Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-07-29
WESTERN MOUNTAIN LIFE.
A Charm Once Experienced Never
to be Forgotten.

The Philadelphia Times published in a
recent number description of what sew.
eral young Philadelphians are doing in
the cattle business in Mesa county, Col
orado. These young men are situated on
Plateau Creek, which flows along the
northern slope of the Grand Mesa, and
which is surrounded by one of the love-
! Hest mountain valleys in Colorado. Mr..
Henry C. Townsend, of Philadelphia, the
! father OF one of the young men referred
! to, in speaking of what his son and his
companions have done, said that they
exhibited great self-denial in separating
| themselves from home and friends to lead
an adventurous life on the Western
frontier, but he added: And yet, if
were younger and not so welded to crea-
ture comforts, would go out with the
boys and try Western ranch life for a
change"
The feeling which prompted the Phila-
delphian to make this last remark is the
same which leads many men to seek, not
for change, but for permanent abiding
place, home in the mountains of the
West. That there is indeed pleasure
in the painless woods" they know full
well who have become used to this life.
Why it is or whence it comes we will not
attempt to say; but surely there is a
strange fascination about the careless, in
dependent mountain life which woos one
with power often as seductive as the
songs of old.
To one who enters upon such life
there is at first an attraction which is
born of the novelty of the conditions
which surround him. Soon this wears
off, and it is succeeded by a sense If lone
illness which is hard to bear. Here is the
crucial test. They who at this point fail
and return to the habits and the conve-
niences of city life may never regret their
departure from the mountains On the
contrary, they will probably rejoice as
though they had escaped from some dire
calamity. But over him who remains
long enough to forget the loneliness there
comes by slow degrees strange influence
which makes him love his mountain life
until its charm grows well-nigh irresist
ible
He who has once been caught by the
witchery of this spell will probably never
become entirely free from it. He may
return to the East and give himself up to
the work OF an arduous profession; he
may marry and see growing around him
family of promising little ones, but there
will come to him ever and anon the
memory of the life left behind him in
his distant mountain home. Listening,
he will catch again the noise of the fall
ing waters singing their song of regret as
they 90 from their home in the snow to
where they will be buried and forgotten
in the sea. Again there falls upon his
ear the sound of that wierd, mournful !
sobbing to which one who has heard it |
can never refuse to listen. 1t is the sob |
bling and the signing of the wind through
the forests of pine.
To such an one there must surely come
seasons of vain regret lin which he will |
see visions of the life that is gone and !
the hope which is dead. Better for him |
would it have been never to have come |
to the mountains, never to have tasted of |
the joys of the West, than having done |
so TO have returned to the dull and weary |
burden-bearing of the East. To him, |
heaven is a country of mountains and of /
babbling brooks, and it is in the land of !
the hereafter that he hopes to breathe !
again the pure air and drink anew of the /
waters.