Most of the farms here were large in size, and in crossing the Greenhorn we passed through a noble ranch, twelve miles wide by eighteen long, owned by a Mr. Zan Hincklin. In '65 he sold his crop of grain for eighty thousand dollars, and in '66 expected to do even better. He had on hand a thousand horses, three thousand head of cattle, and six thousand sheep, all of which he grazed the year round. He lived very plainly, in a rude adobe hut, that we should think hardly fit for a canal-laborer east; but was as hospitable and generous as a prince. We had scarcely gone into camp, on the banks of the rippling Greenhorn, before he sent us over butter, eggs, and vegetables, and bade us welcome to his heart and home. He acquired his great estate by marrying one of the half-breed daughters of the celebrated John Brent, who used to hunt and trap all through this region, and who lived so long among the Indians that he became himself half Red-Skin. He died possessed of vast tracts of land here, acquired chiefly through trading with the Indians, but his children it appeared, as a rule, had turned out poorly. One of his sons had returned to Indian life, joining a wandering tribe, and others still hung about the settlements, of small account to anybody. From the Arkansas, the country gradually but constantly ascends, until you strike the mountains again at the foot of Sangre del Christo Pass. Here you follow up a dashing rivulet, that courses away to the Huerfano, and advantage is taken of a depression in the main ridge to cross into San Luis Park. We camped the night before in a sheltered nook among the foot-hills, surrounded on three sides by gnarled piñon trees, while the fourth opened on a little plateau sloping down to a noisy brook, that afforded water and grass in abundance. The next morning we breakfasted early, and were off up the Pass soon after sunrise. The morning air was nipping, and as we advanced we found the mists rolling down the mountains, and so off over the Plains eastward. The teams being a little slow that morning in packing up and getting off, some of us concluded to walk on; but we had not proceeded far, before some one suggested this might be dangerous, as Indians were reported about, and our arms were all behind in the ambulances. Halting, therefore, for the rest to come up, two of us then secured our Spencers and six-shooters, and mounting one a horse and the other a mule pushed on ahead again. The ascent, though gentle, we found nevertheless very constant, and gradually the ambulances dropped much behind. The road led over a shelving plateau, and up a pretty sharp hill, and then plunged by a rapid descent into a little valley again. Here we met several men, with a drove of indifferent cattle and sheep, _en route_ from Culebra to Denver and a market. Climbing out of this valley, we struck a sharp ascent, that led southward along and up the ridge, and then turning west by south struck straight across the summit.