After Dinner I
Opened The Mail-Bag, And Was Delighted To Find An Accumulation Of
Letters From You; But I Sat Much Too Long There, Forgetting That
I Had Twenty Miles To Ride, Which Could Hardly Be Done In Less
Than Six Hours.
It was then brilliant.
I had not realized the
magnificence of that ride when I took it before, but the pony was
tired, and I could not hurry her, and the distance seemed
interminable, as after every range I crossed another range. Then
came a region of deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, only a few
feet wide, and many fords, and from their cold depths I saw the
last sunlight fade from the brows of precipices 4,000 feet high.
It was eerie, as darkness came on, to wind in and out in the
pine-shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the
bottom of these tremendous chasms. Wolves howled in all
directions. This is said to denote the approach of a storm.
During this twenty-mile ride I met a hunter with an elk packed on
his horse, and he told me not only that the Edwardses were at the
cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain for two
weeks longer, no matter how uncongenial. The ride did seem
endless after darkness came on. Finally the last huge range was
conquered, the last deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which
craved for human companionship, I rode up to "Mountain Jim's"
den, but no light shone through the chinks, and all was silent.
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