After leaving Salina there was nothing to be seen but a blank, desolate plain, as monotonous as a silent, sailless sea, grimly varied by an occasional station, with a few “dugouts” for houses.  The mail on this train was most unceremoniously delivered by being thrown from the cars, and it was very amusing to witness the confusion and rush for its contents, for the love-laden and business-burdened missives are as dear to these people as to the most cultured members of society.

The frequent recurrence of the little sand-hill communities, known as prairie dog cities, was of novel interest to us, and the habits of these creatures a curious study.  They build their sand-hill habitations as skillfully as the beaver erects his dam, and are so untiring in following their instinct of self-preservation that they stand as constant sentinels at the entrance of their homes, and in any case of danger play to such perfection the role of “the artful dodger” that they are never caught.

It is a singular fact that these animals are very rarely killed, and if by chance some “unlucky dog” should lose his life he is hurried out of sight by his devoted companions with so much celerity that his body is never found.

Fifty miles before reaching Denver the snow crowned tops of Gray’s and James’ Peaks are clearly revealed, while from one point alone will Pike’s Peak allow the traveler a glimpse of his glorious grandeur.  We were told that the former mountains were more frequently visible at a distance of one hundred miles.  We neared Denver just as the sun was sinking, enthroned in purple and amber and gold, with a faint, delicate rosy flush tinging the edge of the more royal hues.  Its truly Italian beauty was so vividly pictured to me by Ida, that I could almost realize the regal splendor of a Colorado sunset.  Completely tired out and covered with alkaline dust, we were grateful for the rest and comfort afforded by the elegant Wentworth House.

We spent a week in Denver, fraught with interest, for while it is a city destitute of the charm of historical associations and musty memories, which add so much interest to most foreign cities and many American localities, it so abounds in youthful life with its warm and bounding currents, its vim and vigor, that it teems with varying attractions.  Its broad avenues, softened by shade, its stately residences and mammoth business blocks, render it as imposing as many old cities, and indicate but little of its real primitive struggles for life, and the dangerous aggressions of the “Red Man;” its truly western pluck having ranked these among the things that were.

The elliptical basin in which Denver is built, sloping north and east, gives it a picturesque and extended view; the mountains losing themselves in one direction in the now historic “Black Hills,” and in the other merging into the “Spanish Peaks” and “Sangre de Christo Range,” so named from a natural symbol of the Christian faith, a snowy cross grandly gleaming in the distance.