Chapter XI: Along the Southern Border

There in the gorges that widen, descending
From cloud and from cold into summer eternal,
Gather the threads of the ice-gendered fountains,--
Gather to riotous torrents of crystal,
And giving each shelvy recess where they dally
The blooms of the north and its evergreen turfage.
--BAYARD TAYLOR.

Though the climax of the pass to the sight-seer is Toltec Gorge, the actual crest of the Pinos-Chama divide is at Cumbres, some fifteen miles westward, and several hundred feet higher. After leaving Toltec, the brink of the cliff is skirted for some time, and many grand and exciting views are presented; but the stream is broken into cascades, and rapidly rises to the plane of the track. Passing a number of snow-sheds, the train is soon twisting around shallow side ravines, and at last, after making a great circle of nearly a mile, there comes a stoppage of that dragging sensation which the wheels impart on an upward grade, and the cars halt on the little level space at the summit. From Antonito to Cumbres the maximum ascent to the mile is only seventy-five feet, while on the western slope the descent per mile reaches two hundred and eleven feet. This intrepid railway crosses the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains over seven or eight distinct passes; and in every instance the locating engineers have followed one water-course upward to its head, and another downward to the valley, finding invariably the sources of these oppositely-flowing brooks to be in springs only a few feet or rods apart at the top. In the present case so slight is the separation that we seem to stop beside the Los Pinos, and to start beside Wolf Creek. Although at an altitude of about 9,500 feet, the neat station buildings at Cumbres are located in a depressed indentation, whence the surrounding hills shut off all outlook.

Our train is scarcely in motion again, however, ere a deep gully opens at our feet, and we commence to crawl cautiously around the protruding face of Cumbres Mountain, with its curiously-piled top of red and gray sandstone, and its precipitous front, in which is hewn midway a shelf for the track. Beyond this we pass a great curve, and then overlook a beautiful valley, which leads down into the broad basin through which the Rio Chama pursues its way southeasterly to its junction with the Rio Grande at Chamita. The view here is picturesque, and well worthy the reproduction our artist has seen fit to give it. There are glimpses of far-off, white-edged mesa-lands, with spaces of shadowy cobalt between. The brook sinks deeper, and its grassy banks are full of yellow and purple asters, in brightest bloom, glorifying the whole hillside up to where, a short distance from its bed, begins the solid spruce and aspen forest. Near Lobato, the track crosses from one tawny ridge to another, on a lofty iron bridge, and we note that Wolf Creek is here a lovely stream, with many cozy nooks in which the sportsman may pitch his tent, and are informed that the water is full of trout, while the wooded mountain slopes abound in large and small game. Once down in the valley, the way is through smooth lawns and pleasant groves until Chama is reached, and here we pause to ask questions about sheep.

Our cars were set aside in the very woods, far from the noisy station; a Y runs southward there, the germ perhaps of a railway down the river to Chamita, where it may join the southern line. All about us are the never-silent pines, and the breezes that whisper among their rugged branches blow laden with balsamic odors. Close by is the Rio Chama, hidden between dense and continuous thickets, through which the cattle can tell you of winding and mysterious paths. Everything in the landscape is soft and peaceful. The grass lies green and tender; the rounded clusters of willows, blending with the glowing masses of poplar behind them, bright in their new autumn colors, make no sharp line against the pine copse, nor this against the swelling, gaily-clothed background of the hills above.

Through this utterly wild, yet richly modulated scene, the Madame and I rode off one morning down to Tierra Amarilla, leaving our companions to angle for finny beauties. For miles the two mules trotted gaily with us through alternate groups of gigantic yellow pines and open stretches of grassy upland, where now and then we struck panic into the hearts of a flock of sheep. Then signs of ranch-life began, and some cattle were met; and ten miles from Chama we came upon the thrifty plazita of Los Brazos (the Arms), surrounded by a wide district of farming land. This continued three miles, and centered in a second hamlet, Los Ojos (the Springs), where there were several shops; thence two miles more, across a sage-brush terrace, took us to our destination.

Though the post-office has restricted the use of the name to this village, the whole region, on account of its peculiar beds of ochre earth, was formerly known as La Tierra Amarilla. This has been abbreviated, not only in spelling, but in speaking, until its ordinary pronunciation is Terr-amaréea. In 1837 a tract forty miles square, in this part of the valley of the Chama, was granted by the Mexican government to Señor Manuel Martin and his eight sons. There was a failure to ratify the matter somehow, and in 1860, old Manuel having died, his eldest son, Francisco Martin, applied to the Surveyor-General of the United States to have the grant confirmed to him, his brothers "and their companions" resident thereon. The Surveyor-General, however, struck the "companions" out, and ratified the grant only to the heirs of Manuel Martin. When this was discovered, Francisco, with the consent of his brothers, at once gave to each incumbent the land he occupied, and a deed for the same. Soon after this the Martins sold out all the domain, getting scarcely ten thousand dollars for the whole million of acres, which passed chiefly into the hands of a gentleman of Santa Fe. The next proprietor is to be an English company, which proposes to colonize the tract with British farmers and stock-raisers. The price paid, it is said, amounts to more than two millions of dollars. Pending these successive arrangements, the unfortunate settlers found their deeds valueless, because of informality,--a neglect not at all strange in a Mexican hidalgo. On the point of being ousted of their supposed proprietary rights, if not actually dispossessed, they bethought themselves of a lucky law of the territory, which gives ownership to anyone who can show a color of title, and undisputed possession for ten years. This statute saved them, and they will be bought out by the Englishmen.

Farming here hardly yields enough of grain to meet the local demand, except in the oat crop. The soil is good, the irrigating facilities very large and convenient, timber is plenty, and the climate superb. Yet only a portion of the wide, fertile bottom-land is under cultivation, and the valley invites intelligent immigration with an array of inducements unusual in New Mexico.

But there is no laxity in the matter of wool-producing, a full million of sheep belonging at Tierra Amarilla, distributed among about two hundred owners. These are never sold, except under stress of need for money, when they bring from one to two dollars each. The value of the total flock, then, will be somewhat over a million of dollars; while the annual production of wool will amount to more than two millions of pounds, worth more or less than half a million dollars, according to the price of wool. Its natural outlet to market is through Chama and Amargo. Early in September the flocks are started on their march to the southern part of the territory, where they can feed unharmed by winter storms.

I do not know a better place to study the primitive life of New Mexico, with all its quaint features; and the traveler who follows our example, and digresses long enough to ride down to the settlements I have mentioned, will not regret his short divergence from the beaten track.

Resuming the iron trail westward from Chama, all the way to Willow Creek the same beautiful parks of yellow pine continued, and the track crossed and recrossed a sparkling brook. Passing the mines of excellent bituminous coal at Monero, and surmounting a low water shed, which is in reality the continental divide, the deeply-notched tops of the Sierra Madre came into view in the north, and we spanned the first of the many streams that flow down from it into the Rio San Juan. A birds-eye view of this well-wooded and almost flat region, just on the line between Colorado and New Mexico, would have shown it to consist of a series of low, slightly-tilted ridges, parallel with which ran the serpentine and deeply-sunken rivers.

The first or easternmost of these streams is the Rio Navajo, encountered near Amargo, and up to which, all the way from Chama, nothing is to be found save grazing land, devoted mainly to sheep. Though its bottoms available for agriculture are probably broader than the water it contains is able to irrigate, far more farming remains to be done here than has yet been undertaken. The Rio San Juan, into which the Rio Navajo empties just west of Juanita, is the great drainage channel of this portion of Colorado and New Mexico, and a river of power even here. Its crystal-clear waters to-day prattle innocently, but they sometimes come down from the heights like an Indian raid, a besom of destruction for anything not as firmly anchored as the granite buttresses of the hills themselves.

From Amargo,--there is no end of bloody history attached to El Amargo and its fine cañon, dating from the early days of settlement, Indian fighting and border ruffianism,--runs the old stage-road northward to Pagosa Springs, Animas City, and the interior mines. The tales of that thoroughfare would furnish a whole library of flash literature without going much astray from the truth.

Pagosa is the far-famed "big medicine" of the Utes,--the greatest thermal fountains on the continent. "The largest of these springs is at least forty feet in diameter, and hot enough to cook an egg in a few minutes. Carbonic acid gas and steam bubble up in great quantities from the bottom, and keep the surface always in a state of agitation. The water has the faculty of dividing the light into its component colors, producing effects very similar to those of the opalescent glass of commerce. Around the large spring, and extending for a mile down the creek, are innumerable smaller ones, many of which discharge vast amounts of almost boiling water. These, being highly charged with saline matter, have produced by deposition all, or nearly all, of the ground in their vicinity, and their streams meander through its cavernous structure, often disappearing and reappearing many times before they finally emerge into the river. This spot must become a great popular resort. Its plentifully timbered and mountainous surroundings enhance the interest it otherwise possesses for the traveler and health-seeker, and the medicinal value of the springs claims the attention of all who can afford time to visit them.

"The village of Pagosa Springs is situated about four miles south of the base of the San Juan range, upon the immediate southeastern bank of the Rio San Juan. It consists of a group of dwellings, stores, and bath-houses, among which the steam of the hot springs issues in such clouds as at times to render the entire place invisible. Immediately above the town, on the opposite side of the river, rises a flat-topped, isolated hill, whose summit contains a plateau large enough to liberally accommodate the government post which has been erected there. Utilizing the pines so abundant in the neighborhood, the buildings are all made of logs; and model log-houses they are. A more inviting military camp, both as regards location and construction, could not well be conceived."

Pagosa lies in the heart of that splendid pine forest, which covers a tract one hundred and thirty miles east and west by from twenty to forty miles north and south. Here the trees grow tall and straight, and of enormous size. No underbrush hides their bright, clean shafts, and, curiously enough, it is only in special locations that any low ones are to be found. These monarchs of the forest seem to be the last of their race, and, like the Indians, are doomed very soon to disappear. They are of immense value, for they form a huge storehouse of the finest lumber in a country poorly supplied in general with such material.

The vicinity of the springs is destined to yield large crops under irrigation, though at present there is little settlement there. Mexicans pasture their sheep as thickly as the fields will hold them; and try to give their flocks a few days in the basin at least once each season, believing that the drinking of the waters is of great benefit to the animals. Though the upper valley of the San Juan is unlikely to prove very profitable as agricultural land, the lower parts, in New Mexico, are the scene of extensive and highly successful Indian farming operations. The next stream westward, however, the Rio de las Nutrias (River of Rabbits), has good ranches, and so has the Rio de las Piedras (Stony river), the Rio Florida (River of Flowers), the Rio de los Pinos (Pine river), and the Rio de las Animas Perdidas (River of Lost Souls), up whose valley we turned sharply when a few miles from Durango. But thus far only a fraction of the tillable soil has been located on.

At Amargo,--for in this sketch of the rivers I have run ahead of our actual progress,--we find several hundred Apaches waiting to receive their rations, it being the weekly issuing day. Three of the redskins importune us for a ride, and we take them upon our platform, having entomological objections against offering them the hospitalities of the interior of the car. Our fund of Spanish is mutually limited, but one of us has a fair knowledge of the sign language, learned in former wanderings among the Dakotas and Kalispelm; and while these Apaches never heard of either of those great northern nations of red men, they readily understand most of the signs, though frequently showing us with great good nature that their way of expressing an idea is by a somewhat different gesture.

Our visitors were men of medium size, beardless, and very dark. Their hair was coal black, straight, parted in the middle, carefully combed, and gathered into two braids, the end of each being ornamented with a feather or a tuft of yarn. They wore woolen shirts, the original colors of which were lost in dirt; buckskin leggings, with fringes on the outer seam; moccasins of poorly tanned sheepskin, pointed at the toe and decorated with fringes. Bright scarlet blankets, marked U. S. I. D; were wrapped around their waists or drawn over their hatless polls. Each man carried a sheath-knife at his belt, and a bow with about a dozen arrows wrapped in a sheepskin case. Their features expressed much intelligence and good humor, easily breaking into chuckles of laughter, for they enjoyed studying us quite as much as we did them.

These Indians were Jicarilla Apaches, another branch of what was originally the same great tribe being the Mescalero Apaches, of southern New Mexico. The Jicarillas number about eight hundred souls, all told, and are apportioned into five bands, under as many chiefs, the most influential of whom is _Huarito_ (Little Blonde), though he has no nominal headship. Their reservation extends thirty-three miles southward from the Colorado line, and is sixteen miles in breadth. On account of the severity of the winters about Amargo, the Government moved these Indians, during the autumn of 1883, to Fort Stanton, reuniting them there with the Mescaleros, on the reservation of the latter. Whether this experiment will "work" remains to be seen, as more than half the tribe were dissatisfied, and avowed their intention of returning in the following spring.

Amargo cañon which is always pretty, and sometimes approaches grandeur, extends westward to Juanita. There it widens out and disappears in a series of little parks, where the mountains diminish into pine-clad hills. For the next score of miles we skirt the turbulent Rio San Juan; but just west of Arboles, where it receives the Rio de las Piedras, we leave it, the road making a long detour, and climbing up and away from the stream, to a wide, rolling mesa. Descending again, La Boca is reached, where we cross the Rio de los Pinos, clear, rapid, and of good size, which we follow up to Ignacio.

At this point is another Indian Agency,--that for the Southern Utes, under an aged head-chief after whom the station is named. There are somewhat over eight hundred Indians here, divided into three or four bands under sub chiefs. Their reservation, which the railway traverses from where it re-enters Colorado, near Carracas, nearly to the Rio Florida, measures about sixteen miles north and south, and over one hundred miles east and west. These Utes are considered far more intelligent than the Apaches, and their conduct is more taciturn and dignified. Though not congregating in any considerable numbers along the track, they are not unfriendly to the whites, and daily wander about the streets of Durango. They are now the only Indians occupying a reservation within the limits of Colorado.

The members of both tribes are allowed to ride free at will on passenger trains, and the railway company has never experienced the slightest trouble from them. Liquor is kept from their reach as much as possible. Gambling is their passion.

Approaching Ignacio the train runs through shady lowlands, and passes, here and there, groups of teepees, the swarthy occupants of each lodge stepping out and standing motionless as statues in the shrubbery, watching us sweep by. The Rio Florida, which is soon crossed, is alive with trout, and along its upper course is excellent shooting. The whole region is undulating, green-carpeted, and covered with large yellow-boled pines, through which we catch magnificent mountain-views northward. Near Carboneria, the track describes two tremendous loops, in getting down from the table lands to the valley, and presently, rounding the mountain spur, reaches the Rio de las Animas, which it parallels into Durango, along a cutting through gravel and rock some distance above the bed of the stream.

Toward the last we had seen evidences of the great La Plata coalfield, to which I must devote a paragraph. It extends from the Rio de los Pinos almost to the southwestern corner of Colorado, and has been tapped in many places. This field is in sandstones and shales of the cretaceous age, divided into the upper and lower measures, about 1,000 feet apart. The lower coal measure is in a zone of shaly sandstones which are about 300 feet thick, and when separated from the shale is of excellent quality for domestic use. This lower measure is underlaid by a bed of dark gray shale, containing calcareous seams and nodules, called septaria. The La Plata coal-bed reaches from the east end of the county for over sixty miles, and is crossed by the river. The thickness of the entire bed between the floor and the roof is over fifty feet, and it contains about forty feet of good coal, free from shale. The floor, of grayish white sandstone, is covered with a thin layer of clay and clay shale. Upon this is a layer of compact, firm coal, six to eight feet thick; then a layer of tough black shale, one and a half to two feet thick. The remainder is a bed of excellent coal with only small seams of shale at intervals of four to ten feet. The "roof" is a tough shaly sandstone, alternating with true shales for a distance of several hundred feet above the coal-bed, and containing two or three small veins of coal.

Durango is beautifully located on the eastern bank of the river, the commercial portion being on the first or lower bench, and the residences on the second or higher plateau. Thus the homes of the people occupy a sightly position, apart from the turmoil of traffic, while lofty mountains and wall-like cliffs shelter the valley on all sides. Though founded only in the autumn of 1880, the city now contains a population of over five thousand, and is the most important point in southern Colorado. Here centers the business whose operations extend throughout the entire mountain system, and into the tillage and stock-raising districts of northwestern New Mexico. The great supply stores, with their heavy assortments of general merchandise, indicate a jobbing trade of no mean dimensions, and one which is steadily growing; while the extensive and elegant retail shops, unsurpassed in the state outside of Denver, bear evidence to the refined demands and prosperity of the citizens. Here also are concentrated the social, religious and school advantages which make up an intellectual nucleus. Its low altitude and easy accessibility render the town desirable as a temporary home for those engaged in mining, but who care not to endure the rigors of the long winter among boreal fastnesses. The banks of Durango are substantial institutions, and the hotels are commodious. Municipal improvements are being judiciously added, the most prominent for 1883 having been the erection of water-works, while street cars and gas-works are contemplated at an early day. The smelting of ores is carried on here actively and successfully, the convenience of coal, coke and fluxes, and the hauling of the ores down hill, giving the place marked advantages for this industry. Superior opportunities are likewise presented for a great variety of manufactures, foremost among them being iron and steel productions,--iron ore, limestone and all other necessary ingredients abounding in the locality, and being of easy access. The fall of the stream,--two hundred feet per mile,--supplies a water-power of never failing volume. Of late the city has been extending its limits, and now one may find an attractive ward, with cosy cottages and more pretentious houses across the river, and in the twilight shadow of the majestic bluffs which here rise precipitously a thousand feet. Taken all in all, no frontier town within our ken shows a more vigorous and healthy growth, or brighter promise for the future, than Durango on the Animas.