at last to Longmount. The evening I rode out on the Longmount trail
towards dusk, escorted by "Mountain Jim," and in the distance we saw a
wagon with four horses and a saddle horse behind, and the driver waved
a handkerchief, the concerted signal if I were the possessor of a
horse. We turned back, galloping down the long hill as fast as two
good horses could carry us, and gave the joyful news. It was an hour
before the wagon arrived, bringing not Evans but two "campers" of
suspicious aspect, who have pitched their camp close to my cabin! You
cannot imagine what it is to be locked in by these mountain walls, and
not to know where your letters are lying. Later on, Mr. Buchan, one of
our usual inmates, returned from Denver with papers, letters for every
one but me, and much exciting news. The financial panic has spread out
West, gathering strength on its way. The Denver banks have all
suspended business. They refuse to cash their own checks, or to allow
their customers to draw a dollar, and would not even give green-backs
for my English gold! Neither Mr. Buchan nor Evans could get a cent.
Business is suspended, and everybody, however rich, is for the time
being poor. The Indians have taken to the "war path," and are burning
ranches and killing cattle. There is a regular "scare" among the
settlers, and wagon loads of fugitives are arriving in Colorado
Springs. The Indians say, "The white man has killed the buffalo and
left them to rot on the plains. We will be revenged." Evans had
reached Longmount, and will be here tonight.
October 10.
"Wait for the wagon" still! We had a hurricane of wind and hail last
night; it was eleven before I could go to my cabin, and I only reached
it with the help of two men. The moon was not up, and the sky overhead
was black with clouds, when suddenly Long's Peak, which had been
invisible, gleamed above the dark mountains, all glistening with
new-fallen snow, on which the moon, as yet uprisen here, was shining.
The evening before, after sunset, I saw another novel effect. My lake
turned a brilliant orange in the twilight, and in its still mirror the
mountains were reflected a deep rich blue. It is a world of wonders.
To-day we had a great storm with flurries of fine snow; and when the
clouds rolled up at noon, the Snowy Range and all the higher mountains
were pure white. I have been hard at work all day to drown my
anxieties, which are heightened by a rumor that Evans has gone
buffalo-hunting on the Platte!
This evening, quite unexpectedly, Evans arrived with a heavy mail in a
box. I sorted it, but there was nothing for me and Evans said he was
afraid that he had left my letters, which were separate from the
others, behind at Denver, but he had written from Longmount for them.
A few hours later they were found in a box of groceries!
All the hilarity of the house has returned with Evans, and he has
brought a kindred spirit with him, a young man who plays and sings
splendidly, has an inexhaustible repertoire, and produces sonatas,
funeral marches, anthems, reels, strathspeys, and all else, out of his
wonderful memory. Never, surely was a chamber organ compelled to such
service. A little cask of suspicious appearance was smuggled into the
cabin from the wagon, and heightens the hilarity a little, I fear. No
churlishness could resist Evans's unutterable jollity or the contagion
of his hearty laugh. He claps people on the back, shouts at them, will
do anything for them, and makes a perpetual breeze. "My kingdom for a
horse!" He has not got one for me, and a shadow crossed his face when
I spoke of the subject. Eventually he asked for a private conference,
when he told me, with some confusion, that he had found himself "very
hard up" in Denver, and had been obliged to appropriate my 100-dollar
note. He said he would give me, as interest for it up to November
25th, a good horse, saddle, and bridle for my proposed journey of 600
miles. I was somewhat dismayed, but there was no other course, as the
money was gone.
[16] I tried a horse, mended my clothes, reduced my pack to a weight of
twelve pounds, and was all ready for an early start, when before
daylight I was wakened by Evans's cheery voice at my door. "I say,
Miss B., we've got to drive wild cattle to-day; I wish you'd lend a
hand, there's not enough of us; I'll give you a good horse; one day
won't make much difference." So we've been driving cattle all day,
riding about twenty miles, and fording the Big Thompson about as many
times. Evans flatters me by saying that I am "as much use as another
man"; more than one of our party, I hope, who always avoided the "ugly"
cows.
[16] In justice to Evans, I must mention here that every cent of the
money was ultimately paid, that the horse was perfection, and that the
arrangement turned out a most advantageous one for me.
October 12.
I am still here, helping in the kitchen, driving cattle, and riding
four or five times a day. Evans detains me each morning by saying,
"Here's lots of horses for you to try," and after trying five or six a
day, I do not find one to my liking. Today, as I was cantering a tall
well-bred one round the lake, he threw the bridle off by a toss of his
head, leaving me with the reins in my hands; one bucked, and two have
tender feet, and tumbled down. Such are some of our little varieties.
Still I hope to get off on my tour in a day or two, so at least as to
be able to compare Estes Park with some of the better-known parts of
Colorado.
You would be amused if you could see our cabin just now. There are
nine men in the room and three women. For want of seats most of the
men are lying on the floor; all are smoking, and the blithe young
French Canadian who plays so beautifully, and catches about fifty
speckled trout for each meal, is playing the harmonium with a pipe in
his mouth. Three men who have camped in Black Canyon for a week are
lying like dogs on the floor. They are all over six feet high,
immovably solemn, neither smiling at the general hilarity, nor at the
absurd changes which are being rung on the harmonium. They may be
described as clothed only in boots, for their clothes are torn to rags.
They stare vacantly. They have neither seen a woman nor slept under a
roof for six months. Negro songs are being sung, and before that
"Yankee Doodle" was played immediately after "Rule Britannia," and it
made every one but the strangers laugh, it sounded so foolish and mean.
The colder weather is bringing the beasts down from the heights. I
heard both wolves and the mountain lion as I crossed to my cabin last
night.
I. L. B.
LETTER IX
"Please Ma'ams"--A desperado--A cattle hunt--The muster--A mad cow--A
snowstorm--Snowed up--Birdie--The Plains--A prairie schooner--Denver--A
find--Plum Creek--"Being agreeable"--Snowbound--The grey mare.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO.
This afternoon, as I was reading in my cabin, little Sam Edwards ran
in, saying, "Mountain Jim wants to speak to you." This brought to my
mind images of infinite worry, gauche servants, "please Ma'am,"
contretemps, and the habit growing out of our elaborate and uselessly
conventional life of magnifying the importance of similar trifles.
Then "things" came up, with the tyranny they exercise. I REALLY need
nothing more than this log cabin offers. But elsewhere one must have a
house and servants, and burdens and worries--not that one may be
hospitable and comfortable, but for the "thick clay" in the shape of
"things" which one has accumulated. My log house takes me about five
minutes to "do," and you could eat off the floor, and it needs no lock,
as it contains nothing worth stealing.
But "Mountain Jim" was waiting while I made these reflections to ask us
to take a ride; and he, Mr. and Mrs. Dewy, and I, had a delightful
stroll through colored foliage, and then, when they were fatigued, I
changed my horse for his beautiful mare, and we galloped and raced in
the beautiful twilight, in the intoxicating frosty air. Mrs. Dewy
wishes you could have seen us as we galloped down the pass, the
fearful-looking ruffian on my heavy wagon horse, and I on his bare
wooden saddle, from which beaver, mink, and marten tails, and pieces of
skin, were hanging raggedly, with one spur, and feet not in the
stirrups, the mare looking so aristocratic and I so beggarly! Mr.
Nugent is what is called "splendid company." With a sort of breezy
mountain recklessness in everything, he passes remarkably acute
judgments on men and events; on women also. He has pathos, poetry, and
humor, an intense love of nature, strong vanity in certain directions,
an obvious desire to act and speak in character, and sustain his
reputation as a desperado, a considerable acquaintance with literature,
a wonderful verbal memory, opinions on every person and subject, a
chivalrous respect for women in his manner, which makes it all the more
amusing when he suddenly turns round upon one with some graceful
raillery, a great power of fascination, and a singular love of
children. The children of this house run to him, and when he sits down
they climb on his broad shoulders and play with his curls. They say in
the house that "no one who has been here thinks any one worth speaking
to after Jim," but I think that this is probably an opinion which time
would alter. Somehow, he is kept always before the public of Colorado,
for one can hardly take up a newspaper without finding a paragraph
about him, a contribution by him, or a fragment of his biography.
Ruffian as he looks, the first word he speaks--to a lady, at
least--places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and his
conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of
genius. Yet, on the whole, he is a most painful spectacle. His
magnificent head shows so plainly the better possibilities which might
have been his. His life, in spite of a certain dazzle which belongs to
it, is a ruined and wasted one, and one asks what of good can the
future have in store for one who has for so long chosen evil?[17]
[17] September of the next year answered the question by laying him
down in a dishonored grave, with a rifle bullet in his brain.
Shall I ever get away? We were to have had a grand cattle hunt
yesterday, beginning at 6:30, but the horses were all lost. Often out
of fifty horses all that are worth anything are marauding, and a day is
lost in hunting for them in the canyons. However, before daylight this
morning Evans called through my door, "Miss Bird, I say we've got to
drive cattle fifteen miles, I wish you'd lend a hand; there's not
enough of us; I'll give you a good horse."
The scene of the drive is at a height of 7,500 feet, watered by two
rapid rivers. On all sides mountains rise to an altitude of from
11,000 to 15,000 feet, their skirts shaggy with pitch-pine forests, and
scarred by deep canyons, wooded and boulder strewn, opening upon the
mountain pasture previously mentioned. Two thousand head of half-wild
Texan cattle are scattered in herds throughout the canyons, living on
more or less suspicious terms with grizzly and brown bears, mountain
lions, elk, mountain sheep, spotted deer, wolves, lynxes, wild cats,
beavers, minks, skunks, chipmunks, eagles, rattlesnakes, and all the
other two-legged, four-legged, vertebrate, and invertebrate inhabitants
of this lonely and romantic region. On the whole, they show a tendency
rather to the habits of wild than of domestic cattle. They march to
water in Indian file, with the bulls leading, and when threatened, take
strategic advantage of ridgy ground, slinking warily along in the
hollows, the bulls acting as sentinels, and bringing up the rear in
case of an attack from dogs. Cows have to be regularly broken in for
milking, being as wild as buffaloes in their unbroken state; but, owing
to the comparative dryness of the grasses, and the system of allowing
the calf to have the milk during the daytime, a dairy of 200 cows does
not produce as much butter as a Devonshire dairy of fifty. Some
"necessary" cruelty is involved in the stockman's business, however
humane he may be. The system is one of terrorism, and from the time
that the calf is bullied into the branding pen, and the hot iron burns
into his shrinking flesh, to the day when the fatted ox is driven down
from his boundless pastures to be slaughtered in Chicago, "the fear and
dread of man" are upon him.
The herds are apt to penetrate the savage canyons which come down from
the Snowy Range, when they incur a risk of being snowed up and starved,
and it is necessary now and then to hunt them out and drive them down
to the "park." On this occasion, the whole were driven down for a
muster, and for the purpose of branding the calves.
After a 6:30 breakfast this morning, we started, the party being
composed of my host, a hunter from the Snowy Range, two stockmen from
the Plains, one of whom rode a violent buck-jumper, and was said by his
comrade to be the "best rider in North Americay," and myself. We were
all mounted on Mexican saddles, rode, as the custom is, with light
snaffle bridles, leather guards over our feet, and broad wooden
stirrups, and each carried his lunch in a pouch slung on the lassoing
horn of his saddle. Four big, badly-trained dogs accompanied us. It
was a ride of nearly thirty miles, and of many hours, one of the most
splendid I ever took. We never got off our horses except to tighten
the girths, we ate our lunch with our bridles knotted over saddle
horns, started over the level at full gallops, leapt over trunks of
trees, dashed madly down hillsides rugged with rocks or strewn with
great stones, forded deep, rapid streams, saw lovely lakes and views of
surpassing magnificence, startled a herd of elk with uncouth heads and
in the chase, which for some time was unsuccessful, rode to the very
base of Long's Peak, over 14,000 feet high, where the bright waters of
one of the affluents of the Platte burst from the eternal snows through
a canyon of indescribable majesty. The sun was hot, but at a height of
over 8,000 feet the air was crisp and frosty, and the enjoyment of
riding a good horse under such exhilarating circumstances was extreme.
In one wild part of the ride we had to come down a steep hill, thickly
wooded with pitch pines, to leap over the fallen timber, and steer
between the dead and living trees to avoid being "snagged," or bringing
down a heavy dead branch by an unwary touch.
Emerging from this, we caught sight of a thousand Texan cattle feeding
in a valley below. The leaders scented us, and, taking fright, began
to move off in the direction of the open "park," while we were about a
mile from and above them. "Head them off, boys!" our leader shouted;
"all aboard; hark away!" and with something of the "High, tally-ho in
the morning!" away we all went at a hard gallop down-hill. I could not
hold my excited animal; down-hill, up-hill, leaping over rocks and
timber, faster every moment the pace grew, and still the leader
shouted, "Go it, boys!" and the horses dashed on at racing speed,
passing and repassing each other, till my small but beautiful bay was
keeping pace with the immense strides of the great buck-jumper ridden
by "the finest rider in North Americay," and I was dizzied and
breathless by the pace at which we were going. A shorter time than it
takes to tell it brought us close to and abreast of the surge of
cattle. The bovine waves were a grand sight: huge bulls, shaped like
buffaloes, bellowed and roared, and with great oxen and cows with
yearling calves, galloped like racers, and we galloped alongside of
them, and shortly headed them and in no time were placed as sentinels
across the mouth of the valley. It seemed like infantry awaiting the
shock of cavalry as we stood as still as our excited horses would
allow. I almost quailed as the surge came on, but when it got close to
us my comrades hooted fearfully, and we dashed forward with the dogs,
and, with bellowing, roaring, and thunder of hoofs, the wave receded as
it came. I rode up to our leader, who received me with much laughter.
He said I was "a good cattleman," and that he had forgotten that a lady
was of the party till he saw me "come leaping over the timber, and
driving with the others."
It was not for two hours after this that the real business of driving
began, and I was obliged to change my thoroughbred for a well-trained
cattle horse--a bronco, which could double like a hare, and go over any
ground. I had not expected to work like a vachero, but so it was, and
my Hawaiian experience was very useful. We hunted the various canyons
and known "camps," driving the herds out of them; and, until we had
secured 850 head in the corral some hours afterwards, we scarcely saw
each other to speak to. Our first difficulty was with a herd which got
into some swampy ground, when a cow, which afterwards gave me an
infinity of trouble, remained at bay for nearly an hour, tossing the
dog three times, and resisting all efforts to dislodge her. She had a
large yearling calf with her, and Evans told me that the attachment of
a cow to her first calf is sometimes so great that she will kill her
second that the first may have the milk. I got a herd of over a
hundred out of a canyon by myself, and drove them down to the river
with the aid of one badly-broken dog, which gave me more trouble than
the cattle. The getting over was most troublesome; a few took to the
water readily and went across, but others smelt it, and then, doubling
back, ran in various directions; while some attacked the dog as he was
swimming, and others, after crossing, headed back in search of some
favorite companions which had been left behind, and one specially
vicious cow attacked my horse over and over again. It took an hour and
a half of time and much patience to gather them all on the other side.
It was getting late in the day, and a snowstorm was impending, before I
was joined by the other drivers and herds, and as the former had
diminished to three, with only three dogs, it was very difficult to
keep the cattle together. You drive them as gently as possible, so as
not to frighten or excite them,[18] riding first on one side, then on
the other, to guide them; and if they deliberately go in a wrong
direction, you gallop in front and head them off. The great excitement
is when one breaks away from the herd and gallops madly up and
down-hill, and you gallop after him anywhere, over and among rocks and
trees, doubling when he doubles, and heading him till you get him back
again. The bulls were quite easily managed, but the cows with calves,
old or young, were most troublesome. By accident I rode between one
cow and her calf in a narrow place, and the cow rushed at me and was
just getting her big horns under the horse, when he reared, and spun
dexterously aside. This kind of thing happened continually. There was
one very handsome red cow which became quite mad. She had a calf with
her nearly her own size, and thought every one its enemy, and though
its horns were well developed, and it was quite able to take care of
itself, she insisted on protecting it from all fancied dangers. One of
the dogs, a young, foolish thing, seeing that the cow was excited, took
a foolish pleasure in barking at her, and she was eventually quite
infuriated. She turned to bay forty times at least; tore up the ground
with her horns, tossed and killed the calves of two other cows, and
finally became so dangerous to the rest of the herd that, just as the
drive was ending, Evans drew his revolver and shot her, and the calf
for which she had fought so blindly lamented her piteously. She rushed
at me several times mad with rage, but these trained cattle horses keep
perfectly cool, and, nearly without will on my part, mine jumped aside
at the right moment, and foiled the assailant. Just at dusk we reached
the corral--an acre of grass enclosed by stout post-and-rail fences
seven feet high--and by much patience and some subtlety lodged the
whole herd within its shelter, without a blow, a shout, or even a crack
of a whip, wild as the cattle were. It was fearfully cold. We
galloped the last mile and a half in four and a half minutes, reached
the cabin just as the snow began to fall, and found strong, hot tea
ready.
[18] In several visits to America I have observed that the Americans
are far in advance of us and our colonial kinsmen in their treatment of
horses and other animals. This was very apparent with regard to this
Texan herd. There were no stock whips, no needless worrying of the
animals in the excitement of sport. Any dog seizing a bullock by his
tail or heels would have been called off and punished, and quietness
and gentleness were the rule. The horses were ridden without whips,
and with spurs so blunt that they could not hurt even a human skin, and
were ruled by the voice and a slight pressure on the light snaffle
bridle. This is the usual plan, even where, as in Colorado, the horses
are bronchos, and inherit ineradicable vice. I never yet saw a horse
BULLIED into submission in the United States.
October 18.
Snow-bound for three days! I could not write yesterday, it was so
awful. People gave up all occupation, and talked of nothing but the
storm. The hunters all kept by the great fire in the living room, only
going out to bring in logs and clear the snow from the door and
windows. I never spent a more fearful night than two nights ago, alone
in my cabin in the storm, with the roof lifting, the mud cracking and
coming off, and the fine snow hissing through the chinks between the
logs, while splittings and breaking of dead branches, wind wrung and
snow laden, went on incessantly, with screechings, howlings, thunder
and lightning, and many unfamiliar sounds besides. After snowing
fiercely all day, another foot of it fell in the early night, and,
after drifting against my door, blocked me effectually in. About
midnight the mercury fell to zero, and soon after a gale rose, which
lasted for ten hours. My window frame is swelled, and shuts,
apparently, hermetically; and my bed is six feet from it. I had gone
to sleep with six blankets on, and a heavy sheet over my face. Between
two and three I was awoke by the cabin being shifted from underneath by
the wind, and the sheet was frozen to my lips. I put out my hands, and
the bed was thickly covered with fine snow. Getting up to investigate
matters, I found the floor some inches deep in parts in fine snow, and
a gust of fine, needle-like snow stung my face. The bucket of water
was solid ice. I lay in bed freezing till sunrise, when some of the
men came to see if I "was alive," and to dig me out. They brought a
can of hot water, which turned to ice before I could use it. I dressed
standing in snow, and my brushes, boots, and etceteras were covered
with snow. When I ran to the house, not a mountain or anything else
could be seen, and the snow on one side was drifted higher than the
roof. The air, as high as one could see, was one white, stinging smoke
of snowdrift--a terrific sight. In the living room, the snow was
driving through the chinks, and Mrs. Dewy was shoveling it from the
floor. Mr. D.'s beard was hoary with frost in a room with a fire all
night. Evans was lying ill, with his bed covered with snow. Returning
from my cabin after breakfast, loaded with occupations for the day, I
was lifted off my feet, and deposited in a drift, and all my things,
writing book and letter included, were carried in different directions.
Some, including a valuable photograph, were irrecoverable. The writing
book was found, some hours afterwards, under three feet of snow.
There are tracks of bears and deer close to the house, but no one can
hunt in this gale, and the drift is blinding. We have been slightly
overcrowded in our one room. Chess, music, and whist have been
resorted to. One hunter, for very ennui, has devoted himself to
keeping my ink from freezing. We all sat in great cloaks and coats,
and kept up an enormous fire, with the pitch running out of the logs.
The isolation is extreme, for we are literally snowed up, and the other
settler in the Park and "Mountain Jim" are both at Denver. Late in the
evening the storm ceased. In some places the ground is bare of snow,
while in others all irregularities are leveled, and the drifts are
forty feet deep. Nature is grand under this new aspect. The cold is
awful; the high wind with the mercury at zero would skin any part
exposed to it.
October 19.
Evans offers me six dollars a week if I will stay into the winter and
do the cooking after Mrs. Edwards leaves! I think I should like
playing at being a "hired girl" if it were not for the bread-making!
But it would suit me better to ride after cattle. The men don't like
"baching," as it is called in the wilds--i.e. "doing for themselves."
They washed and ironed their clothes yesterday, and there was an
incongruity about the last performance. I really think (though for the
fifteenth time) that I shall leave to-morrow. The cold has moderated,
the sky is bluer than ever, the snow is evaporating, and a hunter who
has joined us to-day says that there are no drifts on the trail which
one cannot get through.
LONGMOUNT, COLORADO, October 20.