Peak and Prairie

Peak and Prairie, by Anna Fuller

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Title: Peak and Prairie From a Colorado Sketch-book
Author: Anna Fuller
Illustrator: Emma G. Moore
Release Date: August 3, 2007 [EBook #22231]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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By ANNA FULLER
A Literary Courtship: Under the Auspices of Pike's Peak. 28th thousand. 16�� $1.25
A Venetian June. Illustrated. 15th thousand. 16�� $1.25
Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book. Illustrated. 7th thousand. 16�� New Edition. 12�� $1.50
Pratt Portraits: Sketched in a New England Suburb. Illustrated, 12th thousand. 12�� $1.50
One of the Pilgrims. A Bank Story. 6th thousand. 12�� $1.25
Katherine Day. 8th thousand. 12�� $1.50
A Bookful of Girls. 4th thousand. Illustrated. 12�� $1.50
Later Pratt Portraits. Illustrated $1.50 net
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[Illustration: "THE PEAK WAS SUPERB THAT MORNING, BIG AND STRONG AND GLITTERING WITH SNOW."]
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PEAK AND PRAIRIE
From a Colorado Sketch Book
By ANNA FULLER
Author of "A Literary Courtship" "Pratt Portraits," Etc.
Illustrated by Emma G. Moore
New York and London G. P. Putnam's Sons
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Copyright, 1894 BY ANNA FULLER
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
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TO ONE TO WHOM I OWE COLORADO AND MUCH BESIDES THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED
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PREFACE.
The sketches of Colorado life which make up this volume are little more than hints and suggestions caught from time to time by a single observer in a comparatively narrow field of observation. Narrow as the field is, however, it offers a somewhat unusual diversity of scene; for that most charming of health resorts known in these pages as Springtown, is the chance centre of many varying interests. In its immediate vicinity exists the life of the prairie ranch on the one hand and that of the mining-camp on the other; while dominating all as it were--town, prairie, and mountain fastness--rises the great Peak which has now for so many years been the goal of pilgrimage to men and women from the Eastern States in pursuit of health, of fortune, or of the free, open-air life of the prairie. If, from acquaintance with these fictitious characters set in a very real environment, the reader be led to form some slight impression of the stirring little drama which is going forward to-day in that pleasant Land of Promise, he will have incidentally endorsed the claim of these disconnected sketches to be regarded as a single picture.
May, 1894.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE v I.--A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST 1 II.--BRIAN BORU 36 III.--JAKE STANWOOD'S GAL 60 IV.--AT THE KEITH RANCH 101 V.--THE RUMPETY CASE 123 VI.--THE LAME GULCH PROFESSOR 151 VII.--THE BOSS OF THE WHEEL 187 VIII.--MR. FETHERBEE'S ADVENTURE 217 IX.--AN AMATEUR GAMBLE 240 X.--A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHIPWRECK 266 XI.--A STROKE IN THE GAME 301 XII.--THE BLIZZARD PICNIC 335 XIII.--A GOLDEN VISTA 369
Note.--Of the thirteen sketches included in this volume six have previously appeared in periodicals, as follows:
A Pilgrim in the Far West in Harper's Weekly; Brian Boru in Worthington's Magazine; Jake Stanwood's Gal and At the Keith Ranch in The Century Magazine; The Rumpety Case in Lippincott's Magazine; and An Amateur Gamble in Scribner's Magazine. They were, however, all prepared with reference to their final use as a consecutive series.
A. F.
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ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"The Peak was Superb that Morning, Big and Strong and Glittering with Snow" Frontispiece
"A Handful of Cottonwood Trees Clustered about the House" 24
"The Vast Sea of the Prairie" 46
"Between his Cabin Door and 'The Range' Stretched Twenty Miles of Arid Prairie" 60
The Keith Ranch 104
"A Half-Hearted Stream Known as 'The Creek'" 122
"The Great Dome of Snow Towered in All its Grandeur" 142
"A Town of Rude Frame Huts had Sprung up in the Hollow below" 156
"On the Edge of a Dead Forest" 212
"It's a Kind of Double Back-Action Slant we've Got to Tackle this Time" 228
Pine Bluff 258
"They Looked out at the Peak" 289
"The Brook, Which Came Dashing Down From The Ca?on, Still Rioting on Its Way" 324
"The Ranch Gate, Which Had Swung Half To On Its Hinges" 360
"The Wild and Beautiful Gorge" 378
A Golden Vista 388
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PEAK AND PRAIRIE
I.
A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST.
The Peak was superb that morning, big and strong, and glittering with snow. Little Mrs. Nancy Tarbell turned, after shutting and locking the door of her cottage, and looked down the street, at the end of which the friendly giant stood out against a clear blue sky. The cottonwood trees on either side of the road were just coming into leaf, and their extended branches framed in her mighty neighbor in a most becoming manner. The water in the irrigating ditch beneath the trees was running merrily. The sound of it brought a wistful