I Felt Better Quite Soon; The Horse In
Gait And Temper Turned Out Perfection - All Spring And Spirit,
Elastic In
His motion, walking fast and easily, and cantering
with a light, graceful swing as soon as one pressed the reins
On
his neck, a blithe, joyous animal, to whom a day among the
mountains seemed a pleasant frolic. So gentle he was, that when
I got off and walked he followed me without being led, and
without needing any one to hold him he allowed me to mount on
either side. In addition to the charm of his movements he has
the catlike sure-footedness of a Hawaiian horse, and fords rapid
and rough-bottomed rivers, and gallops among stones and stumps,
and down steep hills, with equal security. I could have ridden
him a hundred miles as easily as thirty. We have only been
together two days, yet we are firm friends, and thoroughly
understand each other. I should not require another companion on
a long mountain tour. All his ways are those of an animal
brought up without curb, whip, or spur, trained by the voice, and
used only to kindness, as is happily the case with the majority
of horses in the Western States. Consequently, unless they are
broncos, they exercise their intelligence for your advantage, and
do their work rather as friends than as machines.
I soon began not only to feel better, but to be exhilarated with
the delightful motion. The sun was behind us, and puffs of a
cool elastic air came down from the glorious mountains in front.
We cantered across six miles of prairie, and then reached the
beautiful canyon of the St. Vrain, which, towards its mouth, is a
narrow, fertile, wooded valley, through which a bright rapid
river, which we forded many times, hurries along, with twists and
windings innumerable. Ah, how brightly its ripples danced in the
glittering sunshine, and how musically its waters murmured like
the streams of windward Hawaii! We lost our way over and over
again, though the "innocent" young men had been there before;
indeed, it would require some talent to master the intricacies of
that devious trail, but settlers making hay always appeared in
the nick of time to put us on the right track. Very fair it was,
after the brown and burning plains, and the variety was endless.
Cotton-wood trees were green and bright, aspens shivered in gold
tremulousness, wild grape-vines trailed their lemon-colored
foliage along the ground, and the Virginia creeper hung its
crimson sprays here and there, lightening up green and gold into
glory. Sometimes from under the cool and bowery shade of the
colored tangle we passed into the cool St. Vrain, and then were
wedged between its margin and lofty cliffs and terraces of
incredibly staring, fantastic rocks, lined, patched, and splashed
with carmine, vermilion, greens of all tints, blue, yellow,
orange, violet, deep crimson, coloring that no artist would dare
to represent, and of which, in sober prose, I scarcely dare tell.
Long's wonderful peaks, which hitherto had gleamed above the
green, now disappeared, to be seen no more for twenty miles.
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