t the woman looked so vinegar
faced that I preferred to ride four miles farther, up a beautiful road
winding along a sunny gulch filled with silver spruce, bluer and more
silvery than any I have yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which
the view in all the ecstasy of sunset color was perfectly glorious. It
was enjoyment also in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which I
had been immured all day. There is a train of twelve freight wagons
here, each wagon with six horses, but the teamsters carry their own
camping blankets and sleep either in their wagons or on the floor, so
the house is not crowded.

It is a pleasant two-story log house, not only chinked but lined with
planed timber. Each room has a great open chimney with logs burning in
it; there are pretty engravings on the walls, and baskets full of
creepers hanging from the ceiling. This is the first settler's house I
have been in in which the ornamental has had any place. There is a
door to each room, the oak chairs are bright with rubbing, and the
floor, though unplaned, is so clean that one might eat off it. The
table is clean and abundant, and the mother and daughter, though they
do all the work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh
heartily. The ranchman neither allows drink to be brought into the
house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he "keeps
travelers." The freighters come in to supper quite well washed, and
though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine o'clock there was
not a sound. This freighting business is most profitable. I think
that the charge is three cents per pound from Denver to South Park, and
there much of the freight is transferred to "pack-jacks" and carried up
to the mines. A railroad, however, is contemplated. I breakfasted
with the family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting
down to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh table-cloth
and hot food. The buckets are all polished oak, with polished brass
bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make them; and,
more wonderful still, the girls black their boots. Blacking usually is
an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept in houses. My boots have
only been blacked once during the last two months.

DENVER, November 9.

I could not make out whether the superiority of the Deer Valley
settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster I met in the
evening said it "made him more of