Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/209

 the names of which are familiar to every one—the Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Pike's Peak, Monument Park, and the Ute Pass. It has two or three immense hotels, and a few houses picturesquely situated. It is thronged by thousands of people in the summer who come to drink the waters, try the camp cure, and make mountain excursions; but it is all quiet now, and there are only a few lingerers in this immense hotel. There is a rushing torrent in a valley, with mountains, covered with snow and rising to a height of nearly 15,000 feet, overhanging it. It is grand and awful, and has a strange, solemn beauty like death. And the Snowy Mountains are pierced by the torrent which has excavated the Ute Pass, by which, to-morrow, I hope to go into the higher regions. But all may be "lost for want of a horseshoe-nail." One of Birdie's shoes is loose, and not a nail is to be got here, or can be got till I have ridden for ten miles up the Pass. Birdie amuses every one with her funny ways. She always follows me closely, and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlour-door open. She walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder, licking my face and teasing me for sugar; and sometimes, when any one else takes hold of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious broncho soul comes into her eyes. Her face is cunning and pretty, and she makes a funny, blarneying noise when I go up to her. The men at all the stables make a