A PILGRIMAGE. 
W. H. NELSON. 
I was breakfasting on one of the superb 
Burlington dining cars beyond the Mis- 
issippi. My vis-a-vis at table was 
a Missouri colonel of bellum days. 
He was older than I, evidently, but 
straight as an Indian, and the way he 
could—and did—lay away his forage was 
a caution. It seemed to me that the empti- 
ness from which he suffered while “‘follow- 
ing Old Pap Price to glory” had never 
been quite made up. He was still hun- 
gry. Had I stowed away half what he did 
I should have died of indigestion. I look- 
ed and envied. Beside him sat his little 
grand-daughter, a sweet, modest miss, 
who did a child’s full table duty. They 
were just going home from a long visit 
and were happy. 
A companion on the train, whose ac- 
quaintance I made en route, was, like my- 
self, an invalid, a sufferer from asthma. 
Like me he was seeking the healing that 
breathes from the bosom of Colorado’s 
mountains, the balsam that exhales from 
her pines. 
To reach the “Sunny San Luis” from 
Denver one takes the D., R. G. & W. rail- 
way, that gigantic piece of human magic, 
which in derision of material obstacles, 
bores through granite ranges, scales rug- 
ged mountains, leaps across chasms, whips 
around impossible curves, threads the tor- 
tuous canyons, winds besiderivers, or thun- 
ders along on spider tressels above raging 
torrents, plows through snowdrifts or 
glides across dreary wastes of sand, trium- 
phant over everything, hindered by noth- 
ing, the victory of mind over matter, the 
witness incontrovertible that man was 
given dominion over all the earth. 
Applying at the window of the ticket of- 
fice at the union station at Denver for a 
sleeper ticket, I received the only rebuff 
of the trip. The agent was idle, no appli- 
cants being there but myself. I had pur- 
posely gone early so as not to be hurried, 
and thinking I should be sure to secure a 
berth. The train was to leave at 9 p. m. 
I applied for the ticket at 3 p. m. I had 
made a mistake, however. The agent, 
with that infinite manner which is the 
weapon of a small mind clothed with a lit- 
tle brief authority, looking past me, 1n- 
formed me in silken tones, the tones of a 
weary, overworked man, or of a poet sur- 
prised in a frenzy—that he had but one 
berth—an upper. Not being able to 
catch his seraphic breathing I humbly 
asked him to repeat it. Then he yelled it 
in a voice that rattled the pebbles in Pata- 
gonia, turned his back on me and walked 
away as he spoke. It was the behavior of 
a child, and I turned away. My compan- 
ion, the invalid, began to sympathize with 
me over my disappointment—for an upper 
berth would have been as inaccessible to 
me as a bird’s nest in the belfry of Saint 
Paul’s. “Never mind,” said I, “wait until 
train time, I'll see the conductor. I 
think we will find him a gentleman.” 
When the time came I approached the 
conductor with my case, and was kindly 
told to go into the car till the train 
started when he would see if anything 
could be done. When the train was in 
motion he came into the wash room, 
where I sat, and told me he had but one 
berth left, an upper. I told him, sadly 
enough, that I couldn’t climb to it. Spinal 
rheumatism is not equivalent to eagle 
pinions. A young ventleman beside me, 
a listener, very courteously invited me to 
take his berth, a lower, and he would take 
the upper. I yielded, feeling that the 
earth is still the home of generous peo- 
ple. The big hearted young fellow is an 
artist from Boston. With camera, and I 
don’t know what other artist’s parapher- 
‘nalia, he was making a tour of the woolly 
West, and was then en route to Arizona, 
purposing to visit the Zuni Indians. He 
is a graduate of Harvard, a fine-looking, 
stalwart giant, with a heart in his breast 
as big as Fanueil hall, and as warm as 
genuine Yankee blood can make it. These 
lines may not meet his eye, and it well may 
be that he shall soon forget the half-help- 
less old man he so kindly befriended, but 
I shall not forget him. 
To any one, worn with the toil and wor- 
ry of the scramble which never ceases in 
the great city, let me say write the C., B. 
& Q. andthe D. & R. G; get their in- 
formation for tourists, commit yourself 
and your grip to the trainmen, bring along 
your bull’s eye Kodak, your rifle, rod and 
gun, come into the mountains where Na- 
ture with her blessings is all around you, 
contentment within you; bid the selfish 
world, for a time, good-bye and be happy. 
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