ose ridges, covered with snow, seemed
like folds of satin, and on the other the great billowy Plains, bare and
brown and smooth as a carpet. The white horse, relieved of the kegs of
nails, really performed prodigies of travel, all the more appreciated
because unexpected. A stone-quarry for which we were searching was not
found, but a teamster was, who, while everything solemnly stood still
and waited, and amid the agonies of an indescribable stutter, finally
managed to enlighten us somewhat as to its whereabouts. These adventures
served to put us in excellent humor, so that when the road was found
barricaded by a barbed wire fence, it only served to give one of the
party an opportunity to air his views upon the subject--to argue, in
fact, that the barbed wire fence had been an important factor in
building up the agricultural greatness of the West. "For what
inducements," he exclaims, "does the top rail of such a fence offer to
the contemplative farmer? None, sir! His traditional laziness has been
broken up, and great material prosperity is the result."

Whatever causes have operated to produce the effect, certain it is that
the West is eminently prosperous to-day. Everywhere are seen growth,
enterprise and an aggressiveness that stops at no obstacles. Immigration
is pouring into Colorado alone at the rate of several thousands per
week. The government lands are being rapidly taken up, and the stable
industries of stock-raising and farming correspondingly extended.
Manufacturing, too, is acquiring a foothold, and many of the necessaries
of life, which now must be obtained in the East, will soon be produced
at home. The mountains are revealing untold treasures of silver and
gold, and the possibilities which may lie hid in the yet unexplored
regions act as a stimulus to crowds of hopeful prospectors. But while
Colorado is receiving her full share of the influx, a tide seems to be
setting in toward the old empire of the Aztecs, and flowing through the
natural gateway, our old Rocky-Mountain outpost. It is beginning to be
found out that the legends of fabulous wealth which have come down to us
from the olden time have much of truth in them, and mines that were
worked successively by Franciscan monks, Pueblo Indians, Jesuit priests
and Mexicans, and had suffered filling up and obliteration with every
change of proprietorship, are now being reopened; and that, too, under a
new dispensation which will ensure prosperity to the ent