wards, each with a wife and
family. The men are as diverse as they can be. "Griff," as Evans is
called, is short and small, and is hospitable, careless, reckless,
jolly, social, convivial, peppery, good natured, "nobody's enemy but
his own." He had the wit and taste to find out Estes Park, where
people have found him out, and have induced him to give them food and
lodging, and add cabin to cabin to take them in. He is a splendid
shot, an expert and successful hunter, a bold mountaineer, a good
rider, a capital cook, and a generally "jolly fellow." His cheery
laugh rings through the cabin from the early morning, and is
contagious, and when the rafters ring at night with such songs as "D'ye
ken John Peel?" "Auld Lang Syne," and "John Brown," what would the
chorus be without poor "Griff's" voice? What would Estes Park be
without him, indeed? When he went to Denver lately we missed him as we
should have missed the sunshine, and perhaps more. In the early
morning, when Long's Peak is red, and the grass crackles with the
hoar-frost, he arouses me with a cheery thump on my door. "We're going
cattle-hunting, will you come?" or, "Will you help to drive in the
cattle? You can take your pick of the horses. I want another hand."
Free-hearted, lavish, popular, poor "Griff" loves liquor too well for
his prosperity, and is always tormented by debt. He makes lots of
money, but puts it into "a bag with holes." He has fifty horses and
1,000 head of cattle, many of which are his own, wintering up here, and
makes no end of money by taking in people at eight dollars a week, yet
it all goes somehow. He has a most industrious wife, a girl of
seventeen, and four younger children, all musical, but the wife has to
work like a slave; and though he is a kind husband, her lot, as
compared with her lord's, is like that of a squaw. Edwards, his
partner, is his exact opposite, tall, thin, and condemnatory looking,
keen, industrious, saving, grave, a teetotaler, grieved for all reasons
at Evans's follies, and rather grudging; as naturally unpopular as
Evans is popular; a "decent man," who, with his industrious wife, will
certainly make money as fast as Evans loses it.

I pay eight dollars a week, which includes the unlimited use of a
horse, when one can be found and caught. We breakfast at seven on
beef, potatoes, tea, coffee, new bread, and butter. Two pitchers of
cream and two of milk are replenished as fast as they are exhausted.
Di