Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/140

114 down, they were all covered with snow, and thence to their base with unbroken forests.

The last fifty miles of our way formed a steady decline, and we spun along at the rate of eight to ten miles an hour. Just as the setting sun was gorgeously illuminating the range, the stage made a final halt in front of the log-house in Denver that represented the headquarters of the stage company. Our coming was not expected, but the glad intelligence that the first overland stage was arriving spread instantly on both banks of Cherry Creek, and the whole population quickly turned out to see it. We brought a mail of several hundred letters and newspapers, the announcement of which fact drew three cheers for the Express Company. It was a great boon, the last news from the Missouri River being nearly five weeks old. Of course, I was the centre of attraction and overwhelmed with questions. Some one proposed that I should tell the news from the “States” to them all, and I was made to mount a log and entertain the audience for half an hour with what had happened during the four weeks before my departure, for which I got a vote of thanks, and which secured me at once the good will of all the settlers.