Part 25

It is by the way of Marshall Pass that the railway enters the Gunnison. Leaving the main line and the Arkansas valley at Salida, only five miles are traversed before the train begins to enter Poncho Pass and climb the mountains, which it requires four hours, express speed, to cross,--four hours of uninterrupted pleasure.

Of Poncho's prettiness I have already spoken. Its summit is found at Mears' Station, and then begins the real ascent of the Continental Divide. In a few moments the circling rim of the pit-like valley is surmounted, and Hunt's peak, by its cap of snow signifying its superiority to the giants of the Sangre de Cristo about it, rises like a planet over the hills we are leaving behind. We seat ourselves on the rear platform and watch it until the whole range, of which it is the northernmost officer, stands drawn up in purple line before us, and we can trace the summits, pressed back into straight line, for perhaps sixty miles to the southward--

"----Sierras long, In archipelagoes of mountain sky."

What can that goodly rank, each peak sharp and pyramidal just along side of the other, every curve of the foothills parallel with the one before, sweeping down into the trough-like park at their hither base,--what can all this uniformity be but the splendid chain of the Sangre de Cristo? Have we not seen it time and time again, beheld it from east and west and south, and now here from the north; and has it ever been out of line, or anything but a soldierly array of uniform heights bearing the same relation to the ill-assorted army of the rest of the Rockies, that the famous grenadiers of Frederick the Great did to his peasant conscripts?

This sight explains to us also, that the great width of lofty hills we are picking our way through now is the junction mass of two ranges. It is here that the Sangre de Cristo starts off on its own line to the southeastward, while the main chain, forming the backbone of the continent, trends somewhat westward and continues to do so more and more till it loses itself in the jumble of San Juan, San Miguel, Uncompahgre, Bear and other ranges that fill the southwestern corner of the State. The summits north and southwest of us divide the Atlantic from the Pacific; but that magnificent corps that will not be left behind, but seems to march steadily after us, in battle array, separates only the Arkansas from the Rio Grande. The glimpses of valley we get now and then just this side its base are of Homan's Park, which is only the upper end of the wide San Luis, and places can be seen that we could not reach by long traveling.

Marshall Pass itself, which we enter imperceptibly out of Poncho, is a depression in the main range and lies between Ouray and Exchequer mountains. It was a daring scheme to run the road over here--for _through_ wouldn't express it properly. The summit is almost eleven thousand feet above the sea, and timber-line is so close that you can think sometimes you are actually there. The trees are stunted and all stand bent at an angle, showing the direction of the fierce and prevalent winds that have pressed upon them since their seedling days. The cones they bear start bravely, but after perfecting three or four broad circles of scales and seeds the nipping frosts of August and September admonish them to make haste; so the remainder of the cone is put forth so hastily, in Nature's attempt to complete her work, that the whole remaining length of fifteen or twenty circlets will not exceed the length of the first two or three full-grown scales, and the cone ends ridiculously in a little useless acuminate tip.

To attain this height, the road has to twist and wriggle in the most confusing way, going three or four miles, sometimes, to make fifty rods; but all the time it gains ground upward, over some startling bridges, along the crest of huge fillings, through miniature cañons blasted out of rock or shoveled through gravel, and always up slopes whose steepness it needs no practiced eye to appreciate. To say that the road crosses a pass in the Rocky mountains 10,820 feet in height is enough to astonish the conservative engineers who have never seen this audacious line; but you can magnify their amazement when you tell them that some of the grades are 220 feet to the mile.

The mountains and hills in the neighborhood of Marshall Pass are clothed for the most part with grass, or else sage-brush and weeds, and with timber, scant in some places, dense in others. The tourist will not see there the startling cliffs and chasms that break up the mountains on the road to Durango, but, on the other hand, he will not feel any terror at dizzy precipices, nor tremble lest some toppling pinnacle should fall upon his fragile car. No better exhibition of the greatness and breadth of these mountains could be found, however, than here. There stretches away beneath and around you an endless series of hills, some rounded and entirely over-grown with dark woods, others rising into a comb-like crest, or rearing a dome-shaped head above the possibilities of timber-growth and covered with a smooth cap of yellowish verdure. They crowd one another on every side, and brace themselves, each by each, as though their broad and solid foundations were not enough for safety. They stand cheek by jowl in sturdy companionship, taking rain and sunny weather, hurtling storms and serene days with impartial equality. Your vision will not find the limit of these huge hills until it is cut off by the serrated horizon of the crest of the Sangre de Cristo, or by some frowning monarch near at hand, holding his head high and venerably gray, as becomes a chieftain, where he can get the first messages of the gods and be looked up to by a thousand of his more humble kin.

"It is like a huge green sea," murmurs the Madame, hitherto silent with gazing. "I know a great many people have made the same comparison before--have often said that these commingled ranges were as a sea, tossing its white crests here and there and all at once congealed; but that is the very impression which fixes itself upon you. These rounded, or sharp-edged, tumultuous mountains _are_ like a wide, green ocean." The great cone on the northern side of the track, close to which the roadway skirts nearly the whole distance through the pass, is Ouray peak. Ouray, as nearly everybody must know, was the head chief of the Utes. This tribe only very lately abandoned all this portion of Colorado, leaving last that reservation which lies beyond Gunnison City, and which we are soon to visit. The peak we have hugged so closely does honor to the dead chief. The farther you get around it the more nobly do its proportions rise into the blue ether. Like Veta mountain, which it closely resembles, this peak is of white volcanic rock that has decomposed into small blocks. The sides then are loose "slides," as steep as the fragmentary stuff will lie, and the top is a narrow summit with smooth, rounded outlines. We are only a few hundred feet from the topmost timber, yet the bald white summit rears its head to almost unmeasured heights above, and claims our admiration by its simple majesty, far more than does the broken, cliff-furnished upthrust of Exchequer peak opposite, though its black head is held quite as high. Perhaps this is only because we have become somewhat tired of the closely-shutting high mountains; weary of being

"----under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,"

as Milton puts it. Certes, it _is_ good once more to be able to look abroad!

On our way to the summit we had crawled through long snow-sheds, built to protect the road from the snows of winter, and which are hung late in spring with brilliant icicles formed by the sun without and the cold within. Passing through the last shed, which has a length of fully half a mile, we reached the highest point of the divide, and while the extra engine which had helped pull us up the steep grades went cautiously down the valley toward Gunnison before us, we climbed the rocks about the little station house, to enjoy at its best the magnificent view presented. To the northeast, white with snow, towered the serrated range of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, rising abruptly from the valley which stretched away to the southeast and standing out in bold relief against the deep blue sky. Between the range and us were lower hills and isolated peaks tumbled into a confused mass, and only prevented from pressing too closely together by the little valleys that ran between them. Immediately around us grew stunted pines, bent, barren, blackened and lifeless. Down the mountain side the forests became denser, greener and fresher, while from the distant valleys, at the bottom of which we could see tiny streams working their way to worlds beyond, came low murmurs and sweet odors. Toward the west, and losing itself in a hazy distance, ran the Tomichi valley, narrow, heavily wooded, and free from all that rocky harshness so prevalent in Colorado. Far below we could look down upon four lines of our road, terrace below terrace, the last so far down the mountain as to be quite indistinct to the view. The iron loops were lost to sight at times as the road wound about some interfering hill; and often the forest was so dense that the track seemed to have disappeared for ever. Five hundred feet down the mountain side we could see a water-tank, and knew that it marked the spot where we would be, after an hour of twisting down the incline. As we gazed upon the mountains, the valley, and the far and farther heights, we could imagine ourselves returned to the beginning of things, and shown the globe only that moment finished. There was a wealth of coloring, a sublimity unsurpassed, and withal an attention given to detail by which the picture was made perfect. I remember to have stood on Marshall Pass once when the sun was just dropping out of sight beyond the rolling hills to the westward. As it sunk lower and lower behind its curtain of snowy peaks, prismatic hues came flashing along the pathway of its fading light, which touched the rugged sides of Ouray peak and the white-capped range beyond until every treeless spot and gabled peak shone with a mellow hue. All objects--those near by and those far away--flashed bright colors, beautiful, brilliant, and as varied as those of the rainbow. From the mountains long shadows were cast, and in the forest crept dark shades. All nature prepared to sleep, and no sounds came from around the lonely pass but the sighing of the wind as it swept through the tangled trees. "All outward things and inward thoughts teemed with assurances of immortality."

Our descent from the pass was continuous but slow. At least it was slow at first. All steam was shut off in the engine and the air-brakes were used to preserve a uniform speed. Winding in and out among the trees, and catching at different times extended views of the Tomichi, we worked our way to more level country and were soon skirting the meadows and whirling across the ranch properties of the fertile valley. Close beside us ran a sparkling stream, tapped here and there by the farmers, who used its water for their lands, and again winding its way through the willows that grew on its banks. Looking back over the way we had come, there appeared dark-green forests, backed by high mountains with bared summits; but before us lay the Tomichi, shut in on either side by low hills and extending westward so far that its end was lost in haze. Everything was green, fertile, luxuriant. Cattle grazed in the meadows, ricks of hay stood by the side of low-roofed cabins, and narrow valleys came down from the northern mountains to join the one along which we kept the swift and even tenor of our way.

XXV

GUNNISON AND CRESTED BUTTE.

"Over the Mountains of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for El Dorado." --EDGAR A. POE.

At its lower end, as the mountains in the range we have crossed begin to grow indistinct in the distance, the Tomichi valley pushes aside the hills which have hitherto confined it, and broadens into a wide, grassy plateau, encircled by mountains, in the center of which stands Gunnison, the chief town of Western Colorado. Westward, where the river comes down, sculptured cliffs rise near and abrupt; but elsewhere the mountains are far away enough to make invisible all their lesser characteristics. Those to the north and south east have their long line of irregular summits capped with snow; but to the west the ranges grow less rugged and more rounded, while between the hills runs the valley occupied by the Gunnison river on its way to the Grand, and by which the railway enters the rich farming lands of the newly opened reservation and the territory of Utah.

Drawing rapidly nearer the center of the plateau, we approached the city and perceived that it consisted of two distinct parts, with a gap of half a mile between them. Then a new freight-house cut off the view and we came to a stoppage in one of the busiest "yards" outside of Denver.

The town, as I have said, stands in the middle of a level park, at an altitude of about 8,000 feet above the sea. There is room enough "to hold New York City," as the people are fond of saying. No stream waters the middle of this area, but skirting the further edge, just under the bluffs, which on every one of these bright summer evenings

"----topple round the West, A looming bastion fringed with fire,"

runs the Gunnison river, through a bosky avenue of full-foliaged trees and thickly interlaced underbrush. Away to the southward of the town again, the Tomichi curves about the base of rounded, plush tinted hills that look like the backs of gigantic elephants. I have called the first of these streams the Gunnison, but if you follow it up a little way you will come to repeated forkings known as East river, Taylor river, Ohio creek, and so on. I believe, therefore, that properly the Gunnison does not attain individuality and deserve its name until all this cluster of northern tributaries joins with the Tomichi, just below the town, and the united and largely increased stream flows independently onward.

It is in the fork of these chief sources of the Gunnison,--at its very head so to speak,--that the town is placed. It is not upon the banks of either, but the pure waters are easily led in open aqueducts all over the site, running by their own current. There are places enough for them to run, too, and people enough to consume them, leaving only begrimed tailings for the engine-tanks at the station.

The town began in two parts and became the shape of a dumb-bell, the handle represented by Tomichi avenues. The knobs of town at each end are rival districts known as Gunnison and West Gunnison, but the former is the larger, seems to have the start, and has secured such distinctions as the post-office, the banks, the court-house, the high school and the principal newspapers. These, with several of the mercantile establishments, show fine structures of brick and stone, the latter being a white sandstone of great excellence for building purposes, which abounds in the buttes on the edge of the plateau. The majority of the houses, both for business and for residence, however, are frame buildings. Some are of pretentious size, and many prettily decorated, so that we do not know, a cleaner, more regular, cosy-looking city in the state than this. The divided appearance is gradually disappearing by increased building between, which proceeds with amazing rapidity.

The history of this valley and town is entertaining. In the early days of Rocky Mountain exploration, this whole region was known as the Grand River country, its noblest stream, now called the Gunnison river, then being known as the South Fork of the Grand. Of its history, or its geography, as I have intimated, little has been known until very recent times. It is recorded that in 1845, ex-Governor Gilpin, then a mere lad, traversed the entire length of the river valley from west to east, on his return from Oregon to St. Louis. "Having crossed southern Utah by an old Spanish trail he pushed his way up through the valleys of the South Fork of the Grand, crossing the divide very near the southeastern corner of what is now Gunnison county. Although pursued relentlessly by savages he was enthusiastic over the results of his trip and embodied the knowledge so obtained in a map which is now on file in Denver. The interval following Governor Gilpin's exploration between 1845 and 1853 is entirely an historical blank, only vague Indian stories being given out by occasional trappers and by the Mormons, who joined in relating the beauty and richness of the country.

"In 1853 Captain Gunnison, a gallant officer, following Rock creek up to its head, discovered a nobler stream coursing southward from the Elk mountains. This stream cost him his life. As he was exploring it, he was set upon (whether by Indians or not seems doubtful) and cruelly murdered. After this adventurous officer the Gunnison river was named and afterwards Gunnison county. In 1854 the indomitable 'Old Pathfinder,' General Fremont, passed over nearly the same country from east to west and in his report paid glowing tribute to the beauty and wealth of these regions. It was not, however, until 1861, when some prospectors, approaching through California gulch, where Leadville now stands, gave names to Washington gulch, Taylor park, Rentz's gulch, and Union park, that any positive development was undertaken. Then it was only on a very small scale, and although the discoveries they made created considerable excitement in mining circles, the fear of Indians was yet so great as to prevent any immigration of any consequence. This fear was heightened by the horrible discovery one morning of the massacre of twelve men in Washington gulch. This wholesale tragedy gave a gloomy side-defile the name of Dead Man's gulch. The story of this outrage quickly spread throughout the entire country, each person coloring it as it went and adding a little to the horrors of the event. At this time nothing could tempt the daring miners of the adjacent and already populous Colorado gulches to risk their lives in this country. Even the most marvelous stories which were told of the golden bullets used by the Indians, and of mines to which El Dorado and Comstock and Golconda were vanities, failed to tempt their cupidity sufficiently to cause them to venture into the blood-christened country. A few, however, who had already forced their way in, earned a precarious livelihood in Washington gulch, fortified from the Indians and living for months at a time upon game and fish. In their leisure moments, between fighting Indians and hunting game, they occupied themselves in placer mining and, it is said, made from five to twenty dollars a day. Not until 1872, however, was any organized attempt made to open up the country. In that year Jim Brennen, of Denver, headed a small party of prospectors and located in the Rock Creek region.

"From this time really dates the origin of the mines, their reports being so enthusiastic that in 1873 Dr. John Parsons, Professor Richardson and thirty miners entered from Denver. One of the stories of this party which is told, but which is historically doubtful, runs to the effect that in pushing around by the southern entrance over the Saguache, General Charles Adams, who was then in charge of the frontier, forbade their further progress without the consent of the Utes. A heated debate is supposed to have arisen over the matter, which was settled by Chief Ouray himself, voting to grant them permission. In 1874 a colony was formed in Denver to settle upon and cultivate the Gunnison's agricultural lands. Accordingly twenty men, all told, located themselves at various points upon Tomichi river and gave their special attention to ranches. The mining districts, however, on account of the Leadville and San Juan excitements, together with the difficulties and inconveniences of mining in this country at that time, did not really begin to grow until several years later."

In the latter part of 1877 the state legislature set off Gunnison county, containing about twelve thousand square miles, or an area somewhat larger than the state of Connecticut. Three-fourths of it lay within the Ute Reservation, and it has since been subdivided into four new counties,--Gunnison (restricted to the eastern end), Montrose, Delta and Mesa. By 1880 matters began to assume a fixed condition. The people left their tents and sought more durable habitations. Business ceased to be desultory. The prospect-diggings, of which five thousand had been recorded, were developed as rapidly as possible, the buzz of the saw-mill and planer was heard, and smelters began to be erected.

Historically, there is little to add. Steady growth has benefited the city. New and large business blocks have been erected, a handsome hotel built, and a smelter put in operation. It has now a population of fully five thousand, is lighted with gas, and has a system of water-works. The streets are wide and clean; and the entire town has lost that frontier appearance which characterized it in its earlier days.

And Gunnison is a railway center. To the north the Denver and Rio Grande has extended a branch to Crested Butte and brought into closer communication with the outside world the adjoining mining towns of Irwin, Ruby, Gothic, and others of less importance. The road leads northward from Gunnison up the pointed valley until it gets close upon the bank of East river. Following the river, the valley narrows into a ravine, and some interesting masses of broken volcanic rocks, injected edgewise into the general sandstone strata, attract the eye.

It is the far-away landscape, nevertheless, that holds attention as we look backward. Rising above the level of the plain upon which the city is built, you can span with your vision hills and mesas southward, and behold "striking up the azure" a vast length of the ever-magnificent San Juan mountains,--the same glorious pinnacles that towered about us, near at hand, in Baker's park. We could count the peaks by dozens if we tried, but it would be rash to try to name the separate points of the long serration. Many snow clouds have shed their burdens upon them since we saw them last, but to-day their heavens are clear and the sun blazes down upon scores of miles of lofty _nêve_ fields, the uniform purity of which, at this distance, seems broken only by the shadows the higher peaks throw upon their lowlier companions and upon their own half-concealed sides. Gazing at them across the dim foreground of sage-plain, the middle scene of receding, intermingled, haze-obscured and bluish hills, we were more and more delighted with their loveliness,--a word whose propriety you will appreciate when you, too, have laid away this treasure of memory--one of the most entrancing bits of landscape in Colorado.