surd changes which are being rung on the harmonium. They may be
described as clothed only in boots, for their clothes are torn to rags.
They stare vacantly. They have neither seen a woman nor slept under a
roof for six months. Negro songs are being sung, and before that
"Yankee Doodle" was played immediately after "Rule Britannia," and it
made every one but the strangers laugh, it sounded so foolish and mean.
The colder weather is bringing the beasts down from the heights. I
heard both wolves and the mountain lion as I crossed to my cabin last
night.

I. L. B.

LETTER IX

"Please Ma'ams"--A desperado--A cattle hunt--The muster--A mad cow--A
snowstorm--Snowed up--Birdie--The Plains--A prairie schooner--Denver--A
find--Plum Creek--"Being agreeable"--Snowbound--The grey mare.

ESTES PARK, COLORADO.

This afternoon, as I was reading in my cabin, little Sam Edwards ran
in, saying, "Mountain Jim wants to speak to you." This brought to my
mind images of infinite worry, gauche servants, "please Ma'am,"
contretemps, and the habit growing out of our elaborate and uselessly
conventional life of magnifying the importance of similar trifles.
Then "things" came up, with the tyranny they exercise. I REALLY need
nothing more than this log cabin offers. But elsewhere one must have a
house and servants, and burdens and worries--not that one may be
hospitable and comfortable, but for the "thick clay" in the shape of
"things" which one has accumulated. My log house takes me about five
minutes to "do," and you could eat off the floor, and it needs no lock,
as it contains nothing worth stealing.

But "Mountain Jim" was waiting while I made these reflections to ask us
to take a ride; and he, Mr. and Mrs. Dewy, and I, had a delightful
stroll through colored foliage, and then, when they were fatigued, I
changed my horse for his beautiful mare, and we galloped and raced in
the beautiful twilight, in the intoxicating frosty air. Mrs. Dewy
wishes you could have seen us as we galloped down the pass, the
fearful-looking ruffian on my heavy wagon horse, and I on his bare
wooden saddle, from which beaver, mink, and marten tails, and pieces of
skin, were hanging raggedly, with one spur, and feet not in the
stirrups, the mare looking so aristocratic and I so beggarly! Mr.
Nugent is what is called "splendid company." With a sort of breezy
mountain recklessness in everything, he passes remarkably