1859.]

FROM TAOS TO DENVER, COLORADO.

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CHAPTER XXIII.

FROM Taos to Denver, three hundred miles due north, a lonely mountain trail led through the range of the murderous Utes. I lingered, hoping to find companions for the journey, but as winter was at hand no one was starting northward. Miners were daily arriving from Denver to pass the cold months in Mexico. Some declared the trail as safe as Broadway. Others pronounced the journey madness, and its inevitable price a lost scalp. As the Fort Smith fever had left my crown bare, taking this would be no easy matter. But I felt like the Scotchman about his head, that while 'nae much of a' scalp it would be 'a sair loss' to me. A third class of immigrants had no apprehensions about the sav ages, but laid great stress upon the danger of perishing among mountain snows.

Despairingly I appealed to Kit Carson as final authority. He replied with a smile that the road, always perilous to a stranger unfamiliar with Indian warfare, was more so toward winter than during the warm months. Just now too there was some possible danger from the Utes. Still if I deemed the trip necessary he had little doubt that I could make it successfully.

I bought a thin, iron-gray pony, two years and a half old, so Liliputian that satirical friends advised me to start upon a rocking horse instead. Even Carson was skeptical of the little brute's capacity. My own confidence was serene, based upon long experience with the hardy creatures, during which I had never known one to die from overwork or any other cause. The entire cost of pony, saddle, bridle, spurs and lariat was thirty-six dollars.

I. On the twenty-fifth of October, with Liliput almost buried under rider, heavy blanket and plethoric saddle-bags, I bade

270

A POLYGLOT LANDLORD.

[1859. adieu to kind friends in Taos, and galloped away toward the latest El Dorado. Carson obligingly accompanied me for an hour. Pointing at an isolated mountain, a dozen miles away he said; 'Your general course is directly toward that butte.'

'Shall I reach it to night?'

'Hardly! I see you have not learned to estimate distances in this clear atmosphere. Next time we meet, remember to tell me how long you were in getting to it.'

Soon he turned homeward and I was sorry to lose sight of his kind, trust-inspiring face.

After a solitary mountain ride of twenty-eight miles I dismounted at Beaubean's trading-post, beside a rushing transparent little stream bearing the name Colorado, so frequent in Spanish nomenclature. Beaubean was a Frenchman whom long intercourse with this mixed population had converted into a bewildered polyglot. With profuse bows and in a medley of French, German, Spanish, English, and Indian, he begged me to pardon his poor lodgings and his fare so unfit to set before a gentleman. As a sequel to this preamble he gave me a supper of mutton and eggs, the best meal I had eaten in New Mexico, served upon snowy linen, in a pleasant room. Then through the long evening I lounged in a luxurious arm-chair, reading before my cheerful fire with many glances through the skeleton window at tall snowcrowned mountains, with yawning black canyons between.

The dirt floor was smooth and hard. The mud walls, dressed with a trowel and whitewashed, could hardly be distinguished from the finest plastering. They were hung with pictures of saints, and crucifixes, curiously intermingled with views of horse races and cock fights. The mattress upon the floor, covered with fine blankets of whitest wool, was quite luxurious. That afternoon in a wretched hovel across the narrow street, a little child had fallen into the fire and been burned to death. Now shrieks. and moans rending the air, showed that in one dusky bosom under all its rags and wretchedness the mother-heart was beating.

II. Soon after sunrise I rode on among scattered ranches with valley-fields of corn and wheat. Irrigation makes the parched, sandy soil wonderfully productive. In most wheat-growing States

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BEFORE THE SUTLER'S FIRE.

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a yield of fifteen fold from the seed is an excellent crop. But this seeming desert often produces fifty fold and sometimes a hundred fold. It is not adapted to Indian corn on account of the cold nights. In winter farmers do not feed stock; the cattle subsist upon a wild sage so tall that it is seldom hidden by the snow.

Crossing the Costilla (rib) river I dined at the trading-house of Mr. Posthoff, a German resident of gentlemanly manners and liberal culture, with whom I spent an agreeable afternoon and night.

Near by was a Mexican grist-mill-not the human variety already depicted but yet almost as primitive. It is simply a horizontal water-wheel connected by an upright shaft with the millstone one story above. The stone, revolving no faster than the wheel, grinds but slowly, and having no bolting apparatus turns out very coarse flour. There are a few improved steam mills in the Territory. Day's travel twenty-one miles.

III. My morning route over the desert abounded in wild sage, cactus, and great herds of antelopes. At noon as usual I broiled a bit of pork upon a long stick by my little camp-fire, and made tea in my drinking cup. Liliput found excellent grazing on the banks of the Culebra (snake) creek. The afternoon ride was delightful-among grand old mountains with ever shifting colors, water worn sides and whitened crests-a

'Lapse into the glad release

Of Nature's own, exceeding peace.'

At last from a hill-top, I had a dim shadow-like view of Fort Garland far below, its adobe walls dotting the fair valley of a creek fringed with cottonwoods, and the Stars and Stripes floating over it. Late in the cold evening I reached it, after a day's journey of thirty-three miles.

The post-sutler Mr. Francisco was far-famed for his hospitality. Around his cheerful fire I found several gentlemen who brought the latest word of old comrades and new mines in the gold region. One told me that of seven intimate friends who resided in Santa Fe fourteen years before, he was now the only survivor. All the rest had been killed by Indians or in drunken affrays.

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OUT-DOOR MOUNTAIN LODGINGS.

[1859.

IV. This morning I reached the mountain which Carson had pointed out to me from Taos, the distance having proved three days' journey, or more than a hundred miles. Here my course turned eastward through the Sangre de Christo (blood of Christ) canyon, leading from the waters of the Rio Grande to those of the Arkansas. Its tall upright walls are worn by streams pouring down their sides, and streaked with elk paths.

The trail crossed the little creek a dozen times in a single mile, and soon left it to follow another stream. Liliput climbed the steady ascent but slowly, for at that great altitude the atmosphere is thin, makes breathing difficult, and compels both bipeds and quadrupeds to pause frequently.

As night approached the air grew nipping and eager. I had trusted to luck for a camping place, and was nearly a day's travel from human habitation. But just before sundown I overtook two young adventurers with an ox team and a load of wheat. Despite their rough attire and sun-browned faces, the moment they spoke, they betrayed Yankee origin and they proved to be natives of Medfield, Massachusetts. Gladly I accepted their hearty invitation to lodge with them.

We climbed wearily a long sharp hill and stood upon the summit of a high divide. Behind us, within pistol shot, were streams running into the Rio Grande del Norte, which rises among the eternal snows of the Rocky Mountains and continues its sinuous course to the tropical waters of the gulf. Before us were springs which feed the Arkansas; and far to the east over hill and dale, forest and desert, we could discern its wooded valley sixty miles away.

The scenery was inspiring, but the cold and approaching darkness were not. Descending a long terraced hill, we halted for the night. The way worn animals were turned loose to graze; supper was cooked and eaten by a log fire; after a long chat, our couch was extemporized in the open air by spreading a blanket upon the frozen ground, and we huddled close under a buffalo robe, without even a tree overhead.

The scene recalled Captain John Smith and his men out on their Indian scout in mid-winter. The night was cold and dismal; but,'

says the stanch old leader,

'we drank our gill of rum each, and

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MEETING A PLUCKY PEDESTRIAN.

273

having thanked God, slept soundly, though surrounded by manifold dangers.'

As the guest, my new companions had placed me in the middle. where the temperature was endurable; though whether sleeping or waking I had a dim consciousness of cold. They found it intolerable, and often arose to warm themselves by the fire.

V. Soon after sunrise I bade them adieu and was again on the road. The first creek I crossed, though running water, was frozen so hard that it bore pony and rider, and gave me new appreciation of the intense cold of the night.

Thus far I had not forgotten the alleged danger of this solitary journey, and had plumed myself a little upon facing it. But now I met a miner from Pike's Peak coming on foot over the same route and bearing upon his shoulders his blankets, provisions, fryingpan, ax and rifle. Our brief

exchange of greetings showed that he regarded the journey as a mere pleasure excursion and it made me a little ashamed of myself.

Through the day, the mountain scenery was varied and

picturesque. After nightfall I

reached Maxwell's ranch on the Greenhorn river. Ever since

starting, I had anticipated here an agreeable and luxurious resting place. Maxwell had thousands of sheep and cattle, and his dwelling (the only one within sixty miles) was eagerly looked forward to by every traveler. To my sore disappointment I found that only the day previous

he had removed his cattle and men to a distant ranch, leaving no soul here save one villainous-looking Mexican. This unprepossessing host wore a tattered hat, woolen shirt, buckskin breeches and moccasins; and his black matted hair shaded a face