The "symphony in yellow and red," which "H. H." calls this wonderland,
grows upon the sojourner in some mysterious way, till by the time he has
seen the waxing and waning of one moon he is an enthusiast. It is
charming alike to the sight-seer whose jaded faculties pine for new and
thrilling emotions, to the weary in brain and body who longs only for
peace and rest, and to the invalid whose every breath is a pain at home.
To the lover of flowers it is an exhaustless panorama of beauty and
fragrance, well worth crossing the continent to enjoy; to the mountain
lover it offers endless attractions.
Nothing is more fascinating to the stranger in Colorado than the
formation of its cañons, not only the grand ones running up into the
heart of the mountains, but the lesser ones cutting into the high
table-land, or mesa, at the foot of the hills. The above mentioned
cottonwood grove, for example, with its dozen of dwellings and a
natural park of a good many acres above it, with tall pines that bear
the marks of age, is so curiously hidden that one may come almost upon
it without seeing it. It is reached from Colorado Springs by an electric
road which runs along the mesa south of the town. As the car nears the
end of the line, one begins to look around for the grove. Not a tree is
in sight; right and left as far as can be seen stretches the treeless
plain to the foot of the eternal hills; not even the top of a tall pine
thrusts itself above the dead level. Before you is Cheyenne--grim,
glorious, but impenetrable. The conductor stops. "This is your place,"
he says. You see no place; you think he must be mistaken.
"But where is Camp Harding?" you ask. He points to an obscure
path--"trail" he calls it--which seems to throw itself over an edge. You
approach that point, and there, to your wonder and your surprise, at
your feet nestles the loveliest of smiling cañon-like valleys, filled
with trees, aspen, oak, and pine, with here and there a tent or red roof
gleaming through the green, and a noisy brook hurrying on its way
downhill. By a steep scramble you reach the lower level, birds singing,
flowers tempting on every side, and the picturesque, narrow trail
leading you on, around the ledge of rock, over the rustic bridge, till
you reach the back entrance of the camp. Before it, up the narrow
valley, winds a road, the carriage-way to the Cheyenne cañons.
II.
IN THE COTTONWOODS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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