With Great
Difficulty And Much Assistance I Recrossed The "Lava Beds," Was
Carried To The Horse And Lifted Upon Him, And When We Reached The
Camping Ground I Was Lifted Off Him, And Laid On The Ground
Wrapped Up In Blankets, A Humiliating Termination Of A Great
Exploit.
The horses were saddled, and the young men were all
ready to start, but "Jim" quietly said, "Now, gentlemen,
I want a
good night's rest, and we shan't stir from here to-night." I
believe they were really glad to have it so, as one of them was
quite "finished." I retired to my arbor, wrapped myself in a
roll of blankets, and was soon asleep.
When I woke, the moon was high shining through the silvery
branches, whitening the bald Peak above, and glittering on the
great abyss of snow behind, and pine logs were blazing like a
bonfire in the cold still air. My feet were so icy cold that I
could not sleep again, and getting some blankets to sit in, and
making a roll of them for my back, I sat for two hours by the
camp-fire. It was weird and gloriously beautiful. The students
were asleep not far off in their blankets with their feet towards
the fire. "Ring" lay on one side of me with his fine head on my
arm, and his master sat smoking, with the fire lighting up the
handsome side of his face, and except for the tones of our
voices, and an occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot
blazed up, there was no sound on the mountain side. The beloved
stars of my far-off home were overhead, the Plough and Pole Star,
with their steady light; the glittering Pleiades, looking larger
than I ever saw them, and "Orion's studded belt" shining
gloriously. Once only some wild animals prowled near the camp,
when "Ring," with one bound, disappeared from my side; and the
horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke their lariats,
stampeded, and came rushing wildly towards the fire, and it was
fully half an hour before they were caught and quiet was
restored. "Jim," or Mr. Nugent, as I always scrupulously called
him, told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow which
had led him to embark on a lawless and desperate life. His voice
trembled, and tears rolled down his cheek. Was it semi-conscious
acting, I wondered, or was his dark soul really stirred to its
depths by the silence, the beauty, and the memories of youth?
We reached Estes Park at noon of the following day. A more
successful ascent of the Peak was never made, and I would not now
exchange my memories of its perfect beauty and extraordinary
sublimity for any other experience of mountaineering in any part
of the world. Yesterday snow fell on the summit, and it will be
inaccessible for eight months to come.
I. L. B.
Letter VIII
Estes Park - Big game - "Parks" in Colorado - Magnificent
scenery - Flowers and pines - An awful road - Our log
cabin - Griffith Evans - A miniature world - Our topics - A
night alarm - A skunk - Morning glories - Daily routine - The
panic - "Wait for the wagon" - A musical evening.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO TERRITORY, October 2.
How time has slipped by I do not know. This is a glorious
region, and the air and life are intoxicating. I live mainly out
of doors and on horseback, wear my half-threadbare Hawaiian
dress, sleep sometimes under the stars on a bed of pine boughs,
ride on a Mexican saddle, and hear once more the low music of my
Mexican spurs. "There's a stranger! Heave arf a brick at him!"
is said by many travelers to express the feeling of the new
settlers in these Territories. This is not my experience in my
cheery mountain home. How the rafters ring as I write with songs
and mirth, while the pitch-pine logs blaze and crackle in the
chimney, and the fine snow dust drives in through the chinks and
forms mimic snow wreaths on the floor, and the wind raves and
howls and plays among the creaking pine branches and snaps them
short off, and the lightning plays round the blasted top of
Long's Peak, and the hardy hunters divert themselves with the
thought that when I go to bed I must turn out and face the storm!
You will ask, "What is Estes Park?" This name, with the quiet
Midland Countries' sound, suggests "park palings" well lichened,
a lodge with a curtseying woman, fallow deer, and a Queen Anne
mansion. Such as it is, Estes Park is mine. It is unsurveyed,
"no man's land," and mine by right of love, appropriation, and
appreciation; by the seizure of its peerless sunrises and
sunsets, its glorious afterglow, its blazing noons, its
hurricanes sharp and furious, its wild auroras, its glories of
mountain and forest, of canyon, lake, and river, and the
stereotyping them all in my memory. Mine, too, in a better than
the sportsman's sense, are its majestic wapiti, which play and
fight under the pines in the early morning, as securely as fallow
deer under our English oaks; its graceful "black-tails," swift of
foot; its superb bighorns, whose noble leader is to be seen now
and then with his classic head against the blue sky on the top of
a colossal rock; its sneaking mountain lion with his hideous
nocturnal caterwaulings, the great "grizzly," the beautiful
skunk, the wary beaver, who is always making lakes, damming and
turning streams, cutting down young cotton-woods, and setting an
example of thrift and industry; the wolf, greedy and cowardly;
the coyote and the lynx, and all the lesser fry of mink, marten,
cat, hare, fox, squirrel, and chipmunk, as well as things that
fly, from the eagle down to the crested blue-jay. May their
number never be less, in spite of the hunter who kills for food
and gain, and the sportsman who kills and marauds for
pastime!
But still I have not answered the natural question,[15] "What is
Estes Park?" Among the striking peculiarities of these mountains
are hundreds of high-lying valleys, large and small, at heights
varying from 6,000 to 11,000 feet.
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