OCR Text |
Show COLORADO. 457 the mercury at 40, and the fog thickening. Our route lay along Main Clear Creek, by Silver Plume, Brownville, The Terrible Mine, Old Bakerville, and many a scene of gloom and grandeur; now in a forest of dense pines, again in a narrow gorge, and a little later along a rocky dugway, hundreds of feet above the stream. Though wrap-ped in a fog constantly growing denser, our encouraging driver in-sisted we should soon get through it; and, though now chilled and dis-couraged, there was sunshine and a bright day above. We did get above it at last ; but, just as we emerged from the fog, the upper moisture fell upon us in a terrific storm of sleet. In ten minutes the road was a glare of ice, our wrappings stiff as armor, and the horses' manes and tails white with hoar frost, while their smoking bodies in-dicated that they were the only members of the party comfortably warm. Then came delusive signs of clearing off; the sun sent an occasional ray through the rifted clouds, the sleet ceased to fall, patches of blue sky appeared here and there ; and, to our delighted eyes, the vast red and yellow range of McClellan Mountain rose sud-denly before us, almost over our heads, its snowy and icy summit glit-tering in the sunlight like an exhalation from the mist. But that which brought hope to us, settled the case with our experienced guide, who marked that the rock rabits ( conies?) ran from covert to covert with a peculiar low moaning cry, like that of a bird in pain ; that the mountain ground- squirrels ( gophers?) did not venture out, and that the loose stock on the range was hurrying into the densest timber in the canon. Animal instinct was ahead of our science, and all the local probabilities indicated a gale. We reached Kelso's cabin, a mile and a half from the foot of the Peak, at 10 A. M. ; but were scarcely housed before the storm came in all its fury. Ten minutes before, the sun was shining, the clouds floating away to the south- east, and all of us expecting a beautiful day. Suddenly a vast bank of black clouds moved down the canon from the neighborhood of the Peak, seeming to have the weight and momentum of a solid body ; a storm of sleet rattled against the windows, and sifted through the branches of the pines ; McClellan Peaks, but five minutes before so bright and beau-tiful, faded away into blackness ; a rumbling sound, as of distant surf, was heard, only the trees nearest the windows were visible, and the air was filled with driving snow. It was no use to think of making the trip that day ; one and all recognized the fact, and set in to make the time as jolly as possible. We could not have been snowed in with better company, or in a better place, for Kelso's is literally a gem in the mountains. The name, Kelso's, is applied to an irregular collec- |