shoots, and dragging up logs for fuel, warmed us all. "Jim" built up a
great fire, and before long we were all sitting around it at supper.
It didn't matter much that we had to drink our tea out of the battered
meat tins in which it was boiled, and eat strips of beef reeking with
pine smoke without plates or forks.
"Treat Jim as a gentleman and you'll find him one," I had been told;
and though his manner was certainly bolder and freer than that of
gentlemen generally, no imaginary fault could be found. He was very
agreeable as a man of culture as well as a child of nature; the
desperado was altogether out of sight. He was very courteous and even
kind to me, which was fortunate, as the young men had little idea of
showing even ordinary civilities. That night I made the acquaintance
of his dog "Ring," said to be the best hunting dog in Colorado, with
the body and legs of a collie, but a head approaching that of a
mastiff, a noble face with a wistful human expression, and the most
truthful eyes I ever saw in an animal. His master loves him if he
loves anything, but in his savage moods ill-treats him. "Ring's"
devotion never swerves, and his truthful eyes are rarely taken off his
master's face. He is almost human in his intelligence, and, unless he
is told to do so, he never takes notice of any one but "Jim." In a
tone as if speaking to a human being, his master, pointing to me, said,
"Ring, go to that lady, and don't leave her again to-night." "Ring" at
once came to me, looked into my face, laid his head on my shoulder, and
then lay down beside me with his head on my lap, but never taking his
eyes from "Jim's" face.
The long shadows of the pines lay upon the frosted grass, an aurora
leaped fitfully, and the moonlight, though intensely bright, was pale
beside the red, leaping flames of our pine logs and their red glow on
our gear, ourselves, and Ring's truthful face. One of the young men
sang a Latin student's song and two Negro melodies; the other "Sweet
Spirit, hear my Prayer." "Jim" sang one of Moore's melodies in a
singular falsetto, and all together sang, "The Star-spangled Banner"
and "The Red, White, and Blue." Then "Jim" recited a very clever poem
of his own composition, and told some fearful Indian stories. A group
of small silver spruces away from the fire was my sleeping place. The
artist who had been up there had so woven and interlaced their lower
branches as to form a bower, affording at once shelter from the wind
and a most agreeable privacy. It was thickly strewn with young pine
shoots, and these, when covered with a blanket, with an inverted saddle
for a pillow, made a luxurious bed. The mercury at 9 P.M. was 12
degrees below the freezing point. "Jim," after a last look at the
horses, made a huge fire, and stretched himself out beside it, but
"Ring" lay at my back to keep me warm. I could not sleep, but the
night passed rapidly. I was anxious about the ascent, for gusts of
ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. Then wild animals
howled, and "Ring" was perturbed in spirit about them. Then it was
strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man, sleeping as
quietly as innocence sleeps. But, above all, it was exciting to lie
there, with no better shelter than a bower of pines, on a mountain
11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the Rocky Range, under twelve
degrees of frost, hearing sounds of wolves, with shivering stars
looking through the fragrant canopy, with arrowy pines for bed-posts,
and for a night lamp the red flames of a camp-fire.
Day dawned long before the sun rose, pure and lemon colored. The rest
were looking after the horses, when one of the students came running to
tell me that I must come farther down the slope, for "Jim" said he had
never seen such a sunrise. From the chill, grey Peak above, from the
everlasting snows, from the silvered pines, down through mountain
ranges with their depths of Tyrian purple, we looked to where the
Plains lay cold, in blue-grey, like a morning sea against a far
horizon. Suddenly, as a dazzling streak at first, but enlarging
rapidly into a dazzling sphere, the sun wheeled above the grey line, a
light and glory as when it was first created. "Jim" involuntarily and
reverently uncovered his head, and exclaimed, "I believe there is a
God!" I felt as if, Parsee-like, I must worship. The grey of the
Plains changed to purple, the sky was all one rose-red flush, on which
vermilion cloud-streaks rested; the ghastly peaks gleamed like rubies,
the earth and heavens were new created. Surely "the Most High dwelleth
not in temples made with hands!" For a full hour those Plains
simulated the ocean, down to whose limitless expanse of purple, cliff,
rocks, and promontories swept down.
By seven we had finished breakfast, and passed into the ghastlier
solitudes above, I riding as far as what, rightly, or wrongly, are
called the "Lava Beds," an expanse of large and small boulders, with
snow in their crevices. It was very cold; some water which we crossed
was frozen hard enough to bear the horse. "Jim" had advised me against
taking any wraps, and my thin Hawaiian riding dress, only fit for the
tropics, was penetrated by the keen air. The rarefied atmosphere soon
began to oppress our breathing, and I found that Evans's boots were so
large that I had no foothold. Fortunately, before the real difficulty
of the ascent began, we found, under a rock, a pair of small overshoes,
probably left by the Hayden exploring expedition, which just lasted for
the day. As we were leaping from rock to rock, "Jim" said, "I was
thinking in the night about your traveling alone, and wondering where
you carried your Derringer, for I could see no signs of it." On my
telling him that I traveled unarmed, he could hardly believe it, and
adjured me to get a revolver at once.
On arriving at the "Notch" (a literal gate of rock), we found ourselves
absolutely on the knifelike ridge or backbone of Long's Peak, only a
few feet wide, covered with colossal boulders and fragments, and on the
other side shelving in one precipitous, snow-patched sweep of 3,000
feet to a picturesque hollow, containing a lake of pure green water.
Other lakes, hidden among dense pine woods, were farther off, while
close above us rose the Peak, which, for about 500 feet, is a smooth,
gaunt, inaccessible-looking pile of granite. Passing through the
"Notch," we looked along the nearly inaccessible side of the Peak,
composed of boulders and debris of all shapes and sizes, through which
appeared broad, smooth ribs of reddish-colored granite, looking as if
they upheld the towering rock mass above. I usually dislike bird's-eye
and panoramic views, but, though from a mountain, this was not one.
Serrated ridges, not much lower than that on which we stood, rose, one
beyond another, far as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision,
broken into awful chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles
piercing the heavenly blue with their cold, barren grey, on, on for
ever, till the most distant range upbore unsullied snow alone. There
were fair lakes mirroring the dark pine woods, canyons dark and
blue-black with unbroken expanses of pines, snow-slashed pinnacles,
wintry heights frowning upon lovely parks, watered and wooded, lying in
the lap of summer; North Park floating off into the blue distance,
Middle Park closed till another season, the sunny slopes of Estes Park,
and winding down among the mountains the snowy ridge of the Divide,
whose bright waters seek both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There,
far below, links of diamonds showed where the Grand River takes its
rise to seek the mysterious Colorado, with its still unsolved enigma,
and lose itself in the waters of the Pacific; and nearer the snow-born
Thompson bursts forth from the ice to begin its journey to the Gulf of
Mexico. Nature, rioting in her grandest mood, exclaimed with voices of
grandeur, solitude, sublimity, beauty, and infinity, "Lord, what is
man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou
visitest him?" Never-to-be-forgotten glories they were, burnt in upon
my memory by six succeeding hours of terror.
You know I have no head and no ankles, and never ought to dream of
mountaineering; and had I known that the ascent was a real
mountaineering feat I should not have felt the slightest ambition to
perform it. As it is, I am only humiliated by my success, for "Jim"
dragged me up, like a bale of goods, by sheer force of muscle. At the
"Notch" the real business of the ascent began. Two thousand feet of
solid rock towered above us, four thousand feet of broken rock shelved
precipitously below; smooth granite ribs, with barely foothold, stood
out here and there; melted snow refrozen several times, presented a
more serious obstacle; many of the rocks were loose, and tumbled down
when touched. To me it was a time of extreme terror. I was roped to
"Jim," but it was of no use; my feet were paralyzed and slipped on the
bare rock, and he said it was useless to try to go that way, and we
retraced our steps. I wanted to return to the "Notch," knowing that my
incompetence would detain the party, and one of the young men said
almost plainly that a woman was a dangerous encumbrance, but the
trapper replied shortly that if it were not to take a lady up he would
not go up at all. He went on to explore, and reported that further
progress on the correct line of ascent was blocked by ice; and then for
two hours we descended, lowering ourselves by our hands from rock to
rock along a boulder-strewn sweep of 4,000 feet, patched with ice and
snow, and perilous from rolling stones. My fatigue, giddiness, and
pain from bruised ankles, and arms half pulled out of their sockets,
were so great that I should never have gone halfway had not "Jim,"
nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience and skill, and withal a
determination that I should ascend the Peak, which never failed. After
descending about 2,000 feet to avoid the ice, we got into a deep ravine
with inaccessible sides, partly filled with ice and snow and partly
with large and small fragments of rock, which were constantly giving
away, rendering the footing very insecure. That part to me was two
hours of painful and unwilling submission to the inevitable; of
trembling, slipping, straining, of smooth ice appearing when it was
least expected, and of weak entreaties to be left behind while the
others went on. "Jim" always said that there was no danger, that there
was only a short bad bit ahead, and that I should go up even if he
carried me!
Slipping, faltering, gasping from the exhausting toil in the rarefied
air, with throbbing hearts and panting lungs, we reached the top of the
gorge and squeezed ourselves between two gigantic fragments of rock by
a passage called the "Dog's Lift," when I climbed on the shoulders of
one man and then was hauled up. This introduced us by an abrupt turn
round the south-west angle of the Peak to a narrow shelf of
considerable length, rugged, uneven, and so overhung by the cliff in
some places that it is necessary to crouch to pass at all. Above, the
Peak looks nearly vertical for 400 feet; and below, the most tremendous
precipice I have ever seen descends in one unbroken fall. This is
usually considered the most dangerous part of the ascent, but it does
not seem so to me, for such foothold as there is is secure, and one
fancies that it is possible to hold on with the hands. But there, and
on the final, and, to my thinking, the worst part of the climb, one
slip, and a breathing, thinking, human being would lie 3,000 feet
below, a shapeless, bloody heap! "Ring" refused to traverse the Ledge,
and remained at the "Lift" howling piteously.
From thence the view is more magnificent even than that from the
"Notch." At the foot of the precipice below us lay a lovely lake, wood
embosomed, from or near which the bright St. Vrain and other streams
take their rise. I thought how their clear cold waters, growing turbid
in the affluent flats, would heat under the tropic sun, and eventually
form part of that great ocean river which renders our far-off islands
habitable by impinging on their shores. Snowy ranges, one behind the
other, extended to the distant horizon, folding in their wintry embrace
the beauties of Middle Park. Pike's Peak, more than one hundred miles
off, lifted that vast but shapeless summit which is the landmark of
southern Colorado. There were snow patches, snow slashes, snow
abysses, snow forlorn and soiled looking, snow pure and dazzling, snow
glistening above the purple robe of pine worn by all the mountains;
while away to the east, in limitless breadth, stretched the green-grey
of the endless Plains. Giants everywhere reared their splintered
crests. From thence, with a single sweep, the eye takes in a distance
of 300 miles--that distance to the west, north, and south being made up
of mountains ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen thousand feet in height,
dominated by Long's Peak, Gray's Peak, and Pike's Peak, all nearly the
height of Mont Blanc! On the Plains we traced the rivers by their
fringe of cottonwoods to the distant Platte, and between us and them
lay glories of mountain, canyon, and lake, sleeping in depths of blue
and purple most ravishing to the eye.
As we crept from the ledge round a horn of rock I beheld what made me
perfectly sick and dizzy to look at--the terminal Peak itself--a
smooth, cracked face or wall of pink granite, as nearly perpendicular
as anything could well be up which it was possible to climb, well
deserving the name of the "American Matterhorn." [14]
[14] Let no practical mountaineer be allured by my description into the
ascent of Long's Peak. Truly terrible as it was to me, to a member of
the Alpine Club it would not be a feat worth performing.
SCALING, not climbing, is the correct term for this last ascent. It
took one hour to accomplish 500 feet, pausing for breath every minute
or two. The only foothold was in narrow cracks or on minute
projections on the granite. To get a toe in these cracks, or here and
there on a scarcely obvious projection, while crawling on hands and
knees, all the while tortured with thirst and gasping and struggling
for breath, this was the climb; but at last the Peak was won. A grand,
well-defined mountain top it is, a nearly level acre of boulders, with
precipitous sides all round, the one we came up being the only
accessible one.
It was not possible to remain long. One of the young men was seriously
alarmed by bleeding from the lungs, and the intense dryness of the day
and the rarefication of the air, at a height of nearly 15,000 feet,
made respiration very painful. There is always water on the Peak, but
it was frozen as hard as a rock, and the sucking of ice and snow
increases thirst. We all suffered severely from the want of water, and
the gasping for breath made our mouths and tongues so dry that
articulation was difficult, and the speech of all unnatural.
From the summit were seen in unrivalled combination all the views which
had rejoiced our eyes during the ascent. It was something at last to
stand upon the storm-rent crown of this lonely sentinel of the Rocky
Range, on one of the mightiest of the vertebrae of the backbone of the
North American continent, and to see the waters start for both oceans.
Uplifted above love and hate and storms of passion, calm amidst the
eternal silences, fanned by zephyrs and bathed in living blue, peace
rested for that one bright day on the Peak, as if it were some region
Where falls not rain, or hail, or any snow,
Or ever wind blows loudly.
We placed our names, with the date of ascent, in a tin within a
crevice, and descended to the Ledge, sitting on the smooth granite,
getting our feet into cracks and against projections, and letting
ourselves down by our hands, "Jim" going before me, so that I might
steady my feet against his powerful shoulders. I was no longer giddy,
and faced the precipice of 3,500 feet without a shiver. Repassing the
Ledge and Lift, we accomplished the descent through 1,500 feet of ice
and snow, with many falls and bruises, but no worse mishap, and there
separated, the young men taking the steepest but most direct way to the
"Notch," with the intention of getting ready for the march home, and
"Jim" and I taking what he thought the safer route for me--a descent
over boulders for 2,000 feet, and then a tremendous ascent to the
"Notch." I had various falls, and once hung by my frock, which caught
on a rock, and "Jim" severed it with his hunting knife, upon which I
fell into a crevice full of soft snow. We were driven lower down the
mountains than he had intended by impassable tracts of ice, and the
ascent was tremendous. For the last 200 feet the boulders were of
enormous size, and the steepness fearful. Sometimes I drew myself up
on hands and knees, sometimes crawled; sometimes "Jim" pulled me up by
my arms or a lariat, and sometimes I stood on his shoulders, or he made
steps for me of his feet and hands, but at six we stood on the "Notch"
in the splendor of the sinking sun, all color deepening, all peaks
glorifying, all shadows purpling, all peril past.
"Jim" had parted with his brusquerie when we parted from the students,
and was gentle and considerate beyond anything, though I knew that he
must be grievously disappointed, both in my courage and strength.
Water was an object of earnest desire. My tongue rattled in my mouth,
and I could hardly articulate. It is good for one's sympathies to have
for once a severe experience of thirst. Truly, there was
Water, water, everywhere,
But not a drop to drink.
Three times its apparent gleam deceived even the mountaineer's
practiced eye, but we found only a foot of "glare ice." At last, in a
deep hole, he succeeded in breaking the ice, and by putting one's arm
far down one could scoop up a little water in one's hand, but it was
tormentingly insufficient. With great difficulty and much assistance I
recrossed the "Lava Beds," was carried to the horse and lifted upon
him, and when we reached the camping ground I was lifted off him, and
laid on the ground wrapped up in blankets, a humiliating termination of
a great exploit. The horses were saddled, and the young men were all
ready to start, but "Jim" quietly said, "Now, gentlemen, I want a good
night's rest, and we shan't stir from here to-night." I believe they
were really glad to have it so, as one of them was quite "finished." I
retired to my arbor, wrapped myself in a roll of blankets, and was soon
asleep.
When I woke, the moon was high shining through the silvery branches,
whitening the bald Peak above, and glittering on the great abyss of
snow behind, and pine logs were blazing like a bonfire in the cold
still air. My feet were so icy cold that I could not sleep again, and
getting some blankets to sit in, and making a roll of them for my back,
I sat for two hours by the camp-fire. It was weird and gloriously
beautiful. The students were asleep not far off in their blankets with
their feet towards the fire. "Ring" lay on one side of me with his
fine head on my arm, and his master sat smoking, with the fire lighting
up the handsome side of his face, and except for the tones of our
voices, and an occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot blazed
up, there was no sound on the mountain side. The beloved stars of my
far-off home were overhead, the Plough and Pole Star, with their steady
light; the glittering Pleiades, looking larger than I ever saw them,
and "Orion's studded belt" shining gloriously. Once only some wild
animals prowled near the camp, when "Ring," with one bound, disappeared
from my side; and the horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke
their lariats, stampeded, and came rushing wildly towards the fire, and
it was fully half an hour before they were caught and quiet was
restored. "Jim," or Mr. Nugent, as I always scrupulously called him,
told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow which had led
him to embark on a lawless and desperate life. His voice trembled, and
tears rolled down his cheek. Was it semi-conscious acting, I wondered,
or was his dark soul really stirred to its depths by the silence, the
beauty, and the memories of youth?
We reached Estes Park at noon of the following day. A more successful
ascent of the Peak was never made, and I would not now exchange my
memories of its perfect beauty and extraordinary sublimity for any
other experience of mountaineering in any part of the world. Yesterday
snow fell on the summit, and it will be inaccessible for eight months
to come.
I. L. B.
Letter VIII
Estes Park--Big game--"Parks" in Colorado--Magnificent scenery--Flowers
and pines--An awful road--Our log cabin--Griffith Evans--A miniature
world--Our topics--A night alarm--A skunk--Morning glories--Daily
routine--The panic--"Wait for the wagon"--A musical evening.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO TERRITORY, October 2.
How time has slipped by I do not know. This is a glorious region, and
the air and life are intoxicating. I live mainly out of doors and on
horseback, wear my half-threadbare Hawaiian dress, sleep sometimes
under the stars on a bed of pine boughs, ride on a Mexican saddle, and
hear once more the low music of my Mexican spurs. "There's a stranger!
Heave arf a brick at him!" is said by many travelers to express the
feeling of the new settlers in these Territories. This is not my
experience in my cheery mountain home. How the rafters ring as I write
with songs and mirth, while the pitch-pine logs blaze and crackle in
the chimney, and the fine snow dust drives in through the chinks and
forms mimic snow wreaths on the floor, and the wind raves and howls and
plays among the creaking pine branches and snaps them short off, and
the lightning plays round the blasted top of Long's Peak, and the hardy
hunters divert themselves with the thought that when I go to bed I must
turn out and face the storm!
You will ask, "What is Estes Park?" This name, with the quiet Midland
Countries' sound, suggests "park palings" well lichened, a lodge with a
curtseying woman, fallow deer, and a Queen Anne mansion. Such as it
is, Estes Park is mine. It is unsurveyed, "no man's land," and mine by
right of love, appropriation, and appreciation; by the seizure of its
peerless sunrises and sunsets, its glorious afterglow, its blazing
noons, its hurricanes sharp and furious, its wild auroras, its glories
of mountain and forest, of canyon, lake, and river, and the
stereotyping them all in my memory. Mine, too, in a better than the
sportsman's sense, are its majestic wapiti, which play and fight under
the pines in the early morning, as securely as fallow deer under our
English oaks; its graceful "black-tails," swift of foot; its superb
bighorns, whose noble leader is to be seen now and then with his
classic head against the blue sky on the top of a colossal rock; its
sneaking mountain lion with his hideous nocturnal caterwaulings, the
great "grizzly," the beautiful skunk, the wary beaver, who is always
making lakes, damming and turning streams, cutting down young
cotton-woods, and setting an example of thrift and industry; the wolf,
greedy and cowardly; the coyote and the lynx, and all the lesser fry of
mink, marten, cat, hare, fox, squirrel, and chipmunk, as well as things
that fly, from the eagle down to the crested blue-jay. May their
number never be less, in spite of the hunter who kills for food and
gain, and the sportsman who kills and marauds for pastime!