l. When I had ridden fifteen
miles I stopped at the ranch where people usually get food, but it was
empty, and the next was also deserted. So I was compelled to go to the
last house, where two young men are "baching."

There I had to decide between getting a meal for myself or a feed for
the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty, trusted me
"till next time." His house, for order and neatness, and a sort of
sprightliness of cleanliness--the comfort of cleanliness without its
severity--is a pattern to all women, while the clear eyes and manly
self-respect which the habit of total abstinence gives in this country
are a pattern to all men. He cooked me a splendid dinner, with good
tea. After dinner I opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an
accumulation of letters from you; but I sat much too long there,
forgetting that I had twenty miles to ride, which could hardly be done
in less than six hours. It was then brilliant. I had not realized the
magnificence of that ride when I took it before, but the pony was
tired, and I could not hurry her, and the distance seemed interminable,
as after every range I crossed another range. Then came a region of
deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, only a few feet wide, and many
fords, and from their cold depths I saw the last sunlight fade from the
brows of precipices 4,000 feet high. It was eerie, as darkness came
on, to wind in and out in the pine-shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice,
sometimes in snow, at the bottom of these tremendous chasms. Wolves
howled in all directions. This is said to denote the approach of a
storm. During this twenty-mile ride I met a hunter with an elk packed
on his horse, and he told me not only that the Edwardses were at the
cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain for two weeks
longer, no matter how uncongenial. The ride did seem endless after
darkness came on. Finally the last huge range was conquered, the last
deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which craved for human
companionship, I rode up to "Mountain Jim's" den, but no light shone
through the chinks, and all was silent. So I rode tediously down
M'Ginn's Gulch, which was full of crackings and other strange mountain
noises, and was pitch dark, though the stars were bright overhead.

Soon I heard the welcome sound of a barking dog. I supposed it to
denote strange hunters, but calling "Ring" at a venture, the noble
dog's large paws and grand head were in