OCR Text |
Show MINING FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES. 569 Darkness found us at Osage City, and to us the line between Kan-sas and Colorado is even less than an idea: we went to sleep in one and woke in the other. But the scene had greatly changed: out of a settled and cultivated valley, into an apparently boundless waste where " The dewy ground was dark and cold; Behind all gloomy to behold; And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny. I liked the greeting; ' twas a sound Of something without place or bound, And seemed to give me spiritual right To seek beyond for regions bright." In summer the scene is much more animated, for the entire valley is then occupied by stockmen, who drive their cattle farther east in the winter. Fresh beef is now eaten in London which was grown and fattened in this valley, while much of the corn and wheat produced in the Kansas half of it finds a market in the mines and cities of Colorado. We follow up the gently winding valley of the Arkansas, finding no perceptible, change, as eastern Colorado climate and scenery extend far down into Kansas. At La Junta, five hundred and fifty- five miles from Kansas City, a branch road strikes south- west to Trinidad, and thence on to Otero the first railroad station ever established in New Mexico and beyond that is stretching towards the Pacific. At late dinner- time we reach Pueblo, six hundred and eighteen miles from the Missouri; and still we are forty miles from Caflon City, the end of railroading for the present. Pueblo is close down to the river, in the Arkansas Valley, only four thousand seven hundred and three feet above the sea, and, like every other Colorado town in the valleys, is " highly recommended for pulmonary diseases." Here we rested a day, to get our " second wind," then took the afternoon train and ran rapidly up the valley to Caiion City, five thousand two hundred and sixty feet above the sea. And now I begin to feel the altitude just a little and various symp-toms warn me that I had better wait here a few days before entering on the trying stage- coach ride to Leadville. Cafion City is situated on both sides of the Arkansas, which is here a noticeably larger stream than it is a hundred miles farther down though a mere creek compared with its volume in Arkansas. There are mountains north, south, and west of the town, but to the east the view is open. To the eastern eye the valley seems narrow, though |