the Rocky Mountain lion, the
grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf. There were chasms of immense
depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains with snow
gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to bewilder and
grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools, and cool depths of
shadow; mountains again, dense with pines, among which patches of aspen
gleamed like gold; valleys where the yellow cotton-wood mingled with
the crimson oak, and so, on and on through the lengthening shadows,
till the trail, which in places had been hardly legible, became well
defined, and we entered a long gulch with broad swellings of grass
belted with pines.
A very pretty mare, hobbled, was feeding; a collie dog barked at us,
and among the scrub, not far from the track, there was a rude, black
log cabin, as rough as it could be to be a shelter at all, with smoke
coming out of the roof and window. We diverged towards it; it mattered
not that it was the home, or rather den, of a notorious "ruffian" and
"desperado." One of my companions had disappeared hours before, the
remaining one was a town-bred youth. I longed to speak to some one who
loved the mountains. I called the hut a DEN--it looked like the den of
a wild beast. The big dog lay outside it in a threatening attitude and
growled. The mud roof was covered with lynx, beaver, and other furs
laid out to dry, beaver paws were pinned out on the logs, a part of the
carcass of a deer hung at one end of the cabin, a skinned beaver lay in
front of a heap of peltry just within the door, and antlers of deer,
old horseshoes, and offal of many animals, lay about the den.
Roused by the growling of the dog, his owner came out, a broad,
thickset man, about the middle height, with an old cap on his head, and
wearing a grey hunting suit much the worse for wear (almost falling to
pieces, in fact), a digger's scarf knotted round his waist, a knife in
his belt, and "a bosom friend," a revolver, sticking out of the breast
pocket of his coat; his feet, which were very small, were bare, except
for some dilapidated moccasins made of horse hide. The marvel was how
his clothes hung together, and on him. The scarf round his waist must
have had something to do with it. His face was remarkable. He is a
man about forty-five, and must have been strikingly handsome. He has
large grey-blue eyes, deeply set, with well-marked eyebrows, a handsome
aquiline nose, and a very handsome mouth. His face was smooth shaven
except for a dense mustache and imperial. Tawny hair, in thin
uncared-for curls, fell from under his hunter's cap and over his
collar. One eye was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the
face repulsive, while the other might have been modeled in marble.
"Desperado" was written in large letters all over him. I almost
repented of having sought his acquaintance. His first impulse was to
swear at the dog, but on seeing a lady he contented himself with
kicking him, and coming to me he raised his cap, showing as he did so a
magnificently-formed brow and head, and in a cultured tone of voice
asked if there were anything he could do for me? I asked for some
water, and he brought some in a battered tin, gracefully apologizing
for not having anything more presentable. We entered into
conversation, and as he spoke I forgot both his reputation and
appearance, for his manner was that of a chivalrous gentleman, his
accent refined, and his language easy and elegant. I inquired about
some beavers' paws which were drying, and in a moment they hung on the
horn of my saddle. Apropos of the wild animals of the region, he told
me that the loss of his eye was owing to a recent encounter with a
grizzly bear, which, after giving him a death hug, tearing him all
over, breaking his arm and scratching out his eye, had left him for
dead. As we rode away, for the sun was sinking, he said, courteously,
"You are not an American. I know from your voice that you are a
countrywoman of mine. I hope you will allow me the pleasure of calling
on you." [12]
[12] Of this unhappy man, who was shot nine months later within two
miles of his cabin, I write in the subsequent letters only as he
appeared to me. His life, without doubt, was deeply stained with
crimes and vices, and his reputation for ruffianism was a deserved one.
But in my intercourse with him I saw more of his nobler instincts than
of the darker parts of his character, which, unfortunately for himself
and others, showed itself in its worst colors at the time of his tragic
end. It was not until after I left Colorado, not indeed until after
his death, that I heard of the worst points of his character.
This man, known through the Territories and beyond them as "Rocky
Mountain Jim," or, more briefly, as "Mountain Jim," is one of the
famous scouts of the Plains, and is the original of some daring
portraits in fiction concerning Indian Frontier warfare. So far as I
have at present heard, he is a man for whom there is now no room, for
the time for blows and blood in this part of Colorado is past, and the
fame of many daring exploits is sullied by crimes which are not easily
forgiven here. He now has a "squatter's claim," but makes his living
as a trapper, and is a complete child of the mountains. Of his genius
and chivalry to women there does not appear to be any doubt; but he is
a desperate character, and is subject to "ugly fits," when people think
it best to avoid him. It is here regarded as an evil that he has
located himself at the mouth of the only entrance to the park, for he
is dangerous with his pistols, and it would be safer if he were not
here. His besetting sin is indicated in the verdict pronounced on him
by my host: "When he's sober Jim's a perfect gentleman; but when he's
had liquor he's the most awful ruffian in Colorado."
From the ridge on which this gulch terminates, at a height of 9,000
feet, we saw at last Estes Park, lying 1,500 feet below in the glory of
the setting sun, an irregular basin, lighted up by the bright waters of
the rushing Thompson, guarded by sentinel mountains of fantastic shape
and monstrous size, with Long's Peak rising above them all in
unapproachable grandeur, while the Snowy Range, with its outlying spurs
heavily timbered, come down upon the park slashed by stupendous canyons
lying deep in purple gloom. The rushing river was blood red, Long's
Peak was aflame, the glory of the glowing heaven was given back from
earth. Never, nowhere, have I seen anything to equal the view into
Estes Park. The mountains "of the land which is very far off" are very
near now, but the near is more glorious than the far, and reality than
dreamland. The mountain fever seized me, and, giving my tireless horse
one encouraging word, he dashed at full gallop over a mile of smooth
sward at delirious speed.
But I was hungry, and the air was frosty, and I was wondering what the
prospects of food and shelter were in this enchanted region, when we
came suddenly upon a small lake, close to which was a very trim-looking
log cabin, with a flat mud roof, with four smaller ones; picturesquely
dotted about near it, two corrals,[13] a long shed, in front of which a
steer was being killed, a log dairy with a water wheel, some hay piles,
and various evidences of comfort; and two men, on serviceable horses,
were just bringing in some tolerable cows to be milked. A short,
pleasant-looking man ran up to me and shook hands gleefully, which
surprised me; but he has since told me that in the evening light he
thought I was "Mountain Jim, dressed up as a woman!" I recognized in
him a countryman, and he introduced himself as Griffith Evans, a
Welshman from the slate quarries near Llanberis. When the cabin door
was opened I saw a good-sized log room, unchinked, however, with
windows of infamous glass, looking two ways; a rough stone fireplace,
in which pine logs, half as large as I am, were burning; a boarded
floor, a round table, two rocking chairs, a carpet-covered backwoods
couch; and skins, Indian bows and arrows, wampum belts, and antlers,
fitly decorated the rough walls, and equally fitly, rifles were stuck
up in the corners. Seven men, smoking, were lying about on the floor,
a sick man lay on the couch, and a middle-aged lady sat at the table
writing. I went out again and asked Evans if he could take me in,
expecting nothing better than a shakedown; but, to my joy, he told me
he could give me a cabin to myself, two minutes' walk from his own. So
in this glorious upper world, with the mountain pines behind and the
clear lake in front, in the "blue hollow at the foot of Long's Peak,"
at a height of 7,500 feet, where the hoar frost crisps the grass every
night of the year, I have found far more than I ever dared to hope for.
[13] A corral is a fenced enclosure for cattle. This word, with
bronco, ranch, and a few others, are adaptations from the Spanish, and
are used as extensively throughout California and the Territories as is
the Spanish or Mexican saddle.
I. L. B.
Letter VII
Personality of Long's Peak--"Mountain Jim"--Lake of the Lilies--A
silent forest--The camping ground--"Ring"--A lady's bower--Dawn and
sunrise--A glorious view--Links of diamonds--The ascent of the
Peak--The "Dog's Lift"--Suffering from thirst--The descent--The bivouac.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO, October.
As this account of the ascent of Long's Peak could not be written at
the time, I am much disinclined to write it, especially as no sort of
description within my powers could enable another to realize the
glorious sublimity, the majestic solitude, and the unspeakable
awfulness and fascination of the scenes in which I spent Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Long's Peak, 14,700 feet high, blocks up one end of Estes Park, and
dwarfs all the surrounding mountains. From it on this side rise,
snow-born, the bright St. Vrain, and the Big and Little Thompson. By
sunlight or moonlight its splintered grey crest is the one object
which, in spite of wapiti and bighorn, skunk and grizzly, unfailingly
arrests the eyes. From it come all storms of snow and wind, and the
forked lightnings play round its head like a glory. It is one of the
noblest of mountains, but in one's imagination it grows to be much more
than a mountain. It becomes invested with a personality. In its
caverns and abysses one comes to fancy that it generates and chains the
strong winds, to let them loose in its fury. The thunder becomes its
voice, and the lightnings do it homage. Other summits blush under the
morning kiss of the sun, and turn pale the next moment; but it detains
the first sunlight and holds it round its head for an hour at least,
till it pleases to change from rosy red to deep blue; and the sunset,
as if spell-bound, lingers latest on its crest. The soft winds which
hardly rustle the pine needles down here are raging rudely up there
round its motionless summit. The mark of fire is upon it; and though
it has passed into a grim repose, it tells of fire and upheaval as
truly, though not as eloquently, as the living volcanoes of Hawaii.
Here under its shadow one learns how naturally nature worship, and the
propitiation of the forces of nature, arose in minds which had no
better light.
Long's Peak, "the American Matterhorn," as some call it, was ascended
five years ago for the first time. I thought I should like to attempt
it, but up to Monday, when Evans left for Denver, cold water was thrown
upon the project. It was too late in the season, the winds were likely
to be strong, etc.; but just before leaving, Evans said that the
weather was looking more settled, and if I did not get farther than the
timber line it would be worth going. Soon after he left, "Mountain
Jim" came in, and said he would go up as guide, and the two youths who
rode here with me from Longmount and I caught at the proposal. Mrs.
Edwards at once baked bread for three days, steaks were cut from the
steer which hangs up conveniently, and tea, sugar, and butter were
benevolently added. Our picnic was not to be a luxurious or
"well-found" one, for, in order to avoid the expense of a pack mule, we
limited our luggage to what our saddle horses could carry. Behind my
saddle I carried three pair of camping blankets and a quilt, which
reached to my shoulders. My own boots were so much worn that it was
painful to walk, even about the park, in them, so Evans had lent me a
pair of his hunting boots, which hung to the horn of my saddle. The
horses of the two young men were equally loaded, for we had to prepare
for many degrees of frost. "Jim" was a shocking figure; he had on an
old pair of high boots, with a baggy pair of old trousers made of deer
hide, held on by an old scarf tucked into them; a leather shirt, with
three or four ragged unbuttoned waistcoats over it; an old smashed
wideawake, from under which his tawny, neglected ringlets hung; and
with his one eye, his one long spur, his knife in his belt, his
revolver in his waistcoat pocket, his saddle covered with an old beaver
skin, from which the paws hung down; his camping blankets behind him,
his rifle laid across the saddle in front of him, and his axe, canteen,
and other gear hanging to the horn, he was as awful-looking a ruffian
as one could see. By way of contrast he rode a small Arab mare, of
exquisite beauty, skittish, high spirited, gentle, but altogether too
light for him, and he fretted her incessantly to make her display
herself.
Heavily loaded as all our horses were, "Jim" started over the half-mile
of level grass at a hard gallop, and then throwing his mare on her
haunches, pulled up alongside of me, and with a grace of manner which
soon made me forget his appearance, entered into a conversation which
lasted for more than three hours, in spite of the manifold checks of
fording streams, single file, abrupt ascents and descents, and other
incidents of mountain travel. The ride was one series of glories and
surprises, of "park" and glade, of lake and stream, of mountains on
mountains, culminating in the rent pinnacles of Long's Peak, which
looked yet grander and ghastlier as we crossed an attendant mountain
11,000 feet high. The slanting sun added fresh beauty every hour.
There were dark pines against a lemon sky, grey peaks reddening and
etherealizing, gorges of deep and infinite blue, floods of golden glory
pouring through canyons of enormous depth, an atmosphere of absolute
purity, an occasional foreground of cottonwood and aspen flaunting in
red and gold to intensify the blue gloom of the pines, the trickle and
murmur of streams fringed with icicles, the strange sough of gusts
moving among the pine tops--sights and sounds not of the lower earth,
but of the solitary, beast-haunted, frozen upper altitudes. From the
dry, buff grass of Estes Park we turned off up a trail on the side of a
pine-hung gorge, up a steep pine-clothed hill, down to a small valley,
rich in fine, sun-cured hay about eighteen inches high, and enclosed by
high mountains whose deepest hollow contains a lily-covered lake, fitly
named "The Lake of the Lilies." Ah, how magical its beauty was, as it
slept in silence, while THERE the dark pines were mirrored motionless
in its pale gold, and HERE the great white lily cups and dark green
leaves rested on amethyst-colored water!
From this we ascended into the purple gloom of great pine forests which
clothe the skirts of the mountains up to a height of about 11,000 feet,
and from their chill and solitary depths we had glimpses of golden
atmosphere and rose-lit summits, not of "the land very far off," but of
the land nearer now in all its grandeur, gaining in sublimity by
nearness--glimpses, too, through a broken vista of purple gorges, of
the illimitable Plains lying idealized in the late sunlight, their
baked, brown expanse transfigured into the likeness of a sunset sea
rolling infinitely in waves of misty gold.
We rode upwards through the gloom on a steep trail blazed through the
forest, all my intellect concentrated on avoiding being dragged off my
horse by impending branches, or having the blankets badly torn, as
those of my companions were, by sharp dead limbs, between which there
was hardly room to pass--the horses breathless, and requiring to stop
every few yards, though their riders, except myself, were afoot. The
gloom of the dense, ancient, silent forest is to me awe inspiring. On
such an evening it is soundless, except for the branches creaking in
the soft wind, the frequent snap of decayed timber, and a murmur in the
pine tops as of a not distant waterfall, all tending to produce
EERINESS and a sadness "hardly akin to pain." There no lumberer's axe
has ever rung. The trees die when they have attained their prime, and
stand there, dead and bare, till the fierce mountain winds lay them
prostrate. The pines grew smaller and more sparse as we ascended, and
the last stragglers wore a tortured, warring look. The timber line was
passed, but yet a little higher a slope of mountain meadow dipped to
the south-west towards a bright stream trickling under ice and icicles,
and there a grove of the beautiful silver spruce marked our camping
ground. The trees were in miniature, but so exquisitely arranged that
one might well ask what artist's hand had planted them, scattering them
here, clumping them there, and training their slim spires towards
heaven. Hereafter, when I call up memories of the glorious, the view
from this camping ground will come up. Looking east, gorges opened to
the distant Plains, then fading into purple grey. Mountains with
pine-clothed skirts rose in ranges, or, solitary, uplifted their grey
summits, while close behind, but nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered
the bald white crest of Long's Peak, its huge precipices red with the
light of a sun long lost to our eyes. Close to us, in the caverned
side of the Peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal.
Soon the afterglow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung
out of the heavens, shining through the silver blue foliage of the
pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the whole into
fairyland. The "photo" which accompanies this letter is by a
courageous Denver artist who attempted the ascent just before I
arrived, but, after camping out at the timber line for a week, was
foiled by the perpetual storms, and was driven down again, leaving some
very valuable apparatus about 3,000 feet from the summit.