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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
whe
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