Even the cattle trails failed at last, and in the dark forest I was soon lunging on over bowlders and rotting trees and the _débris_ of a mountain wood in the direction of the camp, hoping, meanwhile, that I should not be obliged to spend the night in the open, for at that altitude in late September it was turning “wondrous cold.” Down one ridge and up another I forged ahead through the tangled undergrowth of the forest, and at last, from the top of a rock which cleared the trees about it, I caught the glimmer of a light through the window of a cabin a mile or two away. It was an ore-crushing camp I found; I was made most cordially welcome, and given a bed on a pile of blankets in a tent where slept the half dozen men of the crew. They were a hearty, healthy lot of young farmers to all appearances, and I gathered that they had come up from Kansas at the time of the “boom” at Cripple Creek. A walk of only four or five miles carried me into the camp after breakfast next morning. The first view that I had of it was very striking, I thought, as I looked down upon it from a sudden turn in the road. The settlement lay in the southeastern bend of a basin whose bottom was as flat as the prairie and well turfed. The hills rose quite bare for some distance about it, and their sides looked oddly, as though heavy artillery had been playing upon them, for they were peppered with holes made by prospectors, with loose earth and stones lying about them. Straggling lines of wooden buildings followed roughly the rude course of a long, dusty street, which ran southward to the mouth of a gulch and then turned abruptly west until it lost itself on the level. Some of these buildings were log-cabins, of much solidity, and others were trim, substantial frame houses, neatly painted; but for the most part they were crude, unpainted shanties, and there were many tents dotting the hillsides, and a few lines of light structures which marked the outlines of prospective streets branching from the main thoroughfare. The camp itself wore an air of desertion, which was only confirmed when I entered it. There were few persons in the streets, and some of the houses were abandoned. The picture formed a very welcome contrast when I saw a school-mistress step to the door of a long log-cabin, with grass growing thick on its roof, and ring a bell to summon a troop of little children, who came running and shouting from unexpected quarters, dispelling at once the loneliness and quiet of the place. It was but nine in the morning, and I had the full day in which to look for work. There were very few mines in actual operation in the neighborhood, I found, but I visited all of them, asking for any form of unskilled labor.