Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/327

 only allowed of one person standing in it at a time, to sleep soundly and dream of "ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance." The landlady was quite taken up with her "distinguished guest." "That kind, quiet gentleman, Mountain Jim! Well, I never! he must be a very good man!"

Yesterday morning the mercury was 20° below zero. I think I never saw such a brilliant atmosphere. That curious phenomena called frost-fall was occurring, in which, whatever moisture may exist in the air, somehow aggregates into feathers and fern-leaves, the loveliest of creations, only seen in rarefied air and intense cold. One breath and they vanish. The air was filled with diamond sparks quite intangible. They seemed just glitter and no more. It was still and cloudless, and the shapes of violet mountains were softened by a veil of the tenderest blue. When the Greeley stage-waggon came up, Mr. Fodder, whom I met at Lower Canyon, was on it. He had expressed a great wish to go to Estes Park, and to hunt with "Mountain. Jim," if it would be safe to do the latter. He was now dressed in the extreme of English dandyism, and when I introduced them, he put out a small hand cased in a