LETTER XIII

Summary

Boulder, November.

The answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was given to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in and asked my name, and if I were the lady who had crossed from Link's to South Park by Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast. In five minutes the horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned side-saddle, and I started at once for the upper regions. It was an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension. The evening shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2000 feet to climb, or give up Green Lake. I shall forget many things, but never the awfulness and hugeness of that scenery. I went up a steep track by Clear Creek, then a succession of frozen waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen sides looked 5000 feet high. That is the region of enormous mineral wealth in silver. There are the “Terrible” and other mines, whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in the Times, sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to 25 discount. These mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have been established near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub, and smoke by night and day; but I had turned altogether aside from them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was grubbing for himself, and confiding to none his finds or disappointments. Agriculture restores and beautifies, mining destroys and devastates; turning the earth inside out, making it hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually blights man's heart and soul.