448 



RECREATION. 



lin put in pickle to be ready for me on my 

 return home a month later. 



Our pack train then being ready, we 

 started for the divide, which we crossed 

 the second day. We were then in elk coun- 

 try and went into camp. By 9 the next 

 morning I had a fine elk turned up to cool, 

 which Jim and I skinned after dinner and 

 took down on the pack horses. 



That night came a light snow. Next 

 morning I was out bright and early. The 

 first track I struck was a mountain lion's, 

 but the sun spoiled the trailing, and hear- 

 ing a bull elk whistle I left the trail and 

 went after him. I followed him 2 miles. 

 Then, looking over some rocks, I saw not 

 one but 10 cows and one bull. After watch- 

 ing them 5 minutes the cows went down 

 the mountain side, but the bull is looking 

 down at me from the wall as I write this; 

 the head is a proud trophy. 



Next day we moved camp 15 miles. I 

 started out to get the lay of the country 

 before night. About T / 2 mile from camp I 

 ran on a bunch of elk and before I took a 

 second thought I had 2 down within 5 rods 

 of each other. I felt ashamed o(f myself and 

 determined that I would not kill another 

 one while in the mountains. Next morning 

 we skinned them and took the meat and 

 hides to camp. The next 2 days it snowed 

 and we packed up and rode 3 days in a hard 

 storm. In places the snow came up to our 

 saddles, but being light the horses could 

 wallow through it. 



Just as we got over the divide and started 

 down the canon we came face to face with 

 a big bull elk. He turned and went down 

 the trail we were on, and I think for the 

 first mile jumped 30 feet at a clip. His 

 trail crossed ours back and forth for 5 or 6 

 miles, but as we were not hunting elk then 

 we paid no attention to him. 



The third day from camp we pulled in 

 at the ranch. By this time I had got a 

 mountain appetite, and didn't I hide the 

 good things Mrs. McLaughlin set out ! 



After resting 2 or 3 days, we started for 

 the railroad, no miles North. I got home 

 15 pounds gainer. 



The gun I used was a 30-30 special light 

 Winchester. It is as big as a cannon for 

 all practical purposes. I expect to go over 

 the same territory for a good long vacation 

 next fall, and if you know of any good 

 party contemplating such a trip, should like 

 to correspond with him, with a view of 

 joining, as a party of 4 or 5 can have a bet- 

 ter time and reduce expense. 



D. Morrill, South Omaha, Neb. 



A COOL MOUNTAIN RETREAT. 

 The summer of 1898 was said to be an 

 exceptionally hot one throughout the United 

 States, but we who stayed in the moun- 

 tains of Colorado knew little about it ex- 



cept through the newspapers. In the upper 

 Arkansas valley, 35 miles below Leadville, 

 where the blue sky is shut out by a canopy 

 of spruce boughs, you can fish in streams 

 flowing down straight from Nature's re- 

 frigerators. 



The valley from Salida to Buena Vista 

 and beyond, is broad and fertile, and cut 

 with ranches and irrigating ditches, but to 

 the Westward in a jumbled mass, split 

 by forest-skirting canyons, and surmounted 

 by stupendous peaks, rises «the .Continental 

 Divide. Perhaps not one tourist in 100 

 knows that from the rugged headlands far 

 above them, spiked deer and mountain 

 sheep look down on the rushing trains, 

 while coyotes lope through the pinyons at 

 the sound of the locomotive whistle. To 

 know and appreciate Colorado thoroughly 

 you must camp here awhile ; not pass 

 through on the wings of the wind. 



My experience with that section of the 

 Rocky mountains embracing the 3 Collegi- 

 ate peaks, Mounts Princeton, Yale, and 

 •Harvard, opposite Buena Vista, has cov- 

 ered 3 years' of short enjoyable excursions 

 into their hidden recesses. In a 2 hours' 

 ride from the D. & R. G. R. R. tracks I 

 have startled the deer from his bed, and 

 plunged into sylvan depths where the song 

 of the pines and the rustle of the aspens 

 were the only sounds. 



One day while among the dwarfed 

 spruces near timber line, I ran into a mag- 

 nificent flock of grouse, that took to the 

 low branches about me. I had no gun, nor 

 did I wish for one, but lay on the needle- 

 carpeted ground and watched "Hiawatha's 

 chickens" as they played hide and seek 

 through their evergreen cover. 



They were so innocently tame that I 

 doubted if they had ever seen man before, 

 or been frightened by the explosion of a 

 cartridge. Going out on the bald cone of 

 the mountain for a better view, I startled 

 numberless conies among the rocks, which 

 disappeared into convenient crevices with 

 indignant chatterings. Through a field 

 glass I swept the world below me, and at 

 last my gaze rested on a serrated peak half 

 a mile away across a precipitous canyon. 



There, on a pinnacle, gazing down into 

 the depths below, stood a hoary mountain 

 sheep. 



No finer horns ever crowned the head 

 of one of these mountain sentinels than he 

 wore, and I hope they will never grace a 

 museum other than nature's, until the wear- 

 er has died a natural death. Sliding down 

 into the canyon, ankle deep in loose shale, 

 I found cool ledges of dripping ice and 

 snow at the bottom, showing how rivers 

 are born. Descending the gulch green 

 timber appeared, and the mossy banks of a 

 silvery stream deadened my footsteps like 

 moquette carpet. At every descending rod 



