Having stopped an hour to enjoy the view from the brow of the mountain which forms the rim of the Park, we were overtaken by one of the sudden rains which occur here, and had to drive six miles along the level bottom, till, crossing a brook, we found ourselves at sunset near a large log cabin, where we were glad to be allowed to lie down on the floor under shelter.

It was occupied by some young people named McLaughlin, two sisters and a brother, who had come up from the Plains, where their family lived, with a herd of cattle, from the milk of which the girls made one hundred pounds of butter per week, for which they got fifty cents a pound in the mines.  In the fall they returned home, leaving the cattle for the winter in certain sheltered regions called “the range.”  They were stout, healthy young women, who did not fear to stay here all alone for days at a time while their brother was galloping about the Park on his broncho after his cattle.  They did not keep tavern, but were often obliged to take in benighted travelers like ourselves, to whom they gave the shelter of their roof and the privilege of cooking at their stove.  The house was about forty by twenty feet, all in one room, though one end was parted off by blankets, behind which they admitted the lady of our party.  Sometimes they were visited by Utes, who are not unfriendly, though, like most Indians, they are audacious beggars.  “They try to scare us sometimes,” said Jane:  “they tell us, ‘Bimeby Utes get all this country—­then you my squaw,’ but we don’t scare worth a cent.”  Their nearest neighbor is a sister four miles away, who is the wife of Squire Lechner, innkeeper and justice of the peace.

Aug. 23.  Started this morning at eleven for Lechner’s.  Passed some deserted mining-camps, where the surface had been seamed and scarred by the diggers; then across a creek, where we saw ducks and a red-tailed hawk.  Squire Lechner has a large log tavern on the brow of a hill:  he was absent, but his wife took us in.  Sepia went on the hill to sketch, and we others drove off in search of a trout-brook of which we heard flattering accounts.  It was a very pretty stream, winding through the prairie with the gentle murmur so loved by the angler and poet, and lacked nothing but fish to make it perfect.  It was rendered somewhat turbid by the late rains, so that if the trout were there they could not see our flies.  We are told that trout are plenty on the other side of the mountains.  “Go to the Arkansas,” they say, “and you will find big ones.”

  Man never is, but always to be, blest.