Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/54

 for the sake of the harmless, cheery little prairie dog, that this unwelcome fellowship is a myth.

After running on a down grade for some time, five distinct ranges of mountains, one above another, a lurid blue against a lurid sky, upheaved themselves above the prairie sea. An American railway car, hot, stuffy, and full of chewing, spitting Yankees, was not an ideal way of approaching this range which had early impressed itself upon my imagination. Still, it was truly grand, although it was sixty miles off, and we were looking at it from a platform 5000 feet in height. As I write I am only twenty-five miles from them, and they are gradually gaining possession of me. I can look at and feel nothing else. At five in the afternoon frame houses and green fields began to appear, the cars drew up, and two of my fellow-passengers and I got out and carried our own luggage through the deep dust to a small, rough, Western tavern, where with difficulty we were put up for the night. This settlement is called the Greeley Temperance Colony, and was founded lately by an industrious class of emigrants from the East, all total abstainers, and holding advanced political opinions. They bought and fenced 50,000 acres of land, constructed an irrigating canal, which distributes its waters on reasonable terms, have already a population of 3000, and are the most prosperous and rising colony in Colorado, being altogether free from