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Show 216 WESTERN WILDS. to where I wish to go in Arizona, with the comfort added, however, that, in all probability, I can not get there at all, as three drivers have lately been killed by the Apaches. Parties are organizing with a view of going through the center of Arizona and New Mexico, from Santa Fe to Fort Prescott ; but all I consult here shake their heads doubt-fully on the subject. However, I have generally observed in travel-ing that dangers lessen as one draws near them. At Denver, Mr. De Bruler's trip ended, much to my regret, for I was just entering on the region where, most of all, I should need an intimate companion. For the first stage I took the Denver & Rio Grande R a i 1 r o a d the neatest, queerest lit-tle narrow-guage in America, but usually called the " narrow-gouge," in delicate satire on its rates of fare. Ten cents per mile is high ; but, before the road was built, it was twenty cents by stage. The road had no land subsidy, and the travel is light as yet. Most who go that way would be only too glad to pay that rate all the way to Santa Fe. We journey at a sobre passo gait of ten or fifteen miles an hour, southward and up the Platte Valley, which has the appearance of an old, settled, and cultivated country. The farm- houses are in much better style, and the system of irrigation more scientific than in Utah. Farmers are plowing, and the spring crops coming forward finely. About 10 A. M. we leave the Platte and follow up a small stream to the " Divide." Here we are in the lumber region, as shown by the immense stacks of the same about the depots ; and the " Divide Hotel and Ranche " is built of massive pine logs, in the style of a primitive " Hoosier" cabin. Behind it, the cool, dark- green woods invite to a halt, and in front, the cold, clear pool, fed by rivulets from snow- " DIVIDE HOTEL AND RANCHE.' |