In this seemingly happy conclusion there lurks a danger. Flocks and herds are the main props of great farming, the natural supporters of an aristocracy. Cattle breeding is inconsistent, if not with republicanism, at least with pure democracy. There are dangerous classes of two kinds--those who have too many acres, as well as those who have too few. The danger at least is real. Nothing short of violence or special legislation can prevent the plains from continuing to be forever that which under nature‘s farming they have ever been--the feeding ground for mighty flocks, the cattle pasture of the world. CHAPTER XIII. ROCKY MOUNTAINS. “What will I do for you if you stop here among us? Why, I‘ll name that peak after you in the next survey,” said Governor Gilpin, pointing to a snowy mountain towering to its 15,000 feet in the direction of Mount Lincoln. I was not to be tempted, however; and as for Dixon, there is already a county named after him in Nebraska: so off we went along the foot of the hills on our road to the Great Salt Lake, following the “Cherokee Trail.” Striking north from Denver by Vasquez Fork and Cache la Poudre--called “Cash le Powder,” just as Mont Royal has become Montreal, and Sault de Ste Marie, Soo--we entered the Black Mountains, or Eastern foot-hills, at Beaver Creek. On the second day, at two in the afternoon, we reached Virginia Dale for breakfast, without adventure, unless it were the shooting of a monster rattlesnake that lay “coiled in our path upon the mountain side.” Had we been but a few minutes later, we should have made it a halt for “supper” instead of breakfast, as the drivers had but these two names for our daily meals, at whatever hour they took place. Our “breakfasts” varied from 3.30 A.M. to 2 P.M.; our suppers from 3 P.M. to 2 A.M. Here we found the weird red rocks that give to the river and the territory their name of Colorado, and came upon the mountain plateau at the spot where last year the Utes scalped seven men only three hours after Speaker Colfax and a Congressional party had passed with their escort. While trundling over the sandy wastes of Laramie Plains, we sighted the Wind River chain drawn by Bierstadt in his great picture of the “Rocky Mountains.” The painter has caught the forms, but missed the atmosphere of the range: the clouds and mists are those of Maine and Massachusetts; there is color more vivid, darkness more lurid, in the storms of Colorado. This was our first sight of the main range since we entered the Black Hills, although we passed through the gorges at the very foot of Long‘s Peak. It was not till we had reached the rolling hills of “Medicine Bow”--a hundred miles beyond the peak--that we once more caught sight of it shining in the rear.