Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway Part 6

As we drive along, we constantly see the remains of former camps by the roadside. Old tin teakettles, pieces of worn-out campstools, piles of tin cans; these are mute and inglorious monuments to the bivouacs of other days. These immense Plateau States are very dependent upon canned foods, and all along tin cans mark the trail. We have many evidences, too, that we are in a sheep and cattle country. We pa.s.s the dried up carca.s.ses of sheep and the bones of cattle and of horses as they lie upon the desert near the road. Often the fleece of the sheep, dried and shrunken by wind and weather, sticks to the bones of the animal. It lies where it fell, only one of a vast herd, sick and dying, perhaps freezing in a blizzard. We asked one countryman what the sheep did in case of the fierce storms that sometimes sweep over the winter plains. "They just hump up and die," he replied. We saw many a shriveled carca.s.s of some poor animal that had succ.u.mbed and fallen never to rise again. But so high are these plains and so dry is the atmosphere, that nature quickly shrivels these carca.s.ses and they are not offensive as they would be in damp climates.

Out on the desert we waited for a long freight train to pa.s.s as it stood blocking the roadway. The train conductor came along and he and T.

exchanged greetings. "It's good to see you," said the conductor; "you motor people are about the only signs of life we fellows see out here on the desert."

Coming into Wamsutter, and later coming toward Rawlins, we flushed numbers of grey-brown prairie chickens, almost as large as hens. They would fly up from the sage brush as the noise of our machine came near.

There were some large flocks of young birds. Between Rawlins and Laramie we met late in the afternoon a large caravan of movers. They looked foreign and were evidently in search of new farms and homes. They were drinking, and watering their tired horses at a small station on the railway. There were plenty of little children in the caravan. One woman dandled a tiny baby. A little farther on we came to a second and smaller camp. These people were traveling from Kansas to Washington. "There is good land there still that can be taken up by homesteaders, fine fruit lands," said they. One man had seen the land and was acting as guide for the others. Their wagons were drawn by horses and burros. The children were sweet, cheerful little people, but the whole party looked somewhat underfed. I would have liked to give them all the luxury of a hot bath in a big tub to be followed by a substantial supper. They had their water with them, having hauled it from the last point where water was to be had. They deplored the fact that they had camped before knowing of the Union Pacific Station a little farther on. Water is a precious thing in the desert. We have pa.s.sed two places where signs read that water could be had at the rate of five cents per beast and twenty-five cents a barrel. At the watering stations on the Union Pacific Railroad, the wells are the property of the Road. Before we came into Medicine Bow, we pa.s.sed through a little mining town, high and bare on the summit of a ridge. Just outside the town was a bare little cemetery, the brown graves decorated with paper crosses and wreaths. An iron fence protected the cemetery, and outside its boundaries was an untidy litter of old wreaths and crosses which had been discarded and had been blown by the wind in tight heaps against the fence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Road in Wyoming costing $50,000 per mile. 2.

Characteristic Sign on Lincoln Highway.]

Ten miles beyond Medicine Bow the character of the country suddenly changed. We came from the grey and brown desert into fine rolling uplands dotted with the new homes of homesteaders and green with the precious water of irrigation. This was a country newly settled and bearing every mark of prosperity. At one point on the road we had great difficulty in getting through. A careless settler had allowed the water of his irrigating ditch to run out upon the road. It was with the greatest difficulty that we succeeded in getting through the mud. Only the help of some fellow motorists from San Francisco, who stopped to push the car while T. turned on its power, enabled us to get through. A few miles on we met the road commissioner who proudly called our attention to the work that was being done on the roads of his county. He told us that he was on his way to arrest and fine the careless homesteader who had flooded the road. After this fine stretch of fertile country we plunged once more into a long stretch of desert. It was here that I saw and welcomed the beautiful yucca that I had seen growing in California. I saw too in Wyoming quant.i.ties of cactus blooming in broad patches of color, usually buff.

All day we mounted one ridge after another, b.u.t.tes to the left and to the right of us; driving through a vast country with practically no ranch houses and only isolated stations on the railroad for watering purposes.

As we approached Wamsutter a wonderful great tableland lay to the right of us, very high and with an immense level top. It was like a fortress with its b.u.t.tresses and ramparts carved by nature. To the left was a b.u.t.te that was like a side view of the Sphinx, an immense pyramid rising beside it. As we came into Wamsutter, we drove along a ridge where the road had been laid to avoid a low marshy tract of land.

Red Desert Station, just before reaching Wamsutter, is well named, the b.u.t.tes having wonderful color.

The day was hot, and it was a relief when the afternoon sun began to decline. We felt that we were dropping with it. But we were dropping toward the East while it was falling toward the West. In the afternoon, out on the great plain, we had crossed the Continental Divide. It had not been marked by any visible elevation of land above the surrounding country. All was open country, rolling and vast, and yet we had ascended the Western slope and were now going down to the Mississippi Valley.

We must soon begin to say farewell to the Plateau States. The long upward climb is practically over. We look forward with the streams to the Atlantic, leaving behind the water courses to the Pacific.

Shortly after crossing the Divide we came to a low head stone and a wooden cross at the left of the road, marking the grave of a man of thirty-five who died in 1900. It is a lone grave on this rolling ridge, yet it is destined to be pa.s.sed by many travelers in future years.

Some day the Divide will be marked upon the Lincoln Highway by a monument, and the traveler will have a satisfactory outward expression of the thoughts that fill his heart.

Rawlins was our halting place for the night. It is a pleasant town with wide streets and plenty of sunshine. The post office is a beautiful little building. We fraternized in Rawlins with fellow travelers, a lady and her son who were going on from Colorado Springs to Pasadena in a beautiful Stutz roadster.

In Rawlins as in most Western towns, we stayed at a hotel managed on the European plan and ate our meals in a nearby restaurant. It is always a surprise to me to see the number of people in the restaurants and cafeterias of the West. Even in small towns these places are crowded.

As we came into Rawlins we saw Elk Mountain rising n.o.bly on the horizon beyond us. When we left Rawlins and traveled toward it, it grew more imposing.

Instead of going on to Arlington, directly under the shadow of Elk Mountain, we elected to turn off to Medicine Bow, made famous by Owen Wister's book, "The Virginian." Elk Mountain rises 12000 feet, and Medicine Bow is 6500 feet, above sea level. It is only a railroad station, a tiny cl.u.s.ter of saloons, a still smaller cl.u.s.ter of shops, a big shearing shed, and a substantial stone hotel called The Virginian.

The landlady of The Virginian told us that their hotel is always full of guests.

It is a busy place. Here the woolmen come to trade and to export their wool, here the sheepmen bring their sheep for the annual shearing.

Nearly sixty thousand sheep are shorn annually in the shearing shed, a few minutes' walk from the hotel. Here the plainsmen come from time to time to throw away in a few hours of drinking and gambling the money earned in months spent in the open.

We had an excellent substantial lunch at the hotel and then went over to see the shearing. How hot and uncomfortable the poor sheep looked in the waiting pen, with their heavy fleeces weighing them down! They stood panting in the sun, their broad backs making a thick rug, so tightly were they wedged in together. And how half ashamed they looked when they came out from the shearing, thin and bare!

In this establishment the shearing is all done by machinery. It takes a skillful man to run these rapidly clicking shears over the animal's body and make no serious wound. The overseer told us that in the case of an inexperienced man the sheep would "fight him all over the pen." The shearer reaches out his right hand and grasps one of the three or four sheep that have been pushed into a little compartment from the main pens. The beasts stand stupidly huddled together. The shearer takes one by its left hind leg, and by a skillful twist he throws it on its back and pulls it toward him. Then he yanks it into a sitting position with its back against his knees. Bending over it he takes off first the thick coat of wool on its under-body from throat to tail. It looks very easy, but only skill can guide the shears through that thick ma.s.s of wool, taking it off so cleanly and thoroughly, and yet leaving the pink skin unbroken.

Next come the fore legs, then the hind legs, then the wool is trimmed from around the eyes and from the top of the head. The workman moves very carefully here. Then the sheep is righted and the wool is cut from its back and sides. It is interesting to see how quietly the animal submits to it all. Quickly it is all over and an attendant pushes the sheep through another aperture back into an outer pen. The men work very rapidly and a good shearer can easily handle one hundred sheep a day.

Some expert shearers can handle nearly two hundred. These men are paid nine cents a head for their work.

It was a picturesque sight in the long, airy shed. Six men were handling their sheep, the clicking shears moving rapidly over the big animals. A boy gathered up the wool as fast as it dropped from the sheep. Later it would be sorted into its different grades. An important, happy sheep dog ran wildly about, eyes shining, tail wagging, his sharp nose lifted to his master's face. He seemed to be saying, "This is fine, master, but isn't there something that I could do at this moment?" The overseer stood at the end of the shed looking down the row of busy workers.

From Medicine Bow we came to Laramie, reaching there on the eve of the Fourth of July. Laramie boasts a good hotel which was crowded with people. Ranchmen had brought their families for the festivities of the Fourth. Tall cowboys lounged about, wearing their most ornamental tall boots, their best silk shirts, and brightest neckties. The streets in the evening were full of people, some on horseback, some walking.

Confetti, those noise-makers known as "cluckers," and the miniature feather dusters called "ticklers," were all in evidence. Everybody was in good humour and in a mood of expectation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Lincoln Highway Sign. 2. Lincoln Highway Sign in Western Village. 3. Cowboys and Cowgirls in Laramie. 4. Sage Brush in the Desert. 5. Last View of the Rockies leaving Colorado. 6. Movers'

Camp in Colorado.]

The morning of the Fourth we drove out to the edge of the town to see the State University, a modest cl.u.s.ter of good buildings. Then we drove about the town to see the cowboys on their handsome horses, and the young women who accompanied them, riding easily astride. There was to be a morning exhibition of la.s.soing, racing, and other feats of skill and strength. We met many people riding and driving into town, all in holiday dress. But we pressed on Eastward.

We pa.s.sed Red b.u.t.tes, having a grand view of the wonderfully colored b.u.t.tes off to the left. Ma.s.ses of blue larkspur grew in the fields and alongside the Highway. We had left our beloved desert behind us and were in rolling gra.s.s and grain country. Near the Colorado line we turned toward the south to go to Denver, thereby missing the Ames Monument on the direct route to Cheyenne. The mountains of Colorado now rose in the near distance; rocky peaks, pine clad and snowy. At this point we met some parties of travelers; a motor party from Lincoln, Nebraska, and another from Lexington, Kentucky. Both motor cars were going into Laramie for the celebration of the Fourth. The gentleman from Lexington, who was driving his wife and himself, had a beautiful Locomobile roadster, newly purchased in Chicago. His car had every modern equipment and convenience, and he was mightily proud of it. We all halted to enjoy the grand view of the country toward which they were moving and which we were leaving behind us. Miles of rolling, gra.s.sy country, clean and wind-swept, lay to the west. It was an inspiring prospect, and filled us all with a sense of exaltation. Said the Kentucky lady to me, "I felt as if everything bad in me was swept clear out of me when I first looked at this wonderful view." A third party of travelers came along from Cheyenne as we stood gazing. They had a unique outfit, a prairie schooner drawn by four burros abreast. The father and mother, several children, and a friend lived cheerfully in this moving house, making, they told us, about fifteen miles a day. When they were short of funds, they encamped in some town and the men worked to replenish the treasury.

They had their household food supplies neatly packed on shelves running along the sides of their canvas canopy.

"This is our home," said the husband and father. The children were gentle little creatures, but looked thin and underfed. All were bound for some unknown haven on the Pacific coast or in the Northwest. They felt sure that they would find rich farming country there still open to homesteaders.

What a contrast between the elegant Locomobile car and the humble prairie wagon, drawn by four s.h.a.ggy burros, chosen because they could endure hardships! Our friends of the wagon allowed us to take their picture, and we parted with mutual good wishes.

We pa.s.sed the Colorado State boundary marked by a very simple board sign, and came into a new country of rocks and hills. We came through a canyon where we found some movers encamped in a pleasant hollow by a mountain stream. Southward we moved, pa.s.sing some fine rugged b.u.t.tes to our left. We took luncheon at a pleasant farm house hotel, known as the Little Forks Hotel. Our farmer host and hostess were very agreeable and gave us a refreshing meal. We left them to drive on through Fort Collins, a very pleasant town in the midst of alfalfa fields.

Just south of Fort Collins we turned to the right, drove across the plains and entered the mouth of the Big Thompson Canyon. We were en route for the famous tract of mountain meadow, of forest and canyon, known as Estes Park.

A long procession of motor cars was entering the park and another line of cars kept pa.s.sing us. Many people were driving up the Canyon and many were leaving after a day spent in picnicking. For the most part the Canyon road ran very low and close to the bed of the brawling river. It was a most lovely road, winding and picturesque. Finally we came to the end of the Canyon and entered the green meadows which are at the beginning of the Park itself.

We were told that the hotels and camps were crowded, it being holiday time, and that we would do well to stop at the simple but comfortable ranch house located near by. We found ourselves comfortable indeed and were content to make the ranch house a base for our driving expeditions.

We were on the beautiful Lord Dunraven Ranch, with its rich meadows admirably adapted for cattle grazing. Our host was the manager of the ranch, now largely owned by Mr. Stanley, the manufacturer of the Stanley Steamer. Farther up the valley was the beautiful Stanley Hotel.

I had thought that Estes Park was a smooth and shaven park region, not realizing that it was a vast mountain territory, with high mountain meadows overlooked by lofty peaks and diversified by tracts of mountain forest. There are scores of miles of driving and horseback riding in the Park, plenty of hotels and camps in wonderfully beautiful situations, and glorious fishing and mountain climbing. One may gaze at the mountains from great open meadows and camping sites from 8000 to 9000 feet above sea level. We lamented the fact that we had only a day in which to see Estes Park. We could have spent a week there in driving and walking about.

Colorado is rich in mountain scenery and in beautiful camping places for the lover of hills and streams, the pedestrian and the fisherman.

We came down from the high plateau of the Park by the canyon of the Little Thompson; a still more precipitous road than that of the Big Thompson Canyon. Reaching Lyons, we turned toward Boulder, driving along with alfalfa meadows to the left and the foot hills of the Rockies to the right. Our undulating road was an excellent one.

We enjoyed the wide sky, the rich gra.s.sy plains stretching away to our left, with ranch houses marked here and there by clumps of cottonwood trees. We knew that this was irrigated country, reclaimed from what was once a wide desert. After a time we pa.s.sed a wagon, canvas covered, drawn by two plodding horses. I thought the driver must be foreign, as he turned out to the left when we came up behind him, but he quickly recovered himself and turned right. We soon left him far behind us.

But suddenly there was a grinding sound. The machine halted and refused to move. We were stalled on the road and no amount of effort availed to move us. Something had gone seriously wrong. There was nothing for it but to push the machine to the side of the road, and wait patiently for the travelers in the covered wagon. We were six miles from Boulder, and evidently had a serious break in the machine. Later it transpired that our gears were broken.

After a time the wagon came toiling along and its occupants most hospitably invited me to drive into Boulder with them. Two men, one elderly, the other young, were on the driver's seat. In the wagon were their two wives and a troop of little children, the family of the younger pair, and the grandchildren of the older pair. A happy collie dog climbed wildly about over the children. "He's the biggest kid in the wagon," said his master.

The party had been camping in a mountain canyon for their holiday and were now on their way home. The men and women were English, the older couple having been thirty-three years in this country. "I've dug coal for forty-five years," said the older man.

"Tell them you rode with one of the striking miners, one of the sixteen who was put in jail. Put that in your book," he said with a grim twinkle. (How did he know I was writing a book?)

"We're poor but we're gentlemen still. We wouldn't be slaves to Rockyfeller," said the younger man.

A little later he asked for the jug of spring water, and for "the bottle." The women looked at me dubiously, and tried to quiet him. "Come now," he said laughing, "there's no use delayin' matters. Where's the bottle?" So with some embarra.s.sment on the part of the women and much laughing on the part of the men a full whiskey bottle was produced. Each man had a nip of whiskey and a nip of cold water.

The children were merry little creatures, climbing over one another and playing with the dog. The youngest little girl slept peacefully, being tenderly watched by her mother and grandmother.

When we came into the wide streets of the university town of Boulder, I offered as delicately as possible to pay for my six mile lift. But they would have none of it. "No, no," said the younger man cordially, "we're glad to help anybody in trouble." So I hastened over to the candy shop and bought a box of the best chocolate candy for the children. My last sight of them as they drove out of town was of the little faces crowding happily around the box.

In Boulder we found The Boulderado a delightful place in which to lodge, and the Quality Cafeteria a place for admirably cooked food.