mind and soul in their
wretched monotony. The slow-going "fire wagon," drawing its burden of
weary humanity, puffed laboriously along the hot iron pathway toward the
setting sun at a speed so slow that many a "cow puncher" tested the
mettle of his hardy, sure-footed pony to the discomfiture of the iron
horse and its attendant.

Antelope raced with the train and buffalo stood defiantly in the
wallows, their lop-ended bodies appearing strangely out of proportion
for sustaining the equilibrium necessary for feeding, fighting or
flying. Prairie dogs barked their squeaky warnings, and wise looking
little top-heavy owls flapped their wings lazily in an attempt to rise,
only to fall awkwardly into the next dog village near by, as the train
rumbled through the sand-duned desert. But all things have an end. So
did the first journey to Denver. Within a week Jack met a mountain guide
who told of the deer, the bear, the trout in Middle Park. Within another
week he had purchased an Indian pony, saddle, and provisions to last two
for seven months, agreeing to follow the guide and trapper in his
winter's occupation of securing pelts for market.

It took a month to reach the final spot selected for a cabin on Rock
Creek, during which time Jack met many of the brave and weather-beaten,
buckskin clad frontiersmen living on the firing line of civilization at
the very threshold of savagedom. Men who drove the rude stakes marking
pioneer advancement into the soil wrested from its occupants by purchase
from a broken down dynasty, claiming discovery, a nation whose bigoted
avariciousness blinded its foresight to the end of bartering away its
last foothold on the great American continent.

The incidents from Denver to Rock Creek Jack enumerated in an improvised
journal, greasy from continued usage in his endeavor to let nothing
escape the record.

"First night: Slept on the floor of a grocery store, twenty miles from
Denver, a buffalo robe between me and the boards.

"Second night: Slept in the hay in a barn at Georgetown.

"Third day: A. M. Homesick. The trapper not ready to go into Middle
Park; must wait four days. All my money left in Denver. Supposed we
would have no use for money, as all our worldly provisions and needs
would be on the wagon or pack animals, but the provisions are coming by
rail and we eat at a restaurant in the mining town where the railway
terminates. As my money is gone and no provisions here, I am at a loss
to