at a trapper's ranch to feed,
and the old trapper amused me by seeming to think Estes Park almost
inaccessible in winter. The distance was greater than I had been told,
and he said that I could not get there before eleven at night, and not
at all if there was much drift. I wanted the gentlemen to go on with
me as far as the Devil's Gate, but they could not because their horses
were tired; and when the trapper heard that he exclaimed, indignantly,
"What! that woman going into the mountains alone? She'll lose the
track or be froze to death!" But when I told him I had ridden the
trail in the storm of Tuesday, and had ridden over 600 miles alone in
the mountains, he treated me with great respect as a fellow
mountaineer, and gave me some matches, saying, "You'll have to camp out
anyhow; you'd better make a fire than be froze to death." The idea of
my spending the night in the forest alone, by a fire, struck me as most
grotesque.

We did not start again till one, and the two gentlemen rode the first
two miles with me. On that track, the Little Thompson, there a full
stream, has to be crossed eighteen times, and they had been hauling
wood across it, breaking it, and it had broken and refrozen several
times, making thick and thin places--indeed, there were crossings which
even I thought bad, where the ice let us through, and it was hard for
the horses to struggle upon it again; and one of the gentlemen who,
though a most accomplished man, was not a horseman, was once or twice
in the ludicrous position of hesitating on the bank with an anxious
face, not daring to spur his horse upon the ice. After they left me I
had eight more crossings, and then a ride of six miles, before I
reached the old trail; but though there were several drifts up to the
saddle, and no one had broken a track, Birdie showed such a pluck, that
instead of spending the night by a camp-fire, or not getting in till
midnight, I reached Mr. Nugent's cabin, four miles from Estes Park,
only an hour after dark, very cold, and with the pony so tired that she
could hardly put one foot before another. Indeed, I walked the last
three miles. I saw light through the chinks but, hearing an earnest
conversation within, was just about to withdraw, when "Ring" barked,
and on his master coming to the door I found that the solitary man was
talking to his dog. He was looking out for me, and had some coffee
ready, and a large fire, which were very pleasant; and I was ve