THE DOMINION OF THE LONE CONE 



BY 



Olive M. McKlnley, Pueblo, Colorado 



DOWN in the southwestern part of 

 Colorado, with one foot firmly 

 planted in San jNIiguel County and the 

 other in Dolores, rearing his oft-times 

 cloud-capped head 12,635 f^et into the 

 air, and trailing his ermine garments 

 of snow far beyond his feet along the 

 mesas that form his footstool, stands 

 a beautiful, majestic mountain, fitly 

 named, the Lone Cone. 



If the aborigines, in the long-past 

 golden age, did not crown and deify 

 him, it was because their instinct for 

 once failed to recognize a natural force 

 which lavishly sustained them ; for the 

 Lone Cone gives in abundance of that 

 most exquisite of treasures — pure, 

 cold, snow-water — to all who will par- 

 take. 



Be that as it may, the modern man, 

 with his modern form of worship, has 

 placed himself in harmony with the 

 laws of this god of treasures. He has 

 pleaded intelligently for a share of his 

 blessing, and through it gained richly 

 in material substances; so that where 

 only thirty years ago the red man 

 roamed through acres of sage brush, 

 or lounged in groves of pinion, or 

 hunted higher up among the spruce 

 and quaking aspen, there now appear 

 rich farm lands, set with beautiful 

 homes ; and thousands of head of cat- 

 tle graze on the uplands. 



The red man has gone. The wild 

 creatures have shrunk deeper into for- 

 est fastnesses. The sawmill has ap- 

 peared and, as a consequence, the at- 

 tendants of this haughty monarch — 

 the magnificent trees — are lying prone 

 in the dust. 



Very recently, the National Forest 

 placed a restriction on the slaughter, 

 but not until some of the finest speci- 

 mens were gone. Now the ranchmen 

 may not haul their annual supply of 

 fuel without a permit. 



The rural free delivery serves this 

 community, which so short a time ago 

 was one of remote pioneers. Only 

 steam and electricity have delayed their 



commg. 



From the lofty summit of this sov- 

 ereign among mountains, the specta- 

 tor may behold the kingdom over 

 which he reigns, even to its boun- 

 daries, and the profiles of his neighbor 

 kings, with a little of their kingdoms. 



So far to the west that distance dis- 

 solves them into a seeming dream, lie 

 the La Salles and Blue Mountains of 

 Utah. Between them and the Cone 

 stretches the beautiful hilly country 

 known as Disappointment. To the 

 south, may be seen the hills of New 

 Mexico. Still south, but nearer and a 

 little east, rises Dolores Mountain on 

 the south side of the town of Rico. 

 Yet nearer, more eastward, and north 

 of Rico, Mt. Wilson rears his head. 

 A trifle further east may be seen the 

 very trails leading from Telluride to 

 her mines. Still on, almost straisfht 

 east, rises the snowy Snefiles Range, 

 guarding the beautiful town of Ouray 

 from view. 



But away to the north, stretches the 

 true "Lone Cone Country." By a 

 strange telepathy, the mountain com- 

 municates his thoughts to the intruder, 

 so that, for the moment, he entertains 

 majestic notions. For miles and miles, 

 the level mesas extend, cut here and 

 there by a canon from five hundred to 

 a thousand feet deep — only a trifle 

 when the point of observation is near- 

 ly 13,000 feet high. Down yonder are 

 two immense reservoirs, one covering 

 300 and the other 200 acres, approxi- 

 mately, each with an average depth of 

 fifteen feet of water; tiny pools they 

 seem, glistening in the sunlight, with 

 the narrowest silver ribbon leading 

 from them ; yet they irrigate a hundred 

 thousand acres of land below them. 



