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"When I first heard it I didn't know myself-thought the man meant gingersnaps. But he said that these beats, when they were at home, had old squirrel rifles about as long as a mantel-piece, and with flint-locks. They'd go out and snap at deer, and if they killed him, all right. If they didn't, they'd have to live on the snaps until next day!"

"Yes, those were pretty rough times in Pueblo," remarked another old hand. "I was county clerk, and when we wanted bacon or flour we'd issue a county warrant for it. Things came out all right, though, for when we wanted to square up, the treasurer burned 'em, and we had a new deal."

But we could not tarry on the Rosita hills, and we sped north, reluctantly postponing the trips to San Juan and the Gunnison country, which promised such store of information and pleasure. A day's staging took us to Pueblo, and on the way we passed a new little camp called Silver Hill. It looked picturesque enough, and we were fancying it the abode of a generous prosperity, when, just as a young and hopeful citizen had remarked to us that "the boys could make a first-class camp out of this if they only had the fortitude," an aged person exclaimed, with a sort of growl, "There's fortitude enough, but there ain't no money, you see. That's what's the matter, you bet."

It was our lot in leaving Pueblo to go, not as goes the every-day traveller, but on a "special," with Billy Reed, of the Rio Grande Road, on the engine, or rather partly on, for he seemed to project half his length out of the window of the "cab" as he rounded the curves in about half of schedule time. One of the men best worth knowing in this world is an American locomotive engineer, and either the sight of the great mountains, or some less perceptible influence, seems to develop in the Colorado brotherhood an added measure of simple manliness and grave courtesy. The Colonel found a worthy successor to him of the "special" in Tom Loftus, whose guest he was on the engine of the Leadville express, two

hours out from Denver, early on the morning of the day of all days in his mining pilgrimages. Little enough do the passengers in the comfortable cars know of the skill and caution required to control the train on such a journey, but it is clear to a careful observer, and infinitely interesting. All roads, it is said, lead to Rome; all railroads in Colorado try to lead to Leadville; and from the force of circumstances, and through the energy displayed in its construction, this line, which had terrible natural obstacles to overcome, is, at the date of writing, well in the van. Not very far south of Denver it enters the cañon of the Platte River, up which it winds after the manner of the narrow gauge in these parts. The strong little engine laboriously puffed up the grade, and Tom was exactly as careful in economizing "her" strength, and giving "her" rest and food and water, as if she were a favorite mule. The frost had turned many of the leaves yellow and a few red, lighting up the cañon in a striking manner. At certain points it opened out into little parks, and graders' cabins and campers' locations were frequent. Then came one of those grand horseshoe curves, and Kenosha Summit, some 10,000 feet above the level of the sea; and then a scene altogether wonderful, and something to be long remembered. The summit was a kind of plateau, and was quickly crossed, and we had hardly taken in the outline of the great peaks on the north, when, without warning of any kind, we glided on and along the edge of the sloping wall of the great South Park, and saw it stretching below us leagues away to the south, and across to the Park Range, beyond which lay our goal; and now Tom shut off his steam, and let the train, controlled by the air-brakes, scramble down the slope and run across the park to Red Hill. Here were the Leadville stages, and here also a spring wagon, to which were attached four good mules. Climbing into this, we whirled along the dusty road ahead of the stages, passed the old mining camp of Fairplay, arrived at the foot of Mosquito Pass, and began to ascend the road, which had been open but about two months. Two extra mules toiled away on the lead, and foot by foot we climbed toward the summit, rising bleak and bare some 13,300 feet. It must be known that, not among careless tourists, but among experienced drivers, who

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the time when I couldn't see somethin' worth lookin' at in them great mountains. It's a pity that Smart Aleck in there can't cross them once without bein' bored." And again, after a pause: "Guess if them clouds was to drop on us when we get to the top, he'd find out somethin' new. Why, I've had them clouds gather round my coach

only knew where my team was by the pull on the lines."

"That's what she's afeerd of [thus did the good fellow, with affectionate persistence, designate his wife]-them clouds a-droppin'. When I come in, on t'other route, last winter, with both arms froze half way up to the elbow, she just begged

me never to take the lines again -women is such fools about a feller, you know. When I'm out, she just watches the mountains, an' if a storm is a-comin'

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up in the pass there so as

I was as cold as Christmas-this time o' year too --and you couldn't see a foot. All I could make

"ROUND ONE OF THEM CUTE' CURVES."

out was a glimmer, like a miner's lamp, | on, she'll just cry an' worry all night. hangin' on to the end of my whip-stockmade by the electricity, you know; an' I

So now, if it's bad weather, I just telegraph her when I get to Leadville. "Tain't

He had expressed himself somewhat strongly at the station where we had changed teams, because the wagon had not been repaired, and the bad mule had been thrust upon him.

any trouble, you know; an' then she's sat- | and each turn seemed more abrupt, and isfied." each stretch of road narrower and more dangerous, than the last. It was rather more interesting than re-assuring to see the only passenger who was thoroughly familiar with the pass quietly clear the wraps from his feet, and make ready for a possible spring. The situation was not agreeable, but it was worse before it was better; for in another minute off came a tire, and it was hardly hammered on when adverse fate again brought us to a halt. Through the whole drive we had been meeting great mule teams, the drivers riding one of the wheelers, one hand on a string leading to the brake lever; and now just ahead on this narrow road, and inside, was one of them.

"She never heerd me swear but once,' said he, later on; "then it slipped out at a jayhawker as wouldn't give me no show to pass him on a narrer road down by Fairplay."

As we climbed higher and higher, little animals, hardly squirrels and hardly rabbits, ran over the rocky slopes, puzzling us as to their identity, until we remembered the words of the Psalmist: "The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies"-for such they were. As the wind grew colder, the passengers buttoned their overcoats and wrapped their heavy blankets around them, talking and laughing as usual; but Sam sententiously remarked that "if they knew what was ahead of 'em, they'd keep quiet, sure." And they knew in a few moments, for we reached the summit, from which stretched downward with sharp turns, and on the very edge of an awful precipice, the road, hardly wide enough for the coach. The elderly gentleman who had seen nothing to surprise or please him in the lofty miner's cabin nervously dropped the canvas curtain after his first glance, and in a few minutes hastily asked to be allowed to change his seat to the other side. Certain demonstrations made by him during the descent induced the driver to remark, later on, "I guess, by the way that Smart Aleck hollered when we swung round some of them 'cute' curves, he'd seen somethin' new this trip;" and, indeed, we heard the next day that he had seen something so new to his experience, that he would give all that he possessed to be safely out of the town, and once more on the home side of the passes.

But the driver had something else to do than talk, now that the descent had begun. His eyes shone like diamonds, and there was a bright spot on each cheek, for he saw the refractory mule's behavior, and felt the loose brake. The angles were terribly acute, and the front feet of the leading mules would seem to be over the edge before they were skillfully swung round. Fortunately no clouds "dropped" on us, but night was fast coming on, and the wind blew fiercely over the lofty summits,

"I swear, Jim, I believe I'll have to drive right over ye!" cried Sam, in despair; but after a moment's deliberation, and urged by one of their number, the passengers descended, and literally put their shoulders to the wheel, not without a mental reservation to the effect that their contract with the stage company hardly compelled them to lift for dear life within a few inches of that terrible descent, at the foot of which a slip might cause them to be found the next day mangled and crushed past all recognition. | And thus we went on from Scylla to Charybdis, for we were behind time, and reached only after dark the place where the road agents had waylaid the stage only a few nights before. Well might Sam say, "Never had a drive like that before. Everything against me: the brake bad, an' the shoe not workin', an' the tire comin' off on the same side that the black mule was on, an' the wagon draggin' to one side all the time."

We had reached what by comparison was level ground, but our pace was slow, for Sam quietly told us that there were "as many stumps in the road as hairs on a dog's tail." The stage behind us was actually caught on one, and remained there two hours; and as we finally entered the California Gulch of old days, we thought of Mr. Harte's heroine, and her pathetic inquiry:

"Oh, why did papa strike pay gravel

When drifting on Poverty Flat ?"

for although great are Leadville and its carbonates, the way thither is indeed a hard road to travel.

And now, having seen this famous

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cial correspondents who have "written up | region have been the changes from penLeadville," for as romancers the last-mentioned carry off the palm indisputably.

ury to affluence, although none so picturesque and rounded off as that narrated as For some years, beginning with the happening at Rosita. The small storespring of 1860, men panned the surface keeper who "grub-staked" some prospectdirt for gold in California Gulch, and ors is Lieutenant-Governor of the State, when it petered out they went away. In and credited with indefinite millions; at 1877 it was found that the now world- the recent wedding of one of these prosrenowned "carbonate belt" lay among pectors Jenkins fairly revelled; and a the wooded hills on the east of the Arkan- right-minded nouveau riche, whom we sas Valley. In April, 1878, an important met on his way back from a quiet sum

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