DISAPPEARING GAME 179 



view I had previously arranged to meet some of 

 the leading guides and hunters with whom I 

 had been in correspondence, and, my horses 

 comfortably provided for, I turned eastward 

 from Utah. 



Twenty-four hours by train carried me from 

 Salt Lake City to Denver, where I tarried a 

 day to confer with Mr. Thomas J. Holland, 

 Colorado's very efficient Game and Fish Com- 

 missioner, and to call upon others interested in 

 the wild life of the State, before continuing 

 my journey to Steamboat Springs, in Routt 

 County. 



Denver, perhaps more than any other city of 

 the West, impresses upon one the rapid trans- 

 formation of our country from an unknown wil- 

 derness to a condition of advanced civilization. 



Albert D. Richardson describes it as con- 

 taining less than three hundred buildings, 

 nearly all of hewn pine logs, when he and Hor- 

 ace Greeley visited it in 1859. One-third were 

 abandoned, unfinished and roofless 5 for the 

 early hints of great gold deposits, which had 

 inspired the first settlers to locate here, had not 

 yet materialized. "There were few glass win- 

 dows, or doors, and but two or three board 

 floors, and the occupants of the cabins lived 

 upon the native earth, hard, smooth, and clean- 



