LONGMOUNT, COLORADO

“The Island Valley of Avillon” is left, but how shall I finally tear myself from its freedom and enchantments?  I see Long’s snowy peak rising into the night sky, and know and long after the magnificence of the blue hollow at its base.  We were to have left at 8, but the horses were lost, so it was 9.30 before we started, the we being the musical young French Canadian and myself.  I have a bay Indian pony, “Birdie,” a little beauty, with legs of iron, fast, enduring, gentle, and wise; and with luggage for some weeks, including a black silk dress, behind my saddle, I am tolerably independent It was a most glorious ride.  We passed through the gates of rock, through gorges where the unsunned snow lay deep under the lemon-colored aspens; caught glimpses of far-off, snow-clad giants rising into a sky of deep sad blue; lunched above the Foot Hills at a cabin where two brothers and a “hired man” were “keeping bach,” where everything was so trim, clean, and ornamental that one did not miss a woman; crossed a deep backwater on a narrow beaver-dam, because the log bridge was broken down, and emerged from the brilliantly-colored canyon of the St.  Vrain just at dusk upon the featureless prairies, when we had some trouble in finding Longmount in the dark.  A hospitable welcome awaited me at this inn, and an English friend came in and spent the evening with me.

I.L.B.