Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/218

 cabin was very small and lonely, and the life seemed a hard grind for an educated and refined woman. There were snow flurries after I arrived, but the first Sunday of November was as bright and warm as June, and the atmosphere had resumed its exquisite purity. Three peaks of Pike's Peak are seen from Oil Creek, above the nearer hills, and by them they tell the time. We had been in the evening shadows for half an hour before those peaks ceased to be transparent gold. On leaving Colonel Kittridge's hospitable cabin I dismounted, as I had often done before, to lower a bar, and, on looking round, Birdie was gone! I spent an hour in trying to catch her, but she had taken an "ugly fit," and would not let me go near her; and I was getting tired and vexed, when two passing trappers, on mules, circumvented and caught her. I rode the twelve miles back to Twin Rock, and then went on, a kindly teamster, who was going in the same direction, taking my pack. I must explain that every mile I have travelled since leaving Colorado Springs has taken me farther and higher into the mountains. That afternoon I rode through lawn-like upland parks, with the great snow mass of Pike's Peak behind, and in front mountains bathed in rich atmospheric colouring of blue and violet, all very fine, but threatening to become monotonous, when the waggon road turned abruptly to the left, and crossed a broad, swift, mountain