The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-02-13
TIL BELT MOUNTAINS.
Interesting Notes Of the kibbey. Monarch
and Barker Country.

ana BARKER country.
UPPER BELT, Feb. ., 1882. Especial
correspondence While from many
parts OF the east we hear that January
has been a very cold month, with plenty
of snow and fine sleighing, We, up here
among the mountains, have been enjoy.
ing days that are bright and sunny. We
heard old timers remark yesterday that
they never saw anything like it, but it
needs only one years stretch of the
memory and We ~recollect that January,
81, was a very pleasant month, with 40
severely cold weather and little or no
snow.
Every one in this region seems to be
extremely busy. There are many teams
engaged in hauling baled hay to Mon
arch. The roads are exceptionally good
and some are storing their hay there
ready for shipment later in the season;
others are shipping now to Neihart and
Barker. Considerable grain is also be
ing stored at Monarch.
The coulees and sidchills resound 10
the stroke of the AK and the quantities
of fencing stuff being cut is d good indi-
cation of thrift and coming improve
ments.
The tax payers of school district No. |.
Michigan settlement, are wide awake
and at Il special school meeting last
Monday voted to bond the district for
four hundred dollars and build at once Il
frame school house Is by n. Bids will
be received and the contract for build
ing the house let to the lowest bidder.
Mr.. Whitaker, who has been running
a sawmill over toward Logging creek,
has o decided to take his engine to
Monarch and erect a Touring mill at that
point. This will supply IA want to the
farmers in the adjacent country, while
for the proprietors therll no doubt be
millions in it
W. ID. Dclphcy, who had the misror-
tune to break his ankle in two places d
while ago is getting around again with
the help of a pair OF crutches. Mon
archites are preparing FOR a masquerade
ball next Wednesday night.
There is no snow al Monarch. but
from lulis to Neihart or from Mc(iecs
ranch to Barker the sleighing is superb.
We made a visit to the latter place last
week, and the numerous rigs lying
around. sleighbells iingling and life and
noise and people everywhere made us
think we had struck some great social
center, and indeed we found much to
interest one and much to enjoy in this
wonderful camp. "See Venice n
die" has been the tourists watch
word for centuries. and Notwithstanding
the four feet of snow on the mountains
We concluded to see that most cele-
brated of mines, "1he Top Hand" or
die. 1t seemed a little strange to start
out with the sun shining hot, the air
warm and pleasant as summer. and yet
the snow so deep it vas unsafe for the
horses to step out Of the beaten track.
Yet away we went, past the Eichmond
addition, through llughsvillc and then
up and away along the edge Of the
thickly wooded glades, where the snow
is drifted so deep We were promised a
game of SNOWFALL there next Fourth OF
July, past Dream gulch, Gold gulch and
Black Badly, past the Mary and Edna.
the Wright and Edwards. and on Up
again to the wonderful Carter group,
where we changed our sleigh for one of
! lighter draft and heavier brake. and
then began the climb to the divide. The
! horses painted and struggled through
the deep snow, past where a ~iivc-ton
load of ore from the Top Hand had been
overturned that day, and here some of
| the party grew ~faint-hearted and begged
to get out. They wanted to run back
home and see their mothers.
Onward and upward we went past the
Paragon until at last with bated breath
we halted at the highest point of the
grade and beheld a world beneath us.
Far away in the distance were the three
buttes of the Sweet Grass country, Earth
err on the dark line of hills and noun
tains ever the line in Her Majesty,s
dominions. The highest seemed famil-
iarly near, with Belt butte and its ram
parts over forty miles away looking IKE
a huge caramel some one had dropped.
Long Badly lay like a sleeping giant at
our feet with the whole Kibbcy country
lowering around it.
We forgot the Top Hand, forgot the
p%erilous ride to that supreme height and
felt that we were a little nearer heaven
than we had ever been before. The
scene is one of sublime %grandure. 1t
really made one feel that he must grow
in order to take it all in, and then the
homeward ride, when you are confronted
with mountain peak after peak and in
| finite array fading into soft perspective
as the twilight shadows came on apacc,
bemminp in the wondrous spectacle and
lifting the soul from nature up to Ma