THE MOUNTAIN MUSEUM. 
I I 
my hearing that all the animals in the museum 
were shot and stuffed by Mrs. Maxwell herself, 
and the collection was nearly a complete one of 
the native animals of Colorado. That a pioneer 
woman should shoot wild cats and grizzlies 
seemed not unnatural or improbable; but that 
the same woman who could fire a rifle so well 
could also stuff an animal with any sort of skill 
or artistic effect seemed very unlikely. I went to 
the museum expecting to be much amused by a 
grotesque exhibition of stiff and ungainly corpses 
of beasts, only interesting as tokens of the prowess 
of a woman in a wilderness life. 
“I stopped short on the threshold in utter 
amazement. The door opened into a little vesti- 
bule room, with a centre-table piled with books 
on natural history ; shelves containing minerals 
ranged on the walls, and a great deer standing 
by the table, in as easy and natural a position as 
if he had just walked in. This was Mrs. Max- 
well’s reading-room and study. On the right 
hand a door stood open into the museum. The 
first thing upon which my eyes fell was a black- 
and-tan terrier, lying on a mat. Not until after a 
second or two did the strange stillness of the 
creature suggest to me that it was not alive. 
Even after I had stood close by its side I could 
hardly believe it. As I moved about the room, 
I found myself looking back at it, from point after 
