IN THE SAN JUAN COUNTRY. 



DR. C. C. CURTIS. 



It had been my wish for a long time to 

 visit the West, and finally I had a chance. 

 After a careful canvass of the various 

 routes I found myself armed with several 

 yards of tickets indicating, to use the 

 highly original language of the West, that 

 I was to hit the trail along the West Shore 

 and the Wabash railroads to Chicago^ 

 thence over the Burlington to Denver" 

 Fleeing at high noon from the work of 

 the office and a dusty, noisy, hot and stif- 

 ling city, I was splendidly served with a 

 lunch, while with every curve of the road 

 a new picture of the Hudson was swung 

 before me — a river that, to my taste, yields 

 the palm of beauty to none in the world. 

 We rolled swiftly and steadily along, 

 through pleasant country, by villages and 

 prosperous fields, which ever broadened 

 and grew larger until their limits ceased 

 to be measured with the eye. The realiza- 

 tion of these fields of corn and oats, as far 

 as the vision could reach, was quite another 

 matter than reading about them. Perhaps 

 that was the difficulty with the lady ahead 

 of me, who one day said to her com- 

 panion, "Have you remarked the fields of 

 cawn?" We had been riding on an ex- 

 press train the best part of a day through 

 those "fields of cawn" and it was pleasing 

 to know that the fact had fixed itself at 

 last in her understanding. 



It was on one of these great Kansas 

 farms that I saw a queer biped, supposedly 

 a combination of artist and sportsman. 



WHAT is it? " 



He was togged out in a costume that 

 Mephisto might fancy if he were going 

 to hunt katydids. Two of his dogs were 



disputing over a bird of some kind that 

 I could not identify as the train whizzed 

 by. If we had been passing through Jersey 

 I should have guessed mosquito, but be- 

 ing in Kansas it may have been a grass- 

 hopper or a screechowl. The biped sport 

 — yes, that's probably what he would have 

 dubb^ci himself — was sneaking on another 

 hopper, may be, preceded by a third dog 

 who probably thought his master was hav- 

 ing great sport. And in fact the master 

 looked it. 



If this meets his eye I wish he would 

 drop Recreation a line and tell us what 

 those blamed things were he was shooting 

 — at. Also where he got that hat, and 

 those 2 storm leggings and that liver- 

 pad coat. They were great, and I should 

 like to have some. 



Gradually the luxuriant harvest fields 

 gave way, the herbage became scant, and 

 the cactus and Mexican poppy and their 

 friends, the prairie dogs, succeeded. Real 

 dogs these; not the mangy specimens of 

 the parks and zoos — with apologies to Dr. 

 Hornaday, whose colony had not then 

 materialized. By these tokens we knew 

 that the middle West was at hand, and that 

 the real delights of the trip were to begin. 

 At Denver you feel for the first time the 

 symptoms of the Western fever. Not alone 

 the beauty of this peerless town, but the 

 hospitality and heartiness of these Western 

 people attract and compel you to spend 

 another and another gracious day that you 

 know means loss at some other point. 



In sheer desperation you finally break 

 away from the mountains, and, armed with 

 a ticket over the D. & R. G. railroad, you 

 will see the best that Colorado has to offer. 

 A stay of 2 weeks in San Juan and adjoin- 

 ing counties, together with a few stops at 

 other points, gave me some insight into 

 the game conditions of the State. The out- 

 look is not rosy. Wherever mining is 

 carried on the streams are ruined by the 

 waste from the mines. For example, the 

 Gunnison. As noble a trout stream as 

 ever wet a line, its naturally pure water- 

 are rendered turbid and the fishing injured 

 by the sluices from the mines which. I 

 am informed, have never paid a copper 

 and are only kept alive by credulous stock- 

 holders. Good fishing is still to be had 

 there, as I can attest from a pleasant so- 

 journ with my friend Dr. Sanford. Some 

 large rainbow trout are taken. One of 1.5 

 pounds is recorded by Mr. Skinner, not 

 yet captured, but he knows where it is. 



Despite the mines, the Gunnison has 



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