Part 18

The scenery along the Rio Grande, above Del Norte, is very fine, and has always the zest of human interest in the quaint ranches of the Mexican farmers, whose women and children flock out to see every train go by. Terraced steeps bound the river-valley where the farms are, at a little distance, on the right, while rounded pine-clad hills slope upward on the left. We see this part of the river on our way to Wagon Wheel Gap, a place for which, if I were writing a separate chapter, I should adopt as a motto the words of Exodus: "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water and three score and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters."

"But what is Wagon Wheel Gap, and how did it get such a name?" asks the Madame.

"The gap," it is thereupon explained, "is a noble gateway, thirty miles west of Del Norte, through which the Rio Grande breaks out of the confinement of its youth in the San Juan mountains; and I heard only yesterday how it come by its name, from the great and good Judge Jones, whose narratives most happily combine both facts and fancies.

"You will remember what we heard of the band of men who went into the San Juan mines four and-twenty years ago, under Colonel Baker. Well, there was a part of that story you have not heard yet. It seems that the party was composed of Northern and of Southern men in nearly equal numbers. When they heard that war had broken out between the Northern States and the hoped for 'Confederacy,' there was added to the woe of disappointment, diminished food, and the fear of Indians, the bitterness of a little civil war among those who previously had been compatriots and friends. It was a miserable little copy of the great struggle, but it resulted in disproportionate sorrows, for a panic ensued, in which the men of the party broke up and scattered out of the mountains by every available passage, a prey to double the dangers which would have menaced them had they stayed together. Some tried to take their wagons out piecemeal over Cunningham Pass. Putting them together on the eastern side, they worked their way down to Del Norte, Fort Garland, and so to Santa Fe, or around to Denver. But they often broke down, and a relic of this panic-stricken flight, in the shape of a large wagon wheel, found by Judge Jones, served to give the place its peculiar name. To distinguish it from other gaps in the range it was spoken of as 'the gap where the wagon wheel was found,' which soon, by natural process of curtailment, condensation and transposition, became 'Wagon Wheel Gap,' and Wagon Wheel Gap it is, even unto this day."

The gap itself is a cleft through a great hill; or it is two half hills (for they stand not squarely opposite one another, but with somewhat overlapping ends only) each vertically faced and uprightly seamed on the river side, but sloping away into a grassy ridge behind. The southern end of the bluffs, which also is the farthest up stream, is narrow and tower-like, but the other, rounding out and swelling high, in the center has a breadth of half a mile or more, the river washing its bowed base. Of about the same height as the Palisades of the Hudson, and like them marked with vertical lines of cleavage, this bluff of reddish volcanic rock would bear a striking resemblance to that great monument of the Plutonic reign on the Atlantic slope, did its façade present a straight front; but in this swelling front is where it exceeds its eastern rival, for one gets added pleasure from the perspective of the massive battlement retreating right and left in grand curvature.

The gap is wide enough not to pen the water into a very narrow flood, so that only a slight exaggeration of the always lively current occurs. This is enough, however, to make these ripples a favorite spot for the splendid trout in which the whole upper part of the river abounds, and I suppose four or five thousand pounds of these gamy fish are taken every year.

Right at the foot of the talus stands a group of connected log-cabins forming a comfortable hotel. As we are bound for the hot springs, we do not remain here, but climbing into the spring wagon in waiting ride southward for a mile back into the hills to a second little _cuchara_ of a valley where are the springs themselves and the hotel, bath houses and accessories belonging to the sanitarium they have created. This hotel is delightfully home-like in its excellence of bed and board.

Persons go to Wagon Wheel Gap seeking recreation and for recovery from ill health. If the first is their object (as it has been in the case of the late Secretary of the Treasury,--one of the hardest working men for ten months in the year, in the United States) they have a pleasant home and good company and no end of out-door fun from which to choose. There are little hills near by which they may begin on, and taller bluffs beyond, where they may make perfect their practice; while far away stand the "ultimate heights" of the Sierra Madre,--unbroken masses of snow when we last beheld their spear-pointed peaks. There are ponies they may ride, and donkeys for the children. There are single buggies and phætons for the ladies and carryalls for the whole family. There are geologizing, botanizing and general natural history to invite study in endless variety.

Then there is good sport. That noblest of the deer race,--the elk--still haunts the upland pastures and mountain glades. The black-tailed deer is to be found lurking in the aspens, and, if you are a good climber, you may enjoy the very next thing to Alpine chamois shooting in the arduous chase of the mountain sheep. As for fishing, there is no stint to it in the proper season. I know no place in Colorado where the fly-fisher will have better sport and the angler, though uninstructed in the wiles of Walton, get better results.

But it is to invalids that the hot springs especially appeal, holding out all these pleasures for their delectation as gradually they regain their health sufficiently to practice and enjoy them. Long ago these beneficent waters were resorted to by the Indians for healing. A trail, not yet obliterated, ran across the hills to Pagosa Springs, which were called The Big Medicine, while these waters were known as The Little Medicine.

Though of less volume than single springs at Pagosa, the springs at Wagon Wheel Gap pour out nearly as much water, since there are thirty or more of them in the sheltered basin which makes a natural sanitarium. Some are icy cold, others tepid, others extremely hot. They are diverse also, in respect to their mineral constituents, nearly every known variety of _spa_ water being represented more or less closely. Only a few of the springs are utilized, however, those being selected which seem to have the most powerful curative properties. These are principally three,--and are known as Nos. One, Two and Three. The analysis of them published, though imperfect, but serves to show the general character of each, and reads as follows, the proportions being thousandths of a given bulk of the water:

=================================================== | No. 1. | No. 2. | No. 3. --------------------------------------------------- Sodium Carbonate | 69.42 | Trace. | 144.50 Lithium Carbonate | Trace. | Trace. | Trace. Calcium Carbonate | 13.08 | 31.00 | 22.42 Magnesium Carbonate | 10.91 | 5.10 | 22.42 Potassium Sulphate | Trace. | Trace. | Trace. Sodium Sulphate | 23.73 | 10.50 | 13.76 Sodium Chloride | 29.25 | 11.72 | 33.34 Silicic Acid | 5.73 | 1.07 | 4.75 Organic Matter | Trace. | Trace. | ...... Sulphureted Hydrogen | Trace. | 12.00 | ...... |---------+---------+--------- Total | 152.12 | 71.39 | 218.77 ---------------------+---------+---------+---------

The largest of these is the "Number One," and from it is drawn the water for the plunge-bath and to the private bath-rooms, which is used in the largest number of cases where the disease affects the nerves, blood or skin. An oval basin twenty feet or more in length has been excavated and tastefully walled up. Here the spring bubbles up most copiously, at a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and sends off an incessant cloud of steam if the air is at all cold. From this tank the water is conducted in an open trough to the bath-houses, losing about 30 degrees of its heat on the way. This introduces it into the baths at the quite endurable temperature of 120 degrees, but fills the compartment with a cloud of vapor, so that the patient breathes in the chemically-laden moisture with every inhalation. Besides this, while in the bath, the fresh hot water is drunk in big draughts. The invalid is thus soaked out and in with the healing fluid; the pores of his skin, all the passages of his head and chest, his stomach and secretory organs feel the touch of the water and eagerly absorb the medicinal elements it contains.

Astonishing results have come from a steady continuance of daily baths and sweatings. They will tell you instances--and vouch for them, too, by incontestable testimony--of men brought there utterly helpless and full of agony from inflammatory rheumatism or neuralgia, who, in a week, were able to walk about and help themselves, in a fortnight were strolling about the valley erect and comfortable, in a month went to work. Three months of faithful self-treatment, it is confidently promised, will set straight the most chronic and painful cases of such invalidism. Many a miner now digging in the wintry mountains passed from almost certain death to exuberant strength through this Siloam, and evidences are being multiplied of the startling efficacy of these springs with every additional season.

Then there is the dreadful list of cutaneous diseases and disorders of the blood, headed by the fiendish heritage of syphilis. To such cases, because their disease is communicable, are set apart separate baths. Here, again, utter helplessness and the awful suffering which tempts to suicide, are relieved by a few weeks of steady application; and not merely relieved, as the druggist's medicines might in some cases do, but, it is claimed, thoroughly and healthfully cured. But this last claim, in the case of pronounced syphilis, needs the confirmation of longer trial. I am willing to admit that the two or three, or four years which have elapsed since certain persons have gone away restored to health, have shown no recurrence of the symptoms; but I should like to know that the same thing could be said indisputably half a century hence before I would be willing to admit as proven that this spring or any other could lay low forever the head of a malady which it has hitherto baffled medical science to eradicate wholly from an infected system. But even if this final, full glory shall never be attained by the Wagon Wheel Springs, it is enough joy for the present that they are able to alleviate its miseries and even temporarily check the havoc of body and soul. I have said so much upon this point, because, it being impossible to deny the existence of the evil, it is every man's duty to aid in spreading a knowledge of any method of relief or cure.

It is in the two classes of diseases above mentioned that the little cold spring comes into play as a useful beverage. Dyspeptics, however, bathing with less assiduity than their more unfortunate brethren, affect the hot soda water (Number Three), which bubbles up in a strong, hot fountain at the head of the gulch, and surrounded by chalybeate springs of various qualities. This is the water, too, which the mildly ailing like to sip, perhaps mingling a little lemon juice and sugar with it to make a foaming compound grateful both to the taste and the system,--a union rare in these days of doctors.

So, thanking God, we were in no need of the Little Medicine for health, but could enjoy its delicious warmth and fragrance as pleasure unalloyed; but profoundly grateful that for humanity in worse luck there was such an Elim in the desert of our degeneracy, we bade adieu to pleasant, sunny, warm-hearted Wagon Wheel and its jolly landlord,--Mr. McClelland, our compliments, and your good health, sir, in something stronger than mineral water!

Down at the station we went fishing, partly for fun, partly with the urgency that set the boy digging out the woodchuck. Marvelous stories--regular fish stories of eight-pound trout caught on a seven-ounce rod,--had been dinned into our ears; and as for me, I half believed them (for I remembered the splendid fellows we used to snatch from the White Water at pretty Irene cañon, up above Antelope park). Our ambition was not to repeat such performances, but to get one or two of, say a pound and a half each; while the Madame said she'd be thankful if we had a few little ones not worth weighing, by dinner time. So Chum and I went down stream rod in hand.

Having floundered round on the slipping bowlders for awhile without sitting down, we struck a couple of good-sized pools at the head of a riffle; Chum took the upper, I the lower. Making my way out near to mid-stream, I took up my station behind a large flat rock that stood about a foot out of water, and busied myself sending a "coachman" and a "professor" out into my domain with a little hope that I might induce something out of the inviting pool. Before I had been there five minutes, a yell from Chum caused me to look his way. His Bethabard was beautifully arched, and at the end of twenty feet of line something was helping itself to silk.

"I've got him; he's a whopper."

"That's the pound and a half I promised you," I answered, as a beautiful fellow shot across stream not three yards above me. "But you'll lose him in that current."

"I know it, unless I work him down your way."

"Come on with him--don't mind me." I reeled in, climbed on the rock, and sat down to see the fun. The noble fellow made a gallant fight, but the hook was in his upper jaw, and it was only a matter of time when he would turn upon his side. Working him down stream, through my pool and round into the quieter water near shore, was the work of ten minutes at least, the captive, seeming to readily understand that still water was not his best hold, kept making rushes for the swift current; but each time he was brought back, and soon began to weaken under the spring of the lithe toy in Chum's hand. Fifteen minutes were exhausted when the scale hook was run under his gills and he registered one pound twelve ounces.

Apologizing for creating a row in my quarters, Chum went back to his old place, while again I tried my luck. About five minutes elapsed when I heard another not to be mistaken yell.

"I've got another--he's bigger than the first."

"Yes, I see you have--I think it's infernally mean."

"I know it is, but I can't help it. I've got to come down there again."

"Well, come on," and I sat down again to watch the issue. The struggle was not so brave, though the fish, when brought to scale, weighed half a pound more than the first. While we were commenting on this streak of luck, we noticed a change in the water, its partially clear hue began to grow milky, and in less time than it takes to tell it, a bowlder six inches under the surface was out of sight.

"We might as well go to dinner, no trout will try to rise in that mud," and I reeled up with the reflection that the next best thing to catching a trout is to see one captured by one who knows how.

The next day we had another try. Chum crossed the river, and then we slowly walked down to a magnificent pool a mile below. Here were a party of half a dozen gentlemen, to one of whom I called out just as we came within hearing.

"Have you got him?" The inquiry was made on the score of good fellowship; the bend of his split bamboo, the tension of his line, and the whirr of his reel indicated the first stage.

"I've hooked him, and he's no sardine, I tell you--whoa, boy, gently now," as a sudden rush strung off full twenty feet of line. "Whoa, boy, be easy now; gently, now; come here; whoa! confound your picture! whoa, boy, gently, so, boy."

"May be you think you are driving a mule," came from one of the anglers.

"Oh, no! I'm trying to lead one--whoa, boy, whoa, boy, gently, now, none of your capers--whoa! I tell you!" as a renewed and vigorous dash for liberty threatened destruction to the slender tackle. "No you don't, old fellow, so, boy, that's a good fellow," and showing his back near the surface, the captive exhibited twenty inches (at a guess) of trout.

"By George, he's a beauty," came from behind us.

I had allowed my flies to float down stream and had backed out to give room for fair play. It was a long fight, but his troutship finally showed side up, and was gently drawn ashore, the water turned out of him, and he drew down the scale three pounds to a notch.

These are only "pointers" for the angling fraternity. As for our own luck that day--well, we had good trout left in the ice-box for a week.

It was our fortune throughout this trip to mix experiences by the most sudden transitions. It did not seem strange to us, therefore, that from the gold-fields and trouting and jollity of this beautiful valley, we should go at a jump into the coal districts east of the range.

XVII

EL MORO AND CAÑON CITY.

For Knights no more in modern days bestride Their Rosinante and across the hills Ride, by my halidome, to succor maids Or couch a lance against an amorous foe; Instead, within a Pullman Palace Car At ease reclining and at peace with all, We conquer space while romance groweth dull Under the languor of the April air. --WILLIAM E. PABOR.

"El Moro, sir,--breakfast nearly ready, sir!"

I had only closed my eyes an instant before, I was sure, yet then I had been lying quietly in the station at Alamosa, away over on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo. I couldn't remember anything of the transition. Then it was night; now it was morning. Time and space had been an utter blank for ten hours and a hundred miles.

Drawing aside my window curtain and gazing out over gray plains, my eyes caught instantly the bluish outlines of a grander castle and fortress than ever traveler on Rhine or Danube glanced upon. Almost a twelve-month before the Madame and I had spent a sunny day at St. Augustine, where the old square, four-bastioned fort stood grim on the shore of a foam-flecked and laughing sea. Here was a copy of that fortress a thousand times as large,--sloping walls, outer works, bastions, towers and all; you might almost see the huge guns, standing rigid and ready on the magnificent parapet. This was _El Moro_. It was miles and miles away, and a hundred cities had room to cluster about it and take its name without crowding one another. It is the most magnificent model of a half ruined, antique, but altogether glorious fortress in the whole wide world.

At El Moro are some of the great coal mines of this carboniferous state; but to put the matter Hibernically, they are half a dozen miles away up in the hills. We went up there on an engine which drew behind it a box-car load of Mexicans, men and women, who all squatted down on their heels on the car floor and were quite happy, chattering like magpies. It is a very miserable class of Mexicans, for the most part, that one sees in this part of the state. The fathers and mothers of most of them were _peons_ of the wealthy Spaniards, who, under the old _regime_, owned all this region as pasturage for their flocks and herds.

The coal-bed is some hundreds of feet higher than the valley of the Purgatoire, where the village is; and it can be traced for thirty miles east and west, cropping out frequently and used all along by the farmers who live near it, as a supply of fuel. Throughout this extent it varies, of course, in thickness and quality, though in no great degree. Where the El Moro mines are opened, it runs from a vertical thickness of thirty feet to thirteen, nearly all of which is solid, merchantable coal. There are two thin streaks of what the miners term "bone"--something neither coal nor slate--and little patches of refuse, now and then, but no great amount.

I do not know how many hundreds of yards of underground tunnels we walked through, but it was an immense distance, yet the foreman said we had not been half way through it all. Everywhere the roof was high overhead and the walls solid coal, so that the men did not have to crawl on all fours or lie prostrate and dig, as I have seen done in some eastern mines, but could stand full height. All the product of the mine is taken by the pick, except a small amount cut by machines, which dig a horizontal trench, level with the floor, for five feet or so under the breast of the coal and across its whole breadth. This machine works with extreme rapidity, and after it is done, a couple of blasts will topple down as much coal as can be carted out in a day.

The output each month is nearly twenty-five thousand tons, about two hundred and seventy-five miners working. The piece-work method is adopted in paying, and though a smaller rate is paid per ton in mining than is usual in the Pennsylvania or Illinois mines, the earnings of the miners aggregate much larger than the average in the East. This is due to the superior ease with which this coal can be taken out, because of its softness and the roominess of the working chambers, rather than to anything better in the miners or greater diligence in working. One difficulty, indeed, arises from the ease with which high earnings can be made here, namely, that desirable workmen will labor only during the winter, or until they have made a "grub-stake," as they say, when they will go into the mountains prospecting for mines until their funds are exhausted, for, thus far, none of them have become suddenly wealthy.

At the mines, the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, which owns this property, have built a small village of _adobe_ and wooden houses, in which the miners reside. About two hundred men were employed, many of whom had families. They were of almost every nationality, including some sixty Mexicans.

The El Moro coal is a true bituminous coal, producing a coke of excellent quality. It is asserted by its owners to be the best coal for making gas and for blacksmithing in the state; and it is used extensively for steam and metallurgical purposes. It is also said to be the only coal yet discovered in Colorado, lying east of the mountains, which can be profitably used for heating iron in furnaces, and for this it is equal to the best grades of eastern coal. About two-thirds of the product is made into coke.

The coke-works lie five miles from the mines and near El Moro, where there are three steam pumps, a fifty-horse power engine, crushing and washing machinery and two hundred and fifty coking ovens. A charge for each of these ovens, they told us, was about four and a half tons, and the yield of coke from each, after forty-eight hours of burning, is about two and a quarter tons, making a present total product of two hundred and eighty tons of coal a day.

The following shows the analysis of this coal and coke, and also that of the well known Connelsville coal and coke:

COAL.

Vol. Fix. Water. Matter. Carbon. Ash. Sulphur. El Moro 0.26 29.66 65.76 4.32 0.85 Connelsville 1.26 30.11 59.52 8.23 0.78

COKE.

Fix. Carbon. Ash. Sulphur. El Moro 87.47 10.68 0.85 Connelsville 87.26 11.99 0.75