position of hesitating on the bank with an anxious face not daring to spur his horse upon the ice after they left me i had eight more and then a ride of six miles before i reached the old trail but though there were several up to the saddle and no one had broken a track showed such pluck that instead of spending the night by a camp fire or not getting in till midnight i reached mr s cabin four miles from park only an hour after dark very cold and with the pony so tired that she could hardly put one foot before another indeed i walked the last three miles i saw light through the but hearing an earnest conversation within was just about to withdraw when ring and on his master coming to the door i found that the solitary man was talking to his dog he was looking out for me and had some coffee ready and a large fire which were very pleasant and i was very glad to get the latest news from the park he said that told him that it would be most difficult for any one of them to take me down to the plains but that he would go which is a great relief according to the scotch proverb better a finger off than aye and as i cannot live here for you would not like the life or climate the sooner i leave the better the solitary ride to s was very it the mountains was very dark and the noises were unintelligible young man rushed out to take my horse and the light and warmth within were delightful but there was a about the new though in difficulties was as hearty and generous as ever but who had assumed the management is prudent if not thinks we wasted the supplies and the as to milk etc are painfully apparent a young ex has come up with of whom the sanguine creature forms great expectations to be disappointed doubtless in the afternoon of yesterday a gentleman came who i thought was another stranger strikingly handsome well dressed and barely forty with sixteen shining gold curls falling down his collar he walked in and it was only a careful second look that i recognised in our visitor the courteously pressed him to stay and dine with us and not only did he show the most singular dexterity in talking with the stranger who was a very man and had seen a great deal of the world but though he lives and eats like a savage his manners and way of eating were as refined a possible i notice that is never quite himself or perfectly comfortable when he is there and on the part of the other there is a sort of stiffly assumed cordiality significant i fear of lurking hatred on a lady s life in both sides i was in the kitchen after dinner making rolled young was eating up the relics as usual jim was singing one of the others being in the living room when mr and mr came from up the creek to wish me good bye they said it was not half so much like home now and recalled the good time w we had had for three weeks having lost the cow we have no milk no one makes bread they dry the into and getting the meals at all seems a work of toil and difficulty instead of the pleasure it used to be to us since tea has told me all his troubles and he is a kind generous whole hearted man a worse enemy to himself i believe than to any other but i feel sadly that the future of a man who has not stronger principles than he has must be at the best very l mm letter woman g mission � the lost morning � the st trail � the st crossing the jim s dream � keeping strangers � the inn a child � a jim s the frost an unfortunate introduction december ib the last evening came i did not wish to it as i looked at the snow peaks glistening in the moonlight no woman will be seen in the park till next may young talked in a style but with some truth in it of the influence of a woman s presence how low mean vulgar talk had died out on my return how they had all pulled themselves up and how mr and mr had said they like always to be as quiet and gentlemanly as when a lady was with them by may he said we shall be little better than brutes in our manners at least i have seen a great deal of the class of men both on sea and land during the last two years and the more important i think the mission of every quiet refined self respecting woman � the more mistaken i think those who would a lady s life in letter it by noisy self assertion or in all this wild west the influence of woman is second only in its benefits to the influence of religion and where the last unhappily does not exist the first continually its power the last morning came i cleaned up my room and sat at the window watching the red and gold of one of the most glorious of winter and the slow lighting up of one peak after another i have written that this scenery is not but i love it i left on at o clock riding with me as far as mr s he was telling me so many things that at the top of the hill i forgot to turn round and take a last look at my colossal lonely den but it was needless for i carry it away with me i should not have been able to leave if mr had 