of exclamations. My host there, they all said, would be "strung"
before long. Did I know that a man was "strung" there yesterday? Had
I not seen him hanging? He was on the big tree by the house, they
said. Certainly, had I known what a ghastly burden that tree bore, I
would have encountered the ice and gloom of the gulch rather than have
slept there. They then told me a horrid tale of crime and violence.
This man had even shocked the morals of the Alma crowd, and had a
notice served on him by the vigilants, which had the desired effect,
and he migrated to Hall's Gulch. As the tale runs, the Hall's Gulch
miners were resolved either not to have a groggery or to limit the
number of such places, and when this ruffian set one up he was
"forewarned." It seems, however, to have been merely a pretext for
getting rid of him, for it was hardly a crime of which even Lynch law
could take cognizance. He was overpowered by numbers, and, with
circumstances of great horror, was tried and strung on that tree within
an hour.[19]
[19] Public opinion approved this execution, regarding it as a fitting
retribution for a series of crimes.
I left the place this morning at ten, and have had a very pleasant day,
for the hills shut out the hot sun. I only rode twenty-two miles, for
the difficulty of riding on ice was great, and there is no blacksmith
within thirty-five miles of Hall's Gulch. I met two freighters just
after I left, who gave me the unwelcome news that there were
thirty-miles of ice between that and Denver. "You'll have a tough
trip," they said. The road runs up and down hill, walled in along with
a rushing river by high mountains. The scenery is very grand, but I
hate being shut into these deep gorges, and always expect to see some
startling object moving among the trees. I met no one the whole day
after passing the teams except two men with a "pack-jack," Birdie hates
jacks, and rears and shies as soon as she sees one. It was a bad road,
one shelving sheet of ice, and awfully lonely, and between the peril of
the mare breaking her leg on the ice and that of being crushed by
windfalls of timber, I had to look out all day. Towards sunset I came
to a cabin where they "keep travelers," but the woman looked so vinegar
faced that I preferred to ride four miles farther, up a beautiful road
winding along a sunny gulch filled with silver spruce, bluer and more
silvery than any I have yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which
the view in all the ecstasy of sunset color was perfectly glorious. It
was enjoyment also in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which I
had been immured all day. There is a train of twelve freight wagons
here, each wagon with six horses, but the teamsters carry their own
camping blankets and sleep either in their wagons or on the floor, so
the house is not crowded.
It is a pleasant two-story log house, not only chinked but lined with
planed timber. Each room has a great open chimney with logs burning in
it; there are pretty engravings on the walls, and baskets full of
creepers hanging from the ceiling. This is the first settler's house I
have been in in which the ornamental has had any place. There is a
door to each room, the oak chairs are bright with rubbing, and the
floor, though unplaned, is so clean that one might eat off it. The
table is clean and abundant, and the mother and daughter, though they
do all the work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh
heartily. The ranchman neither allows drink to be brought into the
house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he "keeps
travelers." The freighters come in to supper quite well washed, and
though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine o'clock there was
not a sound. This freighting business is most profitable. I think
that the charge is three cents per pound from Denver to South Park, and
there much of the freight is transferred to "pack-jacks" and carried up
to the mines. A railroad, however, is contemplated. I breakfasted
with the family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting
down to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh table-cloth
and hot food. The buckets are all polished oak, with polished brass
bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make them; and,
more wonderful still, the girls black their boots. Blacking usually is
an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept in houses. My boots have
only been blacked once during the last two months.
DENVER, November 9.
I could not make out whether the superiority of the Deer Valley
settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster I met in the
evening said it "made him more of a man to spend a night in such a
house." In Colorado whisky is significant of all evil and violence and
is the cause of most of the shooting affrays in the mining camps.
There are few moderate drinkers; it is seldom taken except to excess.
The great local question in the Territory, and just now the great
electoral issue, is drink or no drink, and some of the papers are
openly advocating a prohibitive liquor law. Some of the districts,
such as Greeley, in which liquor is prohibited, are without crime, and
in several of the stock-raising and agricultural regions through which
I have traveled where it is practically excluded the doors are never
locked, and the miners leave their silver bricks in their wagons
unprotected at night. People say that on coming from the Eastern
States they hardly realize at first the security in which they live.
There is no danger and no fear. But the truth of the proverbial
saying, "There is no God west of the Missouri" is everywhere manifest.
The "almighty dollar" is the true divinity, and its worship is
universal. "Smartness" is the quality thought most of. The boy who
"gets on" by cheating at his lessons is praised for being a "smart
boy," and his satisfied parents foretell that he will make a "smart
man." A man who overreaches his neighbor, but who does it so cleverly
that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a
"smart man," and stories of this species of smartness are told
admiringly round every stove. Smartness is but the initial stage of
swindling, and the clever swindler who evades or defines the weak and
often corruptly administered laws of the States excites unmeasured
admiration among the masses.[20]
[20] May, 1878.--I am copying this letter in the city of San Francisco,
and regretfully add a strong emphasis to what I have written above.
The best and most thoughtful among Americans would endorse these
remarks with shame and pain.--I. L. B.
I left Deer Valley at ten the next morning on a glorious day, with rich
atmospheric coloring, had to spend three hours sitting on a barrel in a
forge after I had ridden twelve miles, waiting while twenty-four oxen
were shod, and then rode on twenty-three miles through streams and
canyons of great beauty till I reached a grocery store, where I had to
share a room with a large family and three teamsters; and being almost
suffocated by the curtain partition, got up at four, before any one was
stirring, saddled Birdie, and rode away in the darkness, leaving my
money on the table! It was a short eighteen miles' ride to Denver down
the Turkey Creek Canyon, which contains some magnificent scenery, and
then the road ascends and hangs on the ledge of a precipice 600 feet in
depth, such a narrow road that on meeting a wagon I had to dismount for
fear of hurting my feet with the wheels. From thence there was a
wonderful view through the rolling Foot Hills and over the gray-brown
plains to Denver. Not a tree or shrub was to be seen, everything was
rioting in summer heat and drought, while behind lay the last grand
canyon of the mountains, dark with pines and cool with snow. I left
the track and took a short cut over the prairie to Denver, passing
through an encampment of the Ute Indians about 500 strong, a disorderly
and dirty huddle of lodges, ponies, men, squaws, children, skins,
bones, and raw meat.
The Americans will never solve the Indian problem till the Indian is
extinct. They have treated them after a fashion which has intensified
their treachery and "devilry" as enemies, and as friends reduces them
to a degraded pauperism, devoid of the very first elements of
civilization. The only difference between the savage and the civilized
Indian is that the latter carries firearms and gets drunk on whisky.
The Indian Agency has been a sink of fraud and corruption; it is said
that barely thirty per cent of the allowance ever reaches those for
whom it is voted; and the complaints of shoddy blankets, damaged flour,
and worthless firearms are universal. "To get rid of the Injuns" is
the phrase used everywhere. Even their "reservations" do not escape
seizure practically; for if gold "breaks out" on them they are
"rushed," and their possessors are either compelled to accept land
farther west or are shot off and driven off. One of the surest agents
in their destruction is vitriolized whisky. An attempt has recently
been made to cleanse the Augean stable of the Indian Department, but it
has met with signal failure, the usual result in America of every
effort to purify the official atmosphere. Americans specially love
superlatives. The phrases "biggest in the world," "finest in the
world," are on all lips. Unless President Hayes is a strong man they
will soon come to boast that their government is composed of the
"biggest scoundrels" in the world.
As I rode into Denver and away from the mountains the view became
glorious, as range above range crowned with snow came into sight. I
was sure that three glistening peaks seventy miles north were the
peerless shapeliness of Long's Peak, the king of the Rocky Mountains,
and the "mountain fever" returned so severely that I grudged every hour
spent on the dry, hot plains. The Range looked lovelier and sublimer
than when I first saw it from Greeley, all spiritualized in the
wonderful atmosphere. I went direct to Evans's house, where I found a
hearty welcome, as they had been anxious about my safety, and Evans
almost at once arrived from Estes Park with three elk, one grizzly, and
one bighorn in his wagon. Regarding a place and life one likes (in
spite of all lessons) one is sure to think, "To-morrow shall be as this
day, and much more abundant"; and all through my tour I had thought of
returning to Estes Park and finding everything just as it was. Evans
brought the unwelcome news that the goodly fellowship was broken up.
The Dewys and Mr. Waller were in Denver, and the house was dismantled,
Mr. and Mrs. Edwards alone remaining, who were, however, expecting me
back. Saturday, though like a blazing summer day, was wonderful in its
beauty, and after sunset the afterglow was richer and redder than I
have ever seen it, but the heavy crimson betokened severe heat, which
came on yesterday, and was hardly bearable.
I attended service twice at the Episcopal church, where the service was
beautifully read and sung; but in a city in which men preponderate the
congregation was mainly composed of women, who fluttered their fans in
a truly distracting way. Except for the church-going there were few
perceptible signs of Sunday in Denver, which was full of rowdies from
the mountain mining camps. You can hardly imagine the delight of
joining in those grand old prayers after so long a deprivation. The
"Te Deum" sounded heavenly in its magnificence; but the heat was so
tremendous that it was hard to "warstle" through the day. They say
that they have similar outbreaks of solar fury all through the winter.
GOLDEN CITY, November 13.
Pleasant as Denver was, with the Dewys and so many kind friends there,
it was too much of the "wearying world" either for my health or taste,
and I left for my sixteen miles' ride to this place at four on Monday
afternoon with the sun still hot. Passing by a bare, desolate-looking
cemetery, I asked a sad-looking woman who was leaning on the gate if
she could direct me to Golden City. I repeated the question twice
before I got an answer, and then, though easily to be accounted for, it
was wide of the mark. In most doleful tones she said, "Oh, go to the
minister; I might tell you, may be, but it's too great a
responsibility; go to the ministers, they can tell you!" And she
returned to her tears for some one whose spirit she was doubtless
thinking of as in the Golden City of our hopes. That sixteen miles
seemed like one mile, after sunset, in the rapturous freshness of the
Colorado air, and Birdie, after her two days' rest and with a lightened
load, galloped across the prairie as if she enjoyed it. I did not
reach this gorge till late, and it was an hour after dark before I
groped my way into this dark, unlighted mining town, where, however, we
were most fortunate both as to stable and accommodation for myself.
BOULDER, November 16.
I fear you will grow tired of the details of these journal letters. To
a person sitting quietly at home, Rocky Mountain traveling, like Rocky
Mountain scenery, must seem very monotonous; but not so to me, to whom
the pure, dry mountain air is the elixir of life. At Golden City I
parted for a time from my faithful pony, as Clear Creek Canyon, which
leads from it to Idaho, is entirely monopolized by a narrow-gauge
railroad, and is inaccessible for horses or mules. To be without a
horse in these mountains is to be reduced to complete helplessness. My
great wish was to see Green Lake, situated near the timber line above
Georgetown (said to be the highest town in the United States), at a
height of 9,000 feet. A single day took me from the heat of summer
into the intense cold of winter.
Golden City by daylight showed its meanness and belied its name. It is
ungraded, with here and there a piece of wooden sidewalk, supported on
posts, up to which you ascend by planks. Brick, pine, and log houses
are huddled together, every other house is a saloon, and hardly a woman
is to be seen. My landlady apologized for the very exquisite little
bedroom which she gave me by saying "it was not quite as she would like
it, but she had never had a lady in her house before." The young
"lady" who waited at breakfast said, "I've been thinking about you, and
I'm certain sure you're an authoress." The day, as usual, was
glorious. Think of November half through and scarcely even a cloud in
the sky, except the vermilion cloudlets which accompany the sun at his
rising and setting! They say that winter never "sets in" there in the
Foot Hills, but that there are spells of cold, alternating with bright,
hot weather, and that the snow never lies on the ground so as to
interfere with the feed of cattle. Golden City rang with oaths and
curses, especially at the depot. Americans are given over to the most
atrocious swearing, and the blasphemous use of our Savior's name is
peculiarly revolting.
Golden City stands at the mouth of Toughcuss, otherwise Clear Creek
Canyon, which many people think the grandest scenery in the mountains,
as it twists and turns marvellously, and its stupendous sides are
nearly perpendicular, while farther progress is to all appearance
continually blocked by great masses of rock and piles of snow-covered
mountains. Unfortunately, its sides have been almost entirely denuded
of timber, mining operations consuming any quantity of it. The
narrow-gauge, steel-grade railroad, which runs up the canyon for the
convenience of the rich mining districts of Georgetown, Black Hawk, and
Central City, is a curiosity of engineering. The track has partly been
blasted out of the sides of the canyon, and has partly been "built" by
making a bed of stones in the creek itself, and laying the track across
them. I have never seen such churlishness and incivility as in the
officials of that railroad and the state lines which connect with it,
or met with such preposterous charges. They have handsome little cars
on the route, but though the passengers paid full fare, they put us
into a baggage car because the season was over, and in order to see
anything I was obliged to sit on the floor at the door. The singular
grandeur cannot be described. It is a mere gash cut by the torrent,
twisted, walled, chasmed, weather stained with the most brilliant
coloring, generally dark with shadow, but its utter desolation
occasionally revealed by a beam of intense sunshine. A few stunted
pines and cedars, spared because of their inaccessiblity, hung here and
there out of the rifts. Sometimes the walls of the abyss seemed to
meet overhead, and then widening out, the rocks assumed fantastic
forms, all grandeur, sublimity, and almost terror. After two hours of
this, the track came to an end, and the canyon widened sufficiently for
a road, all stones, holes, and sidings. There a great "Concord coach"
waited for us, intended for twenty passengers, and a mountain of
luggage in addition, and the four passengers without any luggage sat on
the seat behind the driver, so that the huge thing bounced and swung
upon the straps on which it was hung so as to recall the worst horrors
of New Zealand staging. The driver never spoke without an oath, and
though two ladies were passengers, cursed his splendid horses the whole
time. Formerly, even the most profane men intermitted their profanity
in the presence of women, but they "have changed all that." Every one
I saw up there seemed in a bad temper. I suspect that all their "smart
tricks" in mining shares had gone wrong.
The road pursued the canyon to Idaho Springs, a fashionable mountain
resort in the summer, but deserted now, where we took a superb team of
six horses, with which we attained a height of 10,000 feet, and then a
descent of 1,000 took us into Georgetown, crowded into as remarkable a
gorge as was ever selected for the site of a town, the canyon beyond
APPARENTLY terminating in precipitous and inaccessible mountains,
sprinkled with pines up to the timber line, and thinly covered with
snow. The area on which it is possible to build is so circumcised and
steep, and the unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and
there, and the water rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded
me slightly of a Swiss town. All the smaller houses are shored up with
young pines on one side, to prevent them from being blown away by the
fierce gusts which sweep the canyon. It is the only town I have seen
in America to which the epithet picturesque could be applied. But
truly, seated in that deep hollow in the cold and darkness, it is in a
terrible situation, with the alpine heights towering round it. I
arrived at three, but its sun had set, and it lay in deep shadow. In
fact, twilight seemed coming on, and as I had been unable to get my
circular notes cashed at Denver, I had no money to stay over the next
day, and much feared that I should lose Green Lake, the goal of my
journey. We drove through the narrow, piled-up, irregular street,
crowded with miners standing in groups, or drinking and gaming under
the verandas, to a good hotel declivitously situated, where I at once
inquired if I could get to Green Lake. The landlord said he thought
not; the snow was very deep, and no one had been up for five weeks, but
for my satisfaction he would send to a stable and inquire. The amusing
answer came back, "If it's the English lady traveling in the mountains,
she can have a horse, but not any one else."
Letter XIII
The blight of mining--Green Lake--Golden
City--Benighted--Vertigo--Boulder Canyon--Financial straits--A hard
ride--The last cent--A bachelor's home--"Mountain Jim"--A surprise--A
night arrival--Making the best of it--Scanty fare.
BOULDER, November.
The answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was given
to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in and asked
my name and if I were the lady who had crossed from Link's to South
Park by Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast. In five minutes the
horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned side-saddle, and I
started at once for the upper regions. It was an exciting ride, much
spiced with apprehension. The evening shadows had darkened over
Georgetown, and I had 2,000 feet to climb, or give up Green Lake. I
shall forget many things, but never the awfulness and hugeness of the
scenery. I went up a steep track by Clear Creek, then a succession of
frozen waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen
sides looked 5,000 feet high. That is the region of enormous mineral
wealth in silver. There are the "Terrible" and other mines whose
shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in the Times,
sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to 25 discount.
These mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their stamping
and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have been established
near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub, and smoke by night and
day; but I had turned altogether aside from them into a still region,
where each miner in solitude was grubbing for himself, and confiding to
none his finds or disappointments. Agriculture restores and
beautifies, mining destroys and devastates, turning the earth inside
out, making it hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually
blights man's heart and soul. There was mining everywhere along that
grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its digging,
burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the seemingly
inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log supported, in
which solitary and patient men were selling their lives for treasure.
Down by the stream, all among the icicles, men were sluicing and
washing, and everywhere along the heights were the scars of
hardly-passable trails, too steep even for pack-jacks, leading to the
holes, and down which the miner packs the ore on his back. Many a
heart has been broken for the few finds which have been made along
those hill sides. All the ledges are covered with charred stumps, a
picture of desolation, where nature had made everything grand and fair.
But even from all this I turned. The last miner I saw gave me explicit
directions, and I left the track and struck upwards into the icy
solitudes--sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep, pure
and powdery, then a very difficult ascent through a pine forest, where
it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in deep snowdrifts. But
the goal was reached, and none too soon.
At a height of nearly 12,000 feet I halted on a steep declivity, and
below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, with mountains
red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was Green Lake,
looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two feet thick. From
the gloom and chill below I had come up into the pure air and sunset
light, and the glory of the unprofaned works of God. It brought to my
mind the verse, "The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth";
and, as if in commentary upon it, were the hundreds and thousands of
men delving in dark holes in the gloom of the twilight below.
O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices,
O delved gold, the wailer's heap,
God strikes a silence through you all,
He giveth His beloved sleep.
It was something to reach that height and see the far off glory of the
sunset, and by it to be reminded that neither God nor His sun had yet
deserted the world. But the sun was fast going down, and even as I
gazed upon the wonderful vision the glory vanished, and the peaks
became sad and grey. It was strange to be the only human being at that
glacial altitude, and to descend again through a foot of untrodden snow
and over sloping sheets of ice into the darkness, and to see the hill
sides like a firmament of stars, each showing the place where a
solitary man in his hole was delving for silver. The view, as long as
I could see it, was quite awful. It looked as if one could not reach
Georgetown without tumbling down a precipice. Precipices there were in
plenty along the road, skirted with ice to their verge. It was the
only ride which required nerve that I have taken in Colorado, and it
was long after dark when I returned from my exploit.