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Show 480 WESTERN WILDS. " THIS WAY AND THAT, IN ZIQZAGS, WE TOIL UP-WARD." by a rope ladder for months after being opened for work, and even now the workmen cling to a guide rope as they go up the trail, and the ore is sent down by a tramway. Yet its richness pays for the trouble. A few hundred feet along this rock- hewn path bring us to the half- way gulch and a beautiful spring. Down this rock flume runs one of those brawling brooks which are the delight of poets and artists; and yet the mouth of the gulch, only half a mile below, is but a dry bed. Of all the streams that rise far up in the Rocky Mount-ains, not one in ten reaches any valley or joins another stream; and all the streams of all this slope combined do not furnish the Platte water enough to last it a hundred miles from the mountains. Here we rest and refresh, tighten straps, and then climb out of the gulch and enter on a series of more gentle slopes, alter-nating pine groves and grass plats. This way and that, in zigzag paths, we toil up-ward, often leaning on our staves and resting every hundred yards or so, for at this point our breath begins to come short, and if any way delicate, we feel that |