"photo" which accompanies this letter is by a
courageous Denver artist who attempted the ascent just before I
arrived, but, after camping out at the timber line for a week, was
foiled by the perpetual storms, and was driven down again, leaving some
very valuable apparatus about 3,000 feet from the summit.

Unsaddling and picketing the horses securely, making the beds of pine
shoots, and dragging up logs for fuel, warmed us all. "Jim" built up a
great fire, and before long we were all sitting around it at supper.
It didn't matter much that we had to drink our tea out of the battered
meat tins in which it was boiled, and eat strips of beef reeking with
pine smoke without plates or forks.

"Treat Jim as a gentleman and you'll find him one," I had been told;
and though his manner was certainly bolder and freer than that of
gentlemen generally, no imaginary fault could be found. He was very
agreeable as a man of culture as well as a child of nature; the
desperado was altogether out of sight. He was very courteous and even
kind to me, which was fortunate, as the young men had little idea of
showing even ordinary civilities. That night I made the acquaintance
of his dog "Ring," said to be the best hunting dog in Colorado, with
the body and legs of a collie, but a head approaching that of a
mastiff, a noble face with a wistful human expression, and the most
truthful eyes I ever saw in an animal. His master loves him if he
loves anything, but in his savage moods ill-treats him. "Ring's"
devotion never swerves, and his truthful eyes are rarely taken off his
master's face. He is almost human in his intelligence, and, unless he
is told to do so, he never takes notice of any one but "Jim." In a
tone as if speaking to a human being, his master, pointing to me, said,
"Ring, go to that lady, and don't leave her again to-night." "Ring" at
once came to me, looked into my face, laid his head on my shoulder, and
then lay down beside me with his head on my lap, but never taking his
eyes from "Jim's" face.

The long shadows of the pines lay upon the frosted grass, an aurora
leaped fitfully, and the moonlight, though intensely bright, was pale
beside the red, leaping flames of our pine logs and their red glow on
our gear, ourselves, and Ring's truthful face. One of the young men
sang a Latin student's song and two Negro melodies; the other "Sweet
Spirit, hear my Prayer." "Jim" sang one of Moore's melodies in a
singular falsetto