VI Mountain Jims End 1 7 1 



pleasant if we are not devoured, not by the bears, 

 but by the mosquitoes, who are, I fancy, far the 

 more dangerous animals of the two ; for the bears 

 are not grizzlies, but only mere common brown 

 fellows, big, but quiet enough when left alone.' 



To His Wife. 



'ESTES Park, xyh July 1874. 



' Your letter reached me in the heart of the 

 Rocky Mountains. We have been hunting and fishing, 

 but have not done much, only killed three mountain 

 sheep and an infinity of trout. We had a little 

 difficulty the other day : one of our friends had a 

 row with a wild man of the woods and shot him 

 with buckshot, actually knocking out some of his 

 brains. They sent up the mountain for me, and 

 when I saw the man I thought that, of course, he 

 must die. Not a bit of it, he got round so far that 

 I have been able to send him to Denver Hospital, 

 with a possibility of recovery, though I assure you 

 that there was at least a teaspoonful of brain oozing 

 out of the wound. It is the most wonderful climate 

 in the world for wounds ; there was no suppuration 

 whatever. I have ridden down to the confines of 

 civilisation to-day to write you this hasty note, as 

 there is a man going to Denver. A mountain lion 

 comes by our shanty every night ; we could have 

 shot him once, but thought, in the darkness, that it 



