A Ladys Life in the Rocky Mountains | Page 8

in the dust, laboriously
carrying the bag and saddle-blanket. I walked for nearly an hour, heated
and hungry, when to my joy I saw the ox-team halted across the top of
a gorge, and one of the teamsters leading the horse towards me. The
young man said that, seeing the horse coming, they had drawn the team
across the road to stop him, and remembering that he had passed them
with a lady on him, they feared that there had been an accident, and had
just saddled one of their own horses to go in search of me. He brought
me some water to wash the dust from my face, and re-saddled the horse,
but the animal snorted and plunged for some time before he would let
me mount, and then sidled along in such a nervous and scared way, that
the teamster walked for some distance by me to see that I was "all
right." He said that the woods in the neighborhood of Tahoe had been
full of brown and grizzly bears for some days, but that no one was in
any danger from them. I took a long gallop beyond the scene of my
tumble to quiet the horse, who was most restless and troublesome.
Then the scenery became truly magnificent and bright with life. Crested
blue-jays darted through the dark pines, squirrels in hundreds
scampered through the forest, red dragon-flies flashed like "living
light," exquisite chipmunks ran across the track, but only a dusty blue
lupin here and there reminded me of earth's fairer children. Then the
river became broad and still, and mirrored in its transparent depths
regal pines, straight as an arrow, with rich yellow and green lichen
clinging to their stems, and firs and balsam pines filling up the spaces
between them, the gorge opened, and this mountain-girdled lake lay
before me, with its margin broken up into bays and promontories, most
picturesquely clothed by huge sugar pines. It lay dimpling and
scintillating beneath the noonday sun, as entirely unspoilt as fifteen
years ago, when its pure loveliness was known only to trappers and
Indians. One man lives on it the whole year round; otherwise early
October strips its shores of their few inhabitants, and thereafter, for
seven months, it is rarely accessible except on snowshoes. It never
freezes. In the dense forests which bound it, and drape two-thirds of its

gaunt sierras, are hordes of grizzlies, brown bears, wolves, elk, deer,
chipmunks, martens, minks, skunks, foxes, squirrels, and snakes. On its
margin I found an irregular wooden inn, with a lumber-wagon at the
door, on which was the carcass of a large grizzly bear, shot behind the
house this morning. I had intended to ride ten miles farther, but, finding
that the trail in some places was a "blind" one, and being bewitched by
the beauty and serenity of Tahoe, I have remained here sketching,
reveling in the view from the veranda, and strolling in the forest. At
this height there is frost every night of the year, and my fingers are
benumbed. The beauty is entrancing. The sinking sun is out of sight
behind the western Sierras, and all the pine-hung promontories on this
side of the water are rich indigo, just reddened with lake, deepening
here and there into Tyrian purple. The peaks above, which still catch
the sun, are bright rose-red, and all the mountains on the other side are
pink; and pink, too, are the far-off summits on which the snow-drifts
rest. Indigo, red, and orange tints stain the still water, which lies solemn
and dark against the shore, under the shadow of stately pines. An hour
later, and a moon nearly full--not a pale, flat disc, but a radiant
sphere--has wheeled up into the flushed sky. The sunset has passed
through every stage of beauty, through every glory of color, through
riot and triumph, through pathos and tenderness, into a long, dreamy,
painless rest, succeeded by the profound solemnity of the moonlight,
and a stillness broken only by the night cries of beasts in the aromatic
forests. I. L. B.
Letter II
A lady's "get-up"--Grizzly bears--The "Gems of the Sierras"--A tragic
tale--A carnival of color.
CHEYENNE, WYOMING, September 7.
As night came on the cold intensified, and the stove in the parlor
attracted every one. A San Francisco lady, much "got up" in paint,
emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, and diamonds, rattled continuously
for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and
scenes in a racy Western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what
she said. In a few years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with

similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the
reputation which our country-women bear in America by looking a
"perfect guy"; and feeling that I was a