nd urging her
good things upon us, she was orating on the greediness of English
people, saying that "you would think they traveled through the country
only to gratify their palates"; and addressed me, asking me if I had
not observed it! I am nearly always taken for a Dane or a Swede, never
for an Englishwoman, so I often hear a good deal of outspoken criticism.

In the evening Mr. Link returned, and there was a most vehement
discussion between him, an old hunter, a miner, and the teamster who
brought my pack, as to the route by which I should ride through the
mountains for the next three or four days--because at that point I was
to leave the wagon road--and it was renewed with increased violence the
next morning, so that if my nerves had not been of steel I should have
been appalled. The old hunter acrimoniously said he "must speak the
truth," the miner was directing me over a track where for twenty-five
miles there was not a house, and where, if snow came on, I should never
be heard of again. The miner said he "must speak the truth," the
hunter was directing me over a pass where there were five feet of snow,
and no trail. The teamster said that the only road possible for a
horse was so-and-so, and advised me to take the wagon road into South
Park, which I was determined not to do. Mr. Link said he was the
oldest hunter and settler in the district, and he could not cross any
of the trails in snow. And so they went on. At last they partially
agreed on a route--"the worst road in the Rocky Mountains," the old
hunter said, with two feet of snow upon it, but a hunter had hauled an
elk over part of it, at any rate. The upshot of the whole you shall
have in my next letter.

I. L. B.

Letter XI

Tarryall Creek--The Red Range--Excelsior--Importunate pedlars--Snow and
heat--A bison calf--Deep drifts--South Park--The Great Divide--Comanche
Bill--Difficulties--Hall's Gulch--A Lord Dundreary--Ridiculous fears.

HALL'S GULCH, COLORADO, November 6.

It was another cloudless morning, one of the many here on which one
awakes early, refreshed, and ready to enjoy the fatigues of another
day. In our sunless, misty climate you do not know the influence which
persistent fine weather exercises on the spirits. I have been ten
months in almost perpetual sunshine, and now a single cloudy day makes
me feel quite depressed. I did not leave till 9:30, because of the
slipperiness, and shortl