_My precious boy:_
I trust you will excuse me for using this paper but I am up stairs,
and no one [is] here to bring me any other. They tell me I need not
wonder that we do not hear from you and I shall try not to be
disappointed if we do not hear for a while. Nevertheless my dear boy,
the uncertainty I feel in regard to your safety will make a letter
very welcome indeed. Perhaps I would have more courage if I were
strong. For five days I have been very uncomfortable. I am sitting up
some today for the first [time] and hope soon to be well as usual.
We were exceedingly glad to hear from you from Grand Lake. I cannot,
however, say that the account of your experience by stone slide[K] and
river have lessened my anxiety. I am writing now, Thursday, in bed. I
have been quite poorly again. We shall not look now for a letter from
you but hope to see you face to face before many days. May God bless
and keep you! Give our love to Mr. F. All join me in tenderest love to
you.
Your devoted mother.
At Walden we laid in a fresh supply of flour and bacon, and canned
goods, especially canned fruit, to last us while we stayed with the
wagon. We then pushed on to the west, striking camp on the West Fork
of the North Platte, where we stayed two nights. Here we tried hard a
third time for trout without success, but we turned off the water
from an irrigating ditch and captured a large number of "squaw fish"
(suckers).
From _Camp Chew_ we made our way well up into the foothills of the
Range of the Rabbit's Ear, and then packed our animals, minimum Jack
and our pony, and pushed up the range over the worst trail we had yet
encountered, through an absolute wilderness of fallen timber. Rain
with fog set in as we approached timber line, and we were forced to go
into camp early to wait for morning. Morning came with fog and rain,
and we spent the entire day hunting trail, only to go into camp again
towards evening. The next day, however, came clear and we made our way
over the range, through Frying Pan Meadow, and reached camp down on
Elk river towards evening without difficulty. We found good fishing
here at last and great numbers of deer but no elk. After three rainy
days in _Elk River Camp,_ one of which was spent jerking venison of
D.'s killing, we packed up and made the return trip over the range in
one day of hard travel, going into camp by the shore of a shallow
pond well out on the barren level of North Park. The next morning we
parted company with Gould, and in two days we made sixty stage road
miles across North Park and over the northern portion of the Medicine
Bow Mountains to Woods post office at the edge of the Laramie plains,
twenty-five miles from Laramie.
[Illustration: Looking North Across Specimen Mountain Stone Slide.]
We had intended walking through to Laramie, but ninety miles and two
mountain ranges in three days, not to mention the writer's terribly
blistered feet, had temporarily taken some of the ambition out of us,
and after some fine diplomacy D. and the writer each found that the
other was willing to descend to stage coach riding. We accordingly
sold our fine little pony for five dollars, packed our outfit in a
compact bundle which we wrapped in our small tent (which had been used
as a smoke-house for curing venison at _Elk River Camp_), and took the
stage for Laramie.
At Laramie we took the train for home, and with eyes eagerly awake we
watched for hundreds of miles an increasing luxuriance of vegetation
which reached its climax in the marvelously rich, endless, undulating
fields of eastern Nebraska and Iowa:
This is the land that the sunset washes
These are the Waves of the Yellow Sea;
Where it arose and whiter it rushes,
This is the western mystery.
[Illustration: In the Range of the Rabbit's Ear.]
We had been away from home for thirty-three days, and in the mountains
for thirty-one nights--Indians reckon by nights; and we had tramped
more than three hundred and fifty miles from Loveland to the edge
of the Laramie plains. A large portion of the time was spent at high
altitudes where the weather is not lamb-like in June, and no small
portion of the three hundred and fifty miles was mud and water, snow
and fallen timber, through a country as rough, perhaps, as is to be
found anywhere, and as interesting. The only way to study Geography
is with the feet! No footless imagination can realize the sublimity
of western Mountain and Plain. Nothing but a degree of hardship can
measure their widespread chaos and lonely desolation, and only the
freshened eagerness of many mornings can perceive their matchless
glory.
[Illustration: Near Frying Pan Meadow.]
We reached home weather-beaten almost beyond recognition, but in
robust health, especially D., who had actually gained in weight
during the trip. From the railroad station we carried our outfit, and
venison, two miles to the college grounds, reaching D.'s home about
midnight.
Here our madly exuberant spirits were suddenly checked by finding
that the illness of D.'s mother had become extremely serious. However
she was determined to see us both--to give a last approval.
"We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.
"The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king."
After four days D.'s mother died. It fell to B. and F. to make
a sculptor's plaster mask, and photographs; and to F. to watch
overnight--and hasten to the woods in the morning.
"The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth.
"The sweeping up the heart
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity."
A beautiful Campanile now stands on the college campus erected in
memory of D.'s mother by the state of Iowa; and from this memory-tower
a chime of bells
Greets
Those who pass in joy
And those who pass in sorrow;
As we have passed,
Our time.
"Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
'Tis not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise."