Part 26

There are a few patches of rank meadow, but most of the way the hills run down so close to the river banks, that there is barely room for the road-bed to be made. Growing so close to the water that they are reflected in its depths, are sweet-smelling trees, tall, graceful, luxuriant, but in winter they bend beneath the snow that clings to them. Reaching to the top of the hills and completely covering them, are tangled masses of brush, pushed aside at times by forests of pines and torn asunder in places by the rocks that have lost their balance on some far summit and been rolled to the river below. In the narrowest places precipices menace each other across the stream; and on their faces, brown and weather-beaten, grow hardy shrubs, clinging to the crevices and hugging the bold headlands.

Nor does the valley afford satisfaction to the lover of what is only picturesque in nature. We have seen many a trout whipped from his cool retreat under the shadow of the rocks. The region is a sportsman's paradise. Nature is at her best, the forests are full of health-giving odors, and a day's tramp could not fail to bring color to the palest cheek, strength to the weakest body.

Twenty-eight miles north of Gunnison the narrow valley lets us into a snug little basin among the hills which border upon the Elk range, Slate river comes winding through it from the north, while Coal creek sweeps abruptly around a lofty spur at the left. Straight ahead, behind a green ridge, a white conical mountain stands challenging our admiration, and on our right a still nearer height rises like a mighty pyramid of gray stone from a richly verdant base.

The Madame gazes at them with delight a moment, but quickly glances with more eager interest to the meadow-land in which we are coming to a standstill, for the lush grass is dyed with innumerable flowers.

"Why Crested Butte?" she asks as the station sign comes in view.

I point, for reply, to the conical gray height which dominates the valley.

"That is neither a butte, nor is it crested," she says. "A butte properly is not a peak of volcanic or primitive rock even if it is isolated--the proper name for that is 'mountain' or 'spur.' A butte is a hill of sedimentary rock, not mountain-like in appearance, and standing by itself in a flat region. Moreover there isn't a bit of crest. Its apex is as sharp and round as a well-whittled pencil."

"If you could look at it from the other side you might find a very well-marked crest."

"But I can't, and nobody does, see it from the other side. However"--and here her prerogative of inconsistency was exercised--"I am glad they adopted the mistake for now the town has a name worth remembering, something you can't say of too many of these mountain villages."

Crested Butte had the honor to be the first settlement in the Gunnison region. A recent review of its history says that in the spring of 1877 the Jennings brothers, who were hardy prospectors, penetrated as far as the Butte and were somewhat surprised and delighted at finding coal. Instantly turning their attention to that branch of mining they located some land. The fame of this discovery, blending with that of others, proved an incentive to the overflow from Leadville and the rest of Colorado. In 1877 a few men came in, but no effort was made even to survey the country until 1878. In that year Howard F. Smith dropped in and purchased some coal interests. He soon had the country surveyed, erected a store and advertised so well that within a few weeks a village had been started which is now one of the pleasantest summer places on the western slope, and can boast a hotel that has no superior in the Rocky mountains for comfort. This is the Elk Mountain house, and it is the property of the town-site company, who appreciate that the first impressions of a traveler (and possible settler) are largely colored by his early experiences in the matter of food and lodging.

No mines for gold and silver exist in the immediate vicinity of the village, though many "camps" in the Elk Mountains from five to twenty miles away are tributary to it; and the chief reliance and _raison d' être_ of the settlement is found in the coal-beds that are adjacent to it. These are of the greatest value and importance, and at night, when the blaze of the coke ovens sheds a lurid glare upon the overhanging woodlands and the snug town, one can appreciate the far-seeing expectations that lead the people there to call their town the Pittsburgh of the West.

Between two great foothills south and west of the town, flows a little creek whose channel is cut through five beds of coal, dipping southward, with the rest of the stratified rocks, at an angle of about six degrees; the lowest is ten feet in thickness, the others six, five, four and three feet. This coal is bituminous, and has been proved to be the best coking coal in the United States, as is shown by the following authoritative analysis:

Coal .44 34.17 72.30 3.09 Coke 1.35 ----- 92.03 6.62

The railway having reached Crested Butte, the coking veins are now well opened "by three drifts on water level, working the seam to the rise." The mines are prepared for an output of four hundred to five hundred tons of coal per day, and the coke can be furnished to any extent, by the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, who own the mines. At first this coke was made in open pits, but now a long series of ovens has been built, and the railway tracks run to the ovens and almost to the mine-entrance. The cars drawn up the incline from the "breasts" to the surface, are thence dragged by mules through a quarter of a mile of sheds, built to guard against the deep winter snows, down to the ovens and the cars. Forty or fifty miners are employed at present, and these live with their families in large log houses built under the edge of the forested hill close to the mine.

The coke of all coal, being composed of fixed carbon and ash, depends for its value on the minimum of ash. The coke from the coal of Crested Butte contains from two to six per cent. less ash than the coke of the best eastern coals, its total of ash amounting only to six per cent. For all purposes of steam, this bituminous coal is said to have no superior on the continent. A well known mineralogist is reported to have said of it that, while a pound of Pennsylvania anthracite will make twenty-five pounds of steam, a pound of this bituminous coal will make twenty-three pounds; but while one pound of eastern anthracite is burning, two pounds of this will burn. Therefore, while the pound of Pennsylvania anthracite is making twenty-five pounds of steam, this coal will generate forty-six.

These coal-beds can be traced without difficulty up Slate river, exposed here and there in the western bluff, and can be found hidden in the opposite hills. As it is followed, however (rising in altitude with the upheaval toward the mountain-center), a change is seen to take place in its character. Two miles above the village it is neither soft nor hard; a little farther on, a part of the bed is decidedly anthracitic; while four miles above Coal creek, and at an elevation of a thousand feet or so above it, genuine anthracite of the best quality is mined from the same seams that, four miles below, yield the coking soft coal. "Nothing could be plainer, nor more beautiful to see," than this practical demonstration of how under different conditions of heat and pressure, the same carbonaceous deposit becomes bituminous or anthracitic.

The anthracite mine is at the top of a wooded hill and is reached by one of the most entertaining roads in all Colorado. The coal-beds form strata right across the hill, so that the miners can run their tunnels out to daylight in any direction, and need not fear the gas which is so troublesome in the bituminous diggings below. The vein now worked is five feet thick at the entry, but increases to ten feet in thickness within. It is solid and pure, and is thrown down by blasting. The men are paid seventy-five cents per ton for breaking it into convenient pieces and loading it into the little cars. These cars are then drawn to the brow of the hill and dumped into larger cars which travel on a tramway sixteen hundred feet long, and most skillfully erected on a curved trestle, down to the breaker at the river level. This breaker is the only one west of Pennsylvania, and is capable of transmitting five hundred tons a day, properly crushed, to the railway cars, which run underneath its shutes.

The highest excellence is claimed for this anthracite coal by its owners, not only for domestic purposes, but in the making of steam. In price, this company is able to meet the Pennsylvanians at markets on the Missouri river, and to furnish all nearer points at a much lower rate than eastern shippers can afford; while they hope to secure a large part, if not the whole of the California business, which amounts to about fifty thousand tons annually. The mine and breaker have now been put in shape to yield steadily a large product; they are hereafter expected to be able to meet the whole demand. The anthracite beds in this region are believed to be very extensive, so that undoubtedly other mines will be opened as soon as a large enough demand will justify it. The discovery of these anthracite beds caused an immense excitement, for it was the first true hard coal found in the State; and a mob of men rushed in as though to an old-fashioned placer-find.

This region in 1879, indeed, caused a great flurry in the minds of prospectors who began to enter it at the risk of their lives long before it ceased to be an Indian reservation. As long ago as 1872 argentiferous quartz had been found in Rock creek just over the divide between these waters and the Roaring Fork of the Grand river, where Galena, Crystal, Treasure and Whopper mountains are seamed with large veins of comparatively low-grade, but easily smelted galena ore. The center of this district is Crystal City, and from that point prospectors pushed their way right and left as fast as they dared, and thus led to the opening of the Gunnison region.

It was not until 1879, however, that the precious metals were found in the southern slopes of the Elk mountains, and the region in which we are now interested was heralded abroad as the long-awaited El Dorado. Hundreds of men flocked in, striving to be first on the ground. A few of the earliest comers chose a spot at the base of the sharp, white mountain so plainly in view north of Crested Butte, and decided that a town must be placed there to be called Gothic--a name suggested by the appearance of some cliffs near by. It was done, and the people came to fill it. To it came all the business of the Brush creek, Rock creek, Copper creek, Sheep mountain, and Treasure mountain silver and gold mines, besides those nearer at hand--Schofield, Galena, Elko, Bellevue and others.

Another somewhat separate mining locality was one that we looked down upon as we stood at the mouth of the anthracite tunnel and gazed across the deep gorge which sank between this and the opposite hills, and down which flowed the gentle current of Slate river. The wall on the other side rose above the line of timber growth, and one peak showed an exposed face of brilliant red rock in high contrast to the blue-gray of the rest. Beneath it lay Redwell basin. At the right frightfully rough cliffs and forested crags shut in Oh-be joyful gulch, at the head of which, just out of sight, was Poverty gulch, while Peeler basin showed its edge. It seems to us that we can perceive through the clear atmosphere every tree and stone and crevice on the opposite slopes, though miles away, and can almost hear the prattle of the great waterfall that shines white in the shady bottom of the gorge; but we can see no signs whatever that a human being has ever been in all that area. Nevertheless over all that mountain side there is said to be scarcely an acre of ground not partially covered by mining claims, and upon some part of each one of these a discovery-shaft has been sunk. Many of the fissures thus disclosed are of immense size, carrying veins of argentiferous galena from three to nine feet in width, assaying on the surface from forty to one hundred and sixty ounces of silver to the ton. In some cases ruby silver or gray copper have been reached at forty or fifty feet in depth, assaying over one thousand ounces. At night the coal men see the opposite mountains dotted with camp-fires, and the merchants of Crested Butte will tell you that many a wagon-load and train of burros is packed with provisions for those apparent solitudes.

"What's in a name!" exclaims the Madame as we are riding homeward, while talking over these districts and discussing the notable properties.

"Generally nothing," it is replied, "so far as the designations of mines are concerned, but from the prevalent style of names in the whole district it would be possible to judge something of the men who settled it. Here, for instance, one can't help noticing an absence of the rough gambling titles so common among California mines. The 'Euchre Decks,' the 'Faro Banks,' the 'Little Brown Jugs,' etc., are few, and in their place we find the 'Shakespeare,' the 'Iron Duke,' 'Baron De Kalb,' 'Catapult,' and others with similar literary, historical or mythological meanings. It is evident that no rude typical miner presided at their christening, but that intelligent, and in many cases highly educated, men discovered and named them."

Eight miles northwest of Crested Butte are the almost united towns of Ruby and Irwin, which, in 1879 and '80, had "booms," but now are almost deserted. The neighborhood abounds in silver, but it has been found that too many obstacles stand in the way of successfully working the mines, which are very high, and in a region famous for its deep snows, until the science of ore-treatment has progressed, and cheaper methods of operation and transportation have been devised.

Leaving Chum to take the Madame and the train back to Gunnison, I left Crested Butte on the morning after our ride to the anthracite mine, on my way to Lake City, discouraging all company.

XXVI

A TRIP TO LAKE CITY.

A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs, Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge. --WHITTIER.

Lake City is a mining town at the foot of the San Juan mountains thirty miles south of the railway station of Sapinero (the latter named after a sub chief among the Utes who was looked upon by the whites as a man of unusual sagacity). It was at that time reached by a buckboard, carrying the mail and passengers.

The stage-road led up a long, long hill to the top of the mesa between the Cochetopa and the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. This much of the way was in the track of the old southern road to California, which came up from Santa Fe to Taos, San Luis park, Saguache, and so on over here along the Cochetopa, striking the Gunnison river just above this point and continuing on down to the Uncompahgre, where it crossed the Gunnison to the northern bank and pushed westward to Utah. This was the route followed by Captain Gunnison in 1853, and it came to be known as the Salt Lake Wagon Road; and the whole course of the Denver and Rio Grande railway follows it closely from Grand Junction to the Wasatch mountains. The road is still occasionally traveled for short distances by light wagons and by men driving bands of horses, who wish to escape paying the tolls demanded along the new and improved roads, so that it is in no danger of becoming obliterated.

From the top of this high plateau, a great picture opens before the eye, in all directions. Northward the peaks of the Elk range form a long line of well-separated summits. Northeastward, the vista between nearer hills is filled with the clustered heights of the Continental Divide in the neighborhood of the Mount of the Holy Cross. Just below them confused elevations show where Marshall pass carries its lofty avenue, and to the southward of that stretches the splendid, snow-trimmed array of the Sangre de Cristo. They fill beautifully the far eastern horizon, and end southward in the massive buttresses of Sierra Blanca, of which no more impressive view can be had than this elevated standpoint affords. As we advance a few miles other mountains rise into sight straight ahead,--that is, in the southward. These are the cold and broken summits of the Sierra San Juan; while isolated from them, and a little to the right, stands the Saul of their ranks,--Uncompahgre peak, head and shoulders above all his comrades. Nor is this figure an idle comparison, for his tenon shaped apex easily suggests it.

Half way to our destination, the crazy buckboard rattles us painfully down a steep and stony hill into the valley of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison, where there is room for several ranches whose fields of hay and oats show a plentiful growth, and whose potato-patches are something admirable. The best of these is Barnum's, where there is also a store and a post-office, and where your "humble correspondent," supposing himself about to lay his head upon a soft bag of oats, nearly dashed his brains out by hurling it in misplaced confidence against a marble-solid bag of salt. _Eheu! miserere me!_

When we had wound our way farther up the narrow cañon into which the valley contracted on the further side of this gateway, there came to view the precise similitude (but here on a lesser scale) of the massive, pillared, mitre-crowned cliffs that form the shores of the Columbia river between Fort Vancouver and The Dalles.

As a mining-town Lake City is not now so active as formerly. It stands in a little park at the junction of the Lake Fork (of the Gunnison) with Henson creek,--both typical mountain streams, each wavelet flecked with foam and sparkling like the back of the trout it hides. Henson creek became especially famous among prospectors, who found that, however large an army of miners might flock in there, new veins were always to be had as the reward of diligent searching. Thus a populous and highly enterprising town arose, which became the supply point for a wide mountain region, owing to its accessibility from both north and south; and though it was over one hundred miles--mountain miles at that!--from a railway, more than ten million pounds of merchandise, and five million pounds of mining machinery and supplies were taken in on wagons during 1880, at a cost of over a million dollars for transportation alone. A very good class of people went to Lake City, too, so that a substantial and pretty town arose, school-houses and churches were built, and I have never seen a mining camp where the bookstores and news-stands were so well furnished and patronized. At the beginning of 1881 about two thousand people lived in the town itself, not counting the great number of men in the mountains round about; and three factories for the treatment of ores were in operation.

Since then, however, Lake City has retreated somewhat; not that the mines have proved false to the confidence placed in them, but because it has been shown that until cheaper methods of transportation and more economic treatment can be devised, the mines cannot be worked to the same profit which a similar investment in some neighboring districts will return. This is due to the fact that the ores, of marvelous value when their mass is considered, are of too low grade, as a rule, to afford a high margin over the expenses of working. This by no means condemns the district; it only causes its stores of wealth to be held in abeyance for a while before their coinage. Many another district, a few years ago thought equally profitless, has risen to become the scene of steady dividend-making labor through the perfection of processes. It will not be long, before, by like means, the reviving of Lake City's mines will occur, and enable her to catch up with her more fortunate sisters in the wide circle of the San Juan silver-region.

But when that time has come,--though the Alpine grandeur of the scenery cannot be lost, the splendid shooting and fishing which now make the village one of the favored resorts of the west, will have disappeared; and there are some of us, more sentimental than world-wise, who will regret the change. Over these rolling uplands, among the aspen groves, upon the foothills and along the willow-bordered creek deers now throng, and even an occasional elk and antelope are to be seen. In the rocky fastnesses the bear and panther find refuge, and every little park is enlivened by the flitting forms of timid hares and the whirring escape of the grouse disturbed by our passing. Upon these lofty, grass-grown plateaus, some cattle already get excellent feeding; and the time will be short before they are multiplied into the vast herds whose pasturage will be economised by good management, and for which a market will be found within a few days drive of the range. Too high and arid for extensive farming, the opposite, yet inter-dependent, pursuits of mining and cattle-raising, will ere long bring all this elevated interior of the state into full utilization. When one wonders how this railway company is to support itself amid the wilds, this future must be remembered.

XXVII

IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK CAÑON.

By what furnaces of fire the adamant was melted, and by what wheels of earthquake it was torn, and by what teeth of glacier and weight of sea waves it was engraven and finished into perfect form, we may hereafter endeavor to conjecture. --JOHN RUSKIN.

It was with eager interest that we despatched a hasty breakfast, and attached our cars to the early morning express westward bound from Gunnison. The Grand Cañon of the Gunnison lay just ahead. An open "observation" car, crowded with sightseers, was hooked on behind us, but that did not interfere with our favorite rear platform, and thither our camp-stools were taken.

This river Gunnison has a hard time of it. The streams that finally unite to make it up, are loath to do so, and it came near not being born at all. The flat country we see just below the town vouchsafes a few quiet miles under the cottonwoods, but presently the hills close in, and then the river must needs gird up its loins for a struggle such as few other streams in the wide world know. Its life thenceforth is that of a warrior; and it never lays aside its knightly armor till the very end in the absorbing flood of the Grand.

Above the rattle of the train, echoing from the rocky highlands that hem it in, we can hear the roaring of this water as we thunder down its sinuous course toward Sapinero. Great fragments that have fallen from the steep banks, where an avalanche of stones lies precariously as though even the shock of our passing would set them sliding, fret the stream with continual interruptions and turn its green flood into lines of yeasty white. These same rocks are admirable fishing-stands, however, for the trout love the deeply aërated water that swirls about them; and we see more than one silvery fin snatched from its crystal home to hang in mute misery upon the angler's switch of forked willow.

"Do you think it's right?" asks the Madame, with a pitiful tone in her voice.

"No, but it can't be helped; and you'll find some casuistry to meet the case about dinner-time."

"Casuistry--casuistry?" says Chum reflectively. "Is that a new kind of sauce?"