Idaho Springs siftings., 1903-01-10

! deep Ill the CanOnS and hills, taking
Tom Golden and a comrade who
answered to the name of Black
Hawk, we started into the noun
tains via Mount Vernon canon in
search of elk and deer. When we
got into what is now Bergen park,
we saw a large herd of elk, which
we followed to the brink of preci-
pice on the old Floyd hill stage
road, at the foot of which lay Vas
quez river, frozen solid. The boys
shot some of the elk, and while
they were dressing them for pack
ing back to camp, took notion
to explore that river. Decending
to the valley of the stream, found
ering about through snow half way
to my waist, l followed it up Grass
valley. You remember the place,
don your"
"Yes, used to mine gold on
that bar; lived in a little log cabin
that was full of bed bugs; ate salt
bacon and boiled beans and dried
apples, worked like the devil and
/ had all sorts of hard luck. But go
on with your story"
DISCOVERS IDAHO SPRINGS.
"By this time things began to
look just a little squally ahead.
You remember the soda springs on
Soda creek, where Montague has
run a bath house for two or three
hundred years? Well. Montague
didn't happen to be there just then,
but a blueish cloud was rising, and
1 didn' know but it might be smoke
from Indian tepees, and being alone
it stood me i'll hand to see what i'll
HI was running into, for l knew
that if it was Indians they were
Utes, and that meant mighty bad
medicine for me. For you know
Utes were a different animal from
the plain Indians that l have been
consorting with.
HUNDREDS OF BIG HORNS.
$50 I broke a trail up to the top
of Soda hill and crawled along cau-
tiously till Ireached the point where
l could look Over into that blue va
por. And what do you think l
saw? No, it wasn't Indians, nor
tepees, but hundreds of beautiful
mountain sheep; great big bucks
with curled horns, all grazing about
the springs where the warm vapors
had melted the snow and left the
grass for them to nibble at. Well,
sir, it was a glorious sight for a
hunter, and with the fear of red
skins out of the way l went on to
see what else broad, splendid valley
contained. I forgot all about Tom
Golden and Black Hawk i'll the new
spirit that came upon me. Was
there gold in any of those streams?
l didn know, of course, but yield
ing to the instinct to prospect dug
a little on Soda Greek, but getting
no results went on up toward the
mouth of Chicago Greek. They
call it Chicago Creek now, but of
course it had no title then, unless
the Utes had christened it, and so l
dom know what they called it.
''It was cold, SO built fire of
logs and brush. Christmas had
come and gone and here l was on
the first day of the new year thirty
or forty miles from camp, with no
comrades but my two pet dogs,
Drum and Kit. 1 thought a heap
of those dogs. because they knew so
much"
"How were you off for grub?
Pretty bad place for a man without
provisions, but there were the e
mountain sheep at the springs"
"Oh, l wasn't entirely destitute;
had two pounds of bread, pound of
coffee half a pound of salt, with
plenty of dried elk meat cut in little
thin strips and cured in the sun,
Indian fashion. Besides, 1 had
killed fat sheep at the springs and
had that in reserve. Went into
camp under three cottonwood trees
and stayed there all night, About
daylight next morning was awak-
ened by low growls from the dogs.
This meant danger of some kind, so
l jumped up and instantly saw a
mountain lion within twenty or