SOLITARY POSSESSION OF THE CA&ON. 75 



great thickets of wild roses, higher than our 

 heads and fragrant as the morning; beside 

 close-growing bushes, where hid the 



" Golden cradle of the moccasin flower," 



and the too clever yellow-breasted chat had 

 mocked and defied me; and so home to the 

 camp. 



At an early hour the next morning, the car- 

 riage of my hostess set me down at the entrance 

 of Cheyenne Canon proper, with the impedi- 

 menta necessary for a day's isolation from civ- 

 ilization. I passed through the gate, for even 

 this grand work of nature is claimed as private 

 property ; but, happily, through good sense or 

 indifference, " improvements " have not been 

 attempted, and one forgets the gate and the 

 gate-keeper as soon as they are passed. 



Entering at that unnatural hour, and alone, 

 leaving the last human being behind, staring in 

 astonishment, by the way, at my unprecedented 

 proceeding, I began to realize, as I walked up 

 the narrow path, that the whole grand canon, 

 winding perhaps a mile into the heart of this 

 most beautiful of the Rocky Mountains, was 

 mine alone for three hours. Indeed, when the 

 time arrived for tourists to appear, so little 

 did I concern myself with them that they might 

 have been a procession of spectres passing by ; 

 so, in effect, the canon was my solitary posses- 

 sion for nine blissful hours. 



