66

pense involved in transportation from the
Atlantic sea-board, he buys his tent and
stores at Denver or Colorado Springs,
puts them on a wagon, and then, arrayed
in the seediest of flannel shirts, the broad-
est of hats, and the tallest of boots, and
with gun in hand, and large revolver and
cartridges in belt, he casts off the tram-
mels of civilization. He can live just as
economically or just as expensively as he
pleases-can buy fat salt pork and flour,
and, as the Leadville sign suggests, "cooked!" said the Commodore.
'em himself," or he can hire a fine cook,
order fresh meats, vegetables, and fruits,
which will keep wonderfully well at these
altitudes, and find his camp a Saratoga
of the West"-in expense if not in other
respects. In the morning he may dis-
cover ice near his tent in August, and at
noon be enjoying a refreshing bath in the
stream. For the rest, horse, dog, gun,
and rod, with a good supply of magazines
and papers, help him pass the time.
Some come simply for economy's sake,
and secure, at all events, an out-door and
rustic life, such as it is, for a small sum;
others are ordered to live in just this way
for the benefit of their health, and there
is no doubt that in certain cases it proves
a cure; others, again, think it novel and
interesting and romantic, and if they are
disappointed, do not say anything about
The Colonel was skeptical, and made
objections.

dom have fallen from the lips of the
Froudes and Macaulays? Is it not writ-
ten that when people desire to imitate the
ancients, they forget that the ways of our
ancestors were but the choice of Hobson,
and that if they lived in caves and tents,
it was but because co-operative building
associations were the inheritance of their
posterity, and the brown-stone, high-stoop
dwelling was a dream ?"

it.

"Why, O rover of the mighty deep," said he to the Commodore, "seekest thou to abandon the delights of the El Paso Club, the post and telegraph offices, and the flesh-pots of this civilized town? Why hast thou thy head cropped like unto the gentlemen who serve the State in striped suits at Cañon City? And why incasest thou thy manly form in the flannel of the backwoods and the overall of the miner, instead of the gay tweed of latest Regent Street cut? Speak, I entreat thee!"

'Learn, then, O warrior," replied he, with dignity," that my soul, long inured to communion with nature on the vast ocean expanse, seeks longingly a return to the primitive delights of the dweller far from the haunts of men. It will none of these effete luxuries and demoralizing dainties;" and the Commodore helped himself to a third portion of gooseberry pie.

"But," rejoined the Colonel, "hast thou not read in the journal of the period, unjustly called venal, what words of wis

"The Froudes and Macaulays be blow"Shiver my timbers if I don't go camping-you bet!" And he went a comical figure, indeedcoercing the reluctant Montezuma on the dusty road; and he camped; and he returned, and said that he "had a boss time." Only from contemporaneous history were vivid accounts gathered of his first dinner, when he gazed pitifully through his one eyeglass at the ants crawling over his plate, and sprang up in distress when a large yellow-jacket stung him on his close-cropped head; and of his last night, when he awoke from fitful slumber to see a steer with his head through a hole in the tent, and a coyote snuffing under the flap, and to hear the howl of the dog ensconced at a safe distance.

But for one

With the approach of cold weather the camper sells his outfit as advantageously as he can, and inscribes his name on the nearest hotel register; and he who has chartered a wagon, and combined camp life with travelling, emerges from the Ute Pass or one of the cañons, and becomes like unto his fellow-men. thing how shall they, and even the residents of Colorado, answer-the strewing of the whole country with the great North American tin can? From the Wyoming line to the Veta Pass, from the White River Agency far out on the plains, lie terrible deposits, daily increasing, and rivalling gold and silver, in extent if not in value, of the whilom receptacles of eggplums (whatever they may be), tomatoes, and succotash.

"Do you not think," gently asked a clever friend of the writer, as they drove past one of these shining piles, "that when the New-Zealander is quarrying out the remnants of our civilization, he will come to the conclusion that the tin can contrasts unfavorably with the pottery of Etruria?"

If the Colonel would not camp out, he willingly acceded to the Commodore's wishes when the latter wanted to "be on the move," and go where he would not see

the perennial and conventional tourist, | Connected with the transmission of the open-eyed and duster-clad; and it was United States mails are certain officials when our Colorado sojourn was drawing called "special agents." Matters may be to a close, and our wanderings and inves- going a little wrong in an office, and one tigations had far progressed, that we took of them appears just in the nick of time. a trip combining more of rare attraction When your registered letter has not come, than it is easy to describe, but not to be you may have a call from another; and recommended except to the experienced let a highwayman make a mistake, and traveller, and to him only when in robust choose for his operation a coach with health. Given these conditions, let him "U. S. M." on it, and the whole power speedily go and do as did we. and purse of the government are against him; and when he is brought to bay in a gulch, and throws up his hands as he sees

We had "seen Leadville" by day and by night, but never before at the hour just

preceding daylight. From the hotel we went to a restaurant for coffee. It had apparently not been closed during the whole night. A sleepless proprietor presided, and a sleepy waiter served us; and as the former saw us counting thirty-three empty Champagne bottles on the table, he cheerfully remarked that "that warn't the half of 'em." Then we emerged, and saw a shadowy stage coming up the street, and a shadowy driver confirmed our claim to outside seats. Then there climbed up by our side a quiet man, courteous of manner and gentle of speech, and one might have thought him a mild Eastern capitalist; but he was something very different.

the rifle - barrels of the posse, it is some such mild-mannered gentleman as this who rides ahead and puts his hand on his shoulder. The writer has met three of them in company, playing a quiet game of ten-pins before starting on a quest, and noticed one in particular who wore gold spectacles, and looked like a German professor. This man alone took two mail robbers from the North to Texas, quietly informing them that while the intending rescuers could undoubtedly kill him, they might be entirely sure that the first motion would send both of them into eternity; and such was his fame that no man in all the crowd moved a finger.

just put me in as a cou-boy, for I'm hunt- | of elevations, propose carrying the Colo

ing stray cattle;" and, with a laugh, she guided her sure-footed broncho to one side, and over half a dozen stumps and rocks, as we touched our hats, and Purley set his foot hard on the brake and drove up to the little inn. The "loafers" hung around as if this were a sleepy agricultural town on a "lean streak" in New Hampshire, and we concluded that "booming" is a misnomer for Kokomo.

rado Central through the ridge, and in some mysterious manner over the "high line" by which we came.

Now for the last time we descended; and here our nautilus shell would be whirled down that roaring South Clear Creek, the Platte, the Missouri, and the Mississippi, and float out between Captain Eads's jetties into the Gulf of Mexico. Soon we again took a stage; and then, when the sun was well below the horizon, and we seemed to have passed our whole lives in those seats, and never known what it was not to have our spines brought at intervals into violent collision with the sharp edges behind us, the valley narrowed and the great dump heaps appeared on the side of the hills, and we passed Brownsville and Silver Plume, and finally rattled down into the main street of Georgetown. We ached in every bone, and thought of supper as a hollow mockery, but we would not have missed that drive of sixty-five long miles for all the world. This was all the Great American Desert when some of the youngest of us studied geography. Pathfinder Fremont came to grief on one of the creeks along which we passed; the fires causing the smoke hanging over the mountains were set by Ute Indians; and yet not only had we crossed and recrossed the range, and enjoyed all this grand scenery, in fourteen hours, but the locomotive may soon do it in four and a half.

This road, only very recently constructed, is just wide enough to let the wheels pass between stumps and rocks, and no more, and the strain on the driver is tremendous. To travel it at night would be impossible, and it is lonely enough by day. Up and down steep hills it goes, through desolate Ten Mile Cañon, over stretches of terribly dusty levels, and anon across an attempt at a meadow, while mighty peaks are seen on all sides. Leaving the stage, we took a large wagon, and after passing the Ten Mile, the Snake, and the Blue, and stopping for dinner, two wagons instead of one. To the east lies Breckinridge; to the southeast, grim Mount Lincoln; to the northeast, Gray's Peak and the Argentine Pass; and here we were again at the foot of the continental Divide, and must climb it. Symptoms of fatigue were not wanting among the passengers, and there was much ground still to be traversed before they could hope for rest. The road runs up through a timber belt, and our progress was slow enough to make our driver's conversation very welcome. told of old days when he rode the Pony Express, springing from horse to horse, and making his hundred miles per diem; and then of the overland stages, and of the time when the murderer escaped from Denver, and took the coach at an outside station, and he heard a hail, and saw the vigilantes in full gallop after himstern Nemesis herself, in the shape of three quiet citizens armed to the teeth, who took their prisoner out, and then let the stage go on. There comes a time, he also told us, when an old driver "loses his grip," and can not keep up the pace, and must "take a back seat"; and all this time we were still climbing, and here at last we were on the summit of Loveland Pass, and saw two little posts with "Tunnelly, the horses heard and speedily saw Line" on them, and another giving the elevation as 11,784 feet. For, strange to say, these Colorado railroad builders, who joke at grades and speak disrespectfully

He

The changing leaves on the mountains reminded the Commodore, shortly after this last trip, of what he was to see of gorgeous yellow, brown, and gold on the familiar slopes of the Hudson Valley and in the New England woods; and the day came when our effects were packed, and he exacted one last test of the Colonel's devotion in a ride with him to the station on the backs of Montezuma and Esmeralda. It was accomplished with, on his friend's part, a large degree of exasperation; but the obnoxious burros had become, through the Commodore's mistaken devotion, pampered and overfed, and mischief looked out from their eyes as we dismounted. The train moved off, the engineer blew his whistle, the burros raised their voices and their heels simultaneous

them, and we looked back from a curve in the track at a scene of havoc and devastation. A small donkey-boy, a colored porter, and an old woman lay prostrate in