Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/184

 after cattle. The men don't like "baching," as it is called in the wilds—ie. "doing for themselves." They washed and ironed their clothes yesterday, and there was an incongruity about the last performance. I really think (though for the fifteenth time) that I shall leave to-morrow. The cold has moderated, the sky is bluer than ever, the snow is evaporating, and a hunter who has joined us to-day says that there are no drifts on the trail which one cannot get through.

2em

"The Island Valley of Avillon" is left, but how shall I finally tear myself from its freedom and enchantments? I see Long's snowy peak rising into the night sky, and know and long after the magnificence of the blue hollow at its base. We were to have left at 8, but the horses were lost, so it was 9.30 before we started, the we being the musical young French Canadian and myself. I have a bay Indian pony, "Birdie," a little beauty, with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with luggage for some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my saddle, I am tolerably independent. It was a most glorious ride. We passed through the gates of rock, through gorges where the unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-coloured aspens; caught glimpses of far-off, snow-clad giants rising into a sky of deep sad blue; lunched above the Foot Hills at a cabin where