noises were unintelligible. Young Lyman rushed out to take my horse,
and the light and warmth within were delightful, but there was a
stiffness about the new regime. Evans, though steeped in difficulties,
was as hearty and generous as ever; but Edwards, who had assumed the
management, is prudent, if not parsimonious, thinks we wasted the
supplies recklessly, and the limitations as to milk, etc., are
painfully apparent. A young ex-Guardsman has come up with Evans, of
whom the sanguine creature forms great expectations, to be disappointed
doubtless. In the afternoon of yesterday a gentleman came who I
thought was another stranger, strikingly handsome, well dressed, and
barely forty, with sixteen shining gold curls falling down his collar;
he walked in, and it was only after a careful second look that I
recognized in our visitor the redoubtable "desperado." Evans
courteously pressed him to stay and dine with us, and not only did he
show the most singular conversational dexterity in talking with the
stranger, who was a very well-informed man, and had seen a great deal
of the world, but, though he lives and eats like a savage, his manners
and way of eating were as refined as possible. I notice that Evans is
never quite himself or perfectly comfortable when he is there; and on
the part of the other there is a sort of stiffly-assumed cordiality,
significant, I fear of lurking hatred on both sides. I was in the
kitchen after dinner making rolled puddings, young Lyman was eating up
the relics as usual, "Jim" was singing one of Moore's melodies, the
others being in the living-room, when Mr. Kavan and Mr. Buchan came
from "up the creek" to wish me good-bye. They said it was not half so
much like home now, and recalled the "good time" we had had for three
weeks. Lyman having lost the ow, we have no milk. No one makes bread;
they dry the venison into chips, and getting the meals at all seems a
work of toil and difficulty, instead of the pleasure it used to be to
us. Evans, since tea, has told me all his troubles and worries. He is
a kind, generous, whole-hearted, unsuspicious man, a worse enemy to
himself, I believe, than to any other; but I feel sadly that the future
of a man who has not stronger principles than he has must be at the
best very insecure.
I. L. B.
Letter XVII
Woman's mission--The last morning--Crossing the St. Vrain--Miller--The
St. Vrain again--Crossing the prairie--"Jim's" dream--"Keeping
strangers"--The inn kitchen--A reputed child-eater--Notoriety--A quiet
dance--"Jim's" resolve--The frost-fall--An unfortunate introduction.
CHEYENNE, WYOMING, December 12.
The last evening came. I did not wish to realize it, as I looked at
the snow-peaks glistening in the moonlight. No woman will be seen in
the park till next May. Young Lyman talked in a "hifalutin" style, but
with some truth in it, of the influence of a woman's presence, how
"low, mean, vulgar talk" had died out on my return, how they had "all
pulled themselves up," and how Mr. Kavan and Mr. Buchan had said they
would like always to be as quiet and gentlemanly as when a lady was
with them. "By May," he said, "we shall be little better than brutes,
in our manners at least." I have seen a great deal of the roughest
class of men both on sea and land during the last two years, and the
more important I think the "mission" of every quiet, refined,
self-respecting woman--the more mistaken I think those who would
forfeit it by noisy self-assertion, masculinity, or fastness. In all
this wild West the influence of woman is second only in its benefits to
the influence of religion, and where the last unhappily does not exist
the first continually exerts its restraining power. The last morning
came. I cleaned up my room and sat at the window watching the red and
gold of one of the most glorious of winter sunrises, and the slow
lighting-up of one peak after another. I have written that this
scenery is not lovable, but I love it.
I left on Birdie at 11 o'clock, Evans riding with me as far as Mr.
Nugent's. He was telling me so many things, that at the top of the
hill I forgot to turn round and take a last look at my colossal,
resplendent, lonely, sunlit den, but it was needless, for I carry it
away with me. I should not have been able to leave if Mr. Nugent had
not offered his services. His chivalry to women is so well known, that
Evans said I could be safer and better cared for with no one. He
added, "His heart is good and kind, as kind a heart as ever beat. He's
a great enemy of his own, but he's been living pretty quietly for the
last four years." At the door of his den I took leave of Birdie, who
had been my faithful companion for more than 700 miles of traveling,
and of Evans, who had been uniformly kind to me and just in all his
dealings, even to paying to me at that moment the very last dollar he
owed me. May God bless him and his! He was obliged to return before I
could get off, and as he commended me to Mr. Nugent's care, the two men
shook hands kindly.[21]
[21]Some months later "Mountain Jim" fell by Evans's hand, shot from
Evans's doorstep while riding past his cabin. The story of the
previous weeks is dark, sad, and evil. Of the five differing versions
which have been written to me of the act itself and its immediate
causes, it is best to give none. The tragedy is too painful to dwell
upon. "Jim" lived long enough to give his own statement, and to appeal
to the judgment of God, but died in low delirium before the case
reached a human tribunal.
Rich spoils of beavers' skins were lying on the cabin floor, and the
trapper took the finest, a mouse-colored kitten beaver's skin, and
presented it to me. I hired his beautiful Arab mare, whose springy
step and long easy stride was a relief after Birdie's short sturdy
gait. We had a very pleasant ride, and I seldom had to walk. We took
neither of the trails, but cut right through the forest to a place
where, through an opening in the Foot Hills, the Plains stretched to
the horizon covered with snow, the surface of which, having melted and
frozen, reflected as water would the pure blue of the sky, presenting a
complete optical illusion. It required my knowledge of fact to assure
me that I was not looking at the ocean. "Jim" shortened the way by
repeating a great deal of poetry, and by earnest, reasonable
conversation, so that I was quite surprised when it grew dark. He told
me that he never lay down to sleep without prayer--prayer chiefly that
God would give him a happy death. He had previously promised that he
would not hurry or scold, but "fyking" had not been included in the
arrangement, and when in the early darkness we reached the steep hill,
at whose foot the rapid deep St. Vrain flows, he "fyked" unreasonably
about me, the mare, and the crossing generally, and seemed to think I
could not get through, for the ice had been cut with an axe, and we
could not see whether "glaze" had formed since or not.
I was to have slept at the house of a woman farther down the canyon,
who never ceases talking, but Miller, the young man whose attractive
house and admirable habits I have mentioned before, came out and said
his house was "now fixed for ladies," so we stayed there, and I was
"made as comfortable" as could be. His house is a model. He cleans
everything as soon as it is used, so nothing is ever dirty, and his
stove and cooking gear in their bright parts look like polished silver.
It was amusing to hear the two men talk like two women about various
ways of making bread and biscuits, one even writing out a recipe for
the other. It was almost grievous that a solitary man should have the
power of making a house so comfortable! They heated a stone for my
feet, warmed a blanket for me to sleep in, and put logs enough on the
fire to burn all night, for the mercury was eleven below zero. The
stars were intensely bright, and a well-defined auroral arch, throwing
off fantastic coruscations, lighted the whole northern sky. Yet I was
only in the Foot Hills, and Long's glorious Peak was not to be seen.
Miller had all his things "washed up" and his "pots and pans" cleaned
in ten minutes after supper, and then had the whole evening in which to
smoke and enjoy himself--a poor woman would probably have been "fussing
round" till 10 o'clock about the same work. Besides Ring there was
another gigantic dog craving for notice, and two large cats, which, the
whole evening, were on their master's knee. Cold as the night was, the
house was chinked, and the rooms felt quite warm. I even missed the
free currents of air which I had been used to! This was my last
evening in what may be called a mountainous region.
The next morning, as soon as the sun was well risen, we left for our
journey of 30 miles, which had to be done nearly at a foot's pace,
owing to one horse being encumbered with my luggage. I did not wish to
realize that it was my last ride, and my last association with any of
the men of the mountains whom I had learned to trust, and in some
respects to admire. No more hunters' tales told while the pine knots
crack and blaze; no more thrilling narratives of adventures with
Indians and bears; and never again shall I hear that strange talk of
Nature and her doings which is the speech of those who live with her
and her alone. Already the dismalness of a level land comes over me.
The canyon of the St. Vrain was in all its glory of color, but we had a
remarkably ugly crossing of that brilliant river, which was frozen all
over, except an unpleasant gap of about two feet in the middle. Mr.
Nugent had to drive the frightened horses through, while I, having
crossed on some logs lower down, had to catch them on the other side as
they plunged to shore trembling with fear. Then we emerged on the vast
expanse of the glittering Plains, and a sudden sweep of wind made the
cold so intolerable that I had to go into a house to get warm. This
was the last house we saw till we reached our destination that night.
I never saw the mountain range look so beautiful--uplifted in every
shade of transparent blue, till the sublimity of Long's Peak, and the
lofty crest of Storm Peak, bore only unsullied snow against the sky.
Peaks gleamed in living light; canyons lay in depths of purple shade;
100 miles away Pike's Peak rose a lump of blue, and over all, through
that glorious afternoon, a veil of blue spiritualized without dimming
the outlines of that most glorious range, making it look like the
dreamed-of mountains of "the land which is very far off," till at
sunset it stood out sharp in glories of violet and opal, and the whole
horizon up to a great height was suffused with the deep rose and pure
orange of the afterglow. It seemed all dream-like as we passed through
the sunlit solitude, on the right the prairie waves lessening towards
the far horizon, while on the left they broke in great snowy surges
against the Rocky Mountains. All that day we neither saw man, beast,
nor bird. "Jim" was silent mostly. Like all true children of the
mountains, he pined even when temporarily absent from them.
At sunset we reached a cluster of houses called Namaqua, where, to my
dismay, I heard that there was to be a dance at the one little inn to
which we were going at St. Louis. I pictured to myself no privacy, no
peace, no sleep, drinking, low sounds, and worse than all, "Jim"
getting into a quarrel and using his pistols. He was uncomfortable
about it for another reason. He said he had dreamt the night before
that there was to be a dance, and that he had to shoot a man for making
"an unpleasant remark."
For the last three miles which we accomplished after sunset the cold
was most severe, but nothing could exceed the beauty of the afterglow,
and the strange look of the rolling plains of snow beneath it. When we
got to the queer little place where they "keep strangers" at St. Louis,
they were very civil, and said that after supper we could have the
kitchen to ourselves. I found a large, prononcee, competent, bustling
widow, hugely stout, able to manage all men and everything else, and a
very florid sister like herself, top heavy with hair. There were
besides two naughty children in the kitchen, who cried incessantly, and
kept opening and shutting the door. There was no place to sit down but
a wooden chair by the side of the kitchen stove, at which supper was
being cooked for ten men. The bustle and clatter were indescribable,
and the landlady asked innumerable questions, and seemed to fill the
whole room. The only expedient for me for the night was to sleep on a
shake-down in a very small room occupied by the two women and the
children, and even this was not available till midnight, when the dance
terminated; and there was no place in which to wash except a bowl in
the kitchen. I sat by the stove till supper, wearying of the noise and
bustle after the quiet of Estes Park.
The landlady asked, with great eagerness, who the gentleman was who was
with me, and said that the men outside were saying that they were sure
that it was "Rocky Mountain Jim," but she was sure it was not. When I
told her that the men were right, she exclaimed, "Do tell! I want to
know! that quiet, kind gentleman!" and she said she used to frighten
her children when they were naughty by telling them that "he would get
them, for he came down from the mountains every week, and took back a
child with him to eat!" She was as proud of having him in her house as
if he had been the President, and I gained a reflected importance! All
the men in the settlement assembled in the front room, hoping he would
go and smoke there, and when he remained in the kitchen they came round
the window and into the doorway to look at him. The children got on
his knee, and, to my great relief, he kept them good and quiet, and let
them play with his curls, to the great delight of the two women, who
never took their eyes off him. At last the bad-smelling supper was
served, and ten silent men came in and gobbled it up, staring steadily
at "Jim" as they gobbled. Afterwards, there seemed no hope of quiet,
so we went to the post-office, and while waiting for stamps were shown
into the prettiest and most ladylike-looking room I have seen in the
West, created by a pretty and refined-looking woman. She made an
opportunity for asking me if it were true that the gentleman with me
was "Mountain Jim," and added that so very gentlemanly a person could
not be guilty of the misdeeds attributed to him.
When we returned, the kitchen was much quieter. It was cleared by
eight, as the landlady promised; we had it to ourselves till twelve,
and could scarcely hear the music. It was a most respectable dance, a
fortnightly gathering got up by the neighboring settlers, most of them
young married people, and there was no drinking at all. I wrote to you
for some time, while Mr. Nugent copied for himself the poems "In the
Glen" and the latter half of "The River without a Bridge," which he
recited with deep feeling. It was altogether very quiet and peaceful.
He repeated to me several poems of great merit which he had composed,
and told me much more about his life. I knew that no one else could or
would speak to him as I could, and for the last time I urged upon him
the necessity of a reformation in his life, beginning with the giving
up of whisky, going so far as to tell him that I despised a man of his
intellect for being a slave to such a vice. "Too late! too late!" he
always answered, "for such a change." Ay, TOO LATE. He shed tears
quietly. "It might have been once," he said. Ay, MIGHT have been. He
has excellent sense for every one but himself, and, as I have seen him
with a single exception, a gentleness, propriety, and considerateness
of manner surprising in any man, but especially so in a man associating
only with the rough men of the West. As I looked at him, I felt a pity
such as I never before felt for a human being.
My thought at the moment was, Will not our Father in heaven, "who
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," be far more
pitiful? For the time a desire for self-respect, better aspirations,
and even hope itself, entered his dark life; and he said, suddenly,
that he had made up his mind to give up whisky and his reputation as a
desperado. But it is "too late." A little before twelve the dance was
over, and I got to the crowded little bedroom, which only allowed of
one person standing in it at a time, to sleep soundly and dream of
"ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance." The landlady
was quite taken up with her "distinguished guest." "That kind, quiet
gentleman, Mountain Jim! Well, I never! he must be a very good man!"
Yesterday morning the mercury was 20 degrees below zero. I think I
never saw such a brilliant atmosphere. That curious phenomenon called
frost-fall was occurring, in which, whatever moisture may exist in the
air, somehow aggregates into feathers and fern leaves, the loveliest of
creations, only seen in rarefied air and intense cold. One breath and
they vanish. The air was filled with diamond sparks quite intangible.
They seemed just glitter and no more. It was still and cloudless, and
the shapes of violet mountains were softened by a veil of the tenderest
blue. When the Greeley stage wagon came up, Mr. Fodder, whom I met at
Lower Canyon, was on it. He had expressed a great wish to go to Estes
Park, and to hunt with "Mountain Jim," if it would be safe to do the
latter. He was now dressed in the extreme of English dandyism, and
when I introduced them, he put out a small hand cased in a
perfectly-fitting lemon-colored kid glove.[22] As the trapper stood
there in his grotesque rags and odds and ends of apparel, his
gentlemanliness of deportment brought into relief the innate vulgarity
of a rich parvenu. Mr. Fodder rattled so amusingly as we drove away
that I never realized that my Rocky Mountain life was at an end, not
even when I saw "Mountain Jim," with his golden hair yellow in the
sunshine, slowly leading the beautiful mare over the snowy Plains back
to Estes Park, equipped with the saddle on which I had ridden 800 miles!
[22] This was a truly unfortunate introduction. It was the first link
in the chain of circumstances which brought about Mr. Nugent's untimely
end, and it was at this person's instigation (when overcome by fear)
that Evans fired the shot which proved fatal.
A drive of several hours over the Plains brought us to Greeley, and a
few hours later, in the far blue distance, the Rocky Mountains, and all
that they enclose, went down below the prairie sea.
I. L. B.