ious cold. In this dry air it is quite warm if there are only a
few degrees of frost. The sun does not rise in Georgetown till eleven
now; I doubt if it rises there at all in the winter! After four hours'
fearful bouncing, the baggage car again received us, but this time the
conductor, remarking that he supposed I was just traveling to see the
country, gave me his chair and put it on the platform, so that I had an
excellent view of that truly sublime canyon. For economy I dined in a
restaurant in Golden City, and at three remounted my trusty Birdie,
intending to arrive here that night. The adventure I met with is
almost too silly to tell.

When I left Golden City it was a brilliant summer afternoon, and not
too hot. They could not give any directions at the stable, and told me
to go out on the Denver track till I met some one who could direct me,
which started me off wrong from the first. After riding about two
miles I met a man who told me I was all wrong, and directed me across
the prairie till I met another, who gave me so many directions that I
forgot them, and was irretrievably lost. The afterglow, seen to
perfection on the open plain, was wonderful. Just as it grew dark I
rode after a teamster who said I was then four miles farther from
Boulder than when I left Golden, and directed me to a house seven miles
off. I suppose he thought I should know, for he told me to cross the
prairie till I came to a place where three tracks are seen, and there
to take the best-traveled one, steering all the time by the north star.
His directions did bring me to tracks, but it was then so dark that I
could see nothing, and soon became so dark that I could not even see
Birdie's ears, and was lost and benighted. I rode on, hour after hour,
in the darkness and solitude, the prairie all round and a firmament of
frosty stars overhead. The prairie wolf howled now and then, and
occasionally the lowing of cattle gave me hope of human proximity. But
there was nothing but the lone wild plain. You can hardly imagine the
longing to see a light, to hear a voice, the intensely eerie feeling of
being alone in that vast solitude. It was freezing very sharply and
was very cold, and I was making up my mind to steer all night for the
pole-star, much fearing that I should be brought up by one of the
affluents of the Platte, or that Birdie would tire, when I heard the
undertoned bellowing of a bull, which, from the snorting rooting up of