8 IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 



fact, of my home life. I was like a newly cre- 

 ated soul, fresh and eager to see and enjoy 

 everything. I refused the morning papers; I 

 wished to forget the world of strife and crime, 

 and to get so into harmony with the trees and 

 flowers, the brooks and the breezes, that I would 

 realize myself 



" Kith and kin to every wild-born thing that thrills and blows." 



In one word, I wished as nearly as possible to 

 walk abroad out of my hindering body of clay. 



I looked out of the windows to see what the 

 Cyclone State had to give me. It offered flow- 

 ers and singing birds, broad fields of growing 

 grain, and acres of rich black soil newly turned 

 up to the sun. Everything was fresh and per- 

 fect, as if just from the hands of its maker ; it 

 seemed the paradise of the farmer. 



From the fertile fields and miles of flowers 

 the train passed to bare, blossomless earth ; 

 from rich soil to rocks ; from Kansas to Col- 

 orado. That part of the State which appeared 

 in the morning looked like a vast body of 

 hardly dry mud, with nothing worth mentioning 

 growing upon it. Each little gutter had worn 

 for itself a deep channel with precipitous sides, 

 and here and there a great section had sunken, 

 as though there was no solid foundation. Soon, 

 however, the land showed inclination to draw 

 itself up into hills, tiny ones with sharp peaks, 



