Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-14

them was equally impossible. So they had
to be pulled of-an indescribable torture,
which was like pulling out violently hun.
| dred bedded fish hooks, and then the needles
| had to be carefully plucked from the shoe.
But for these drawbacks there were equal
atonements. That high, dry air was an ex-
hilarating joy to the swelling lungs, and the
eyes, sharpened daily to their long forgot
ten keenness, feasted full on sight whose
memory will never dim. The snowy range
| of the Rockies, shutting the whole West
ern sky from north to south, far as sight
could reach-dazzling white by day, melting
to indescribable purples at dawn and dusk,
for, severe and cold, they are the picture of
| a lifetime.
A Glimpse of the Rockies.
For 300 miles north and south these ser
rate battlements split the sky, with here
and there the sentinel heads of loftier peaks
upreared. Ninety miles to the south stood
the vast pyramid of Pixies Peak, its great
gray head rising from the brown plains like
giant North as far frowned mighty
Longs Peak, with broad shoulders over
shadowing all its fellows, and head among
the clouds; and between their host of breth-
ren Pixies Peak is the most famous, but
not the highest Of the Colorado mountains.
The altitude of the Sierra Blanca is Il, ,464
L
IA, ,341; Longs, IL, ,271; Mount Wilson, IA
2S9; La Plata, IA, 302; Uncompahgre, IL, ,235;
Mount Harvard, IA, 151; Mount Yale, a.
121; Mount of the Holy Cross, IA, 176; Guile
bra, IA, ,049; Pixies Peak, 4,147. There are
scores of other peaks from 10, 900 to 49,
900 feet high, and countless 'foot hills" of
which each is taller than our noblest noun
tain in the East
Near Magnolia hard, mean-faced, foul
mouthed fellow met me, and before fairly
noticed him had cooked revolver under
my nose, with demand to ''give up nv
stuff" I was considerably worried, but a
look into his eyes convinced me that he
lacked what is called, in the expressive
idiom of the plains, "sand."
Tables Turned on q Crook.
'well, " 1 drawled, sT haven't yery much.
but what there is you are welcome to, and
unbuttoning my coat deliberately, as if for
pocketbook, I jerked out the big, hidden
a, knocked the pistol from his fist with the
heavy barrel in the same motion, and gave
him turn at looking down a muzzle. Now
he was as craven as he had been abusive,
and begged and knelt and blubbered like
the cowardly cur he was. / pocketed his
pistol, which is still among my relics, gave
him few hearty kicks and cuffs for the hor-
rible names he had called me when he was
Ii pONCly anu 1ClG SIOfC1llUP In6re.
So, striding light across the bare, dry
plateaus, over the alkali-frosted sands of
waterless rivers, glad in the glorious air and
the glorious view, knocking over an ante
lope now and then, ,companioned by squeaky
prairie dogs and sung to sleep by the vocif-
erous coyotes, came, on the Esd of October,
to handsome, wide-awake Denver, the Queen
City of the plains.
Here L met my family, who had come
by the swifter, but less interesting Pullman,
and we had four happy days together before
they started for San Francisco by the Cen
tra1 Pacific, and 1 donned my knapsack
again and turned my tough feet southward.
And what a glorious revenge those four |
days in civilization gave my stomach upon |
its weeks of adversely The walters at the |
Windsor used to stand along the wall in re-
spectful awe to see that wilderness of |
dishes before me explored, conquered, and |
finally overwhelmed
ITO Be Continued Neat Week.