I get out on a ten minutes' stoppage at Deer creek, to enjoy the
unequal'd combination of hill, stone and wood. As we speed again,
the yellow granite in the sunshine, with natural spires, minarets,
castellated perches far aloft--then long stretches of straight-upright
palisades, rhinoceros color--then gamboge and tinted chromos. Ever
the best of my pleasures the cool-fresh Colorado atmosphere, yet
sufficiently warm. Signs of man's restless advent and pioneerage, hard
as Nature's face is--deserted dug-outs by dozens in the side-hills--the
scantling-hut, the telegraph-pole, the smoke of some impromptu chimney
or outdoor fire--at intervals little settlements of log-houses, or
parties of surveyors or telegraph builders, with their comfortable
tents. Once, a canvas office where you could send a message by
electricity anywhere around the world! Yes, pronounc'd signs of the man
of latest dates, dauntlessly grappling with these grisliest shows of the
old kosmos. At several places steam saw-mills, with their piles of logs
and boards, and the pipes puffing. Occasionally Platte cañon expanding
into a grassy flat of a few acres. At one such place, toward the end,
where we stop, and I get out to stretch my legs, as I look skyward, or
rather mountain-topward, a huge hawk or eagle (a rare sight here) is
idly soaring, balancing along the ether, now sinking low and coming
quite near, and then up again in stately-languid circles--then higher,
higher, slanting to the north, and gradually out of sight.