Chapter V: Over the Sangre De Cristo

RALEIGH: Fain would I climb.
But that I fear to fall,

ELIZABETH: If thy heart fail thee,
Why, then, climb at all?

Toward the middle of one bright afternoon we were pulled out of Pueblo, our three cars having been attached to the regular south-bound express. We had fully discussed the matter, and determined to go on to the end of the track, or, more literally, to _one_ end--for there are many termini to this wide-branching system--on to the warm old plazitas and dreamily pleasant pueblos of New Mexico. Why not?

But so inconsequential and careless an "outfit" was this, that no sooner had our minds been fairly settled to the plan (while the shadow of the Greenhorn came creeping out toward Cuchara and we were heading straight into its gloom) than somebody proposed our spending the night quietly in Veta Pass.

This mountain pass and its "Muleshoe," dwarfing in interest the celebrated "Horseshoe curve" in Pennsylvania, because occupying far less space, just as the foot of a mule may be set within a horse's track--these have been famous ever since railroading in southern Colorado began, and naturally we did not like to go past them in the darkness. We wanted to see how the track was laid away around the head of the long ravine, whether it doubled upon itself in as close a loop as they said it did; and whether the train really climbed through the clouds about the brow of Dump Mountain, as the pictures represented. So we told the conductor to drop us.

It was dark by the time we had been left in good shape on the terrace-like siding in Veta Pass, and, weary with our swift run, we were quite ready to shut out the gathering shades and be merry over our dinner; but first, all eyes must watch the departing express begin its climb up Dump Mountain. Think of swinging a train round a curve of only thirty degrees, on a very stiff grade, and with a bridge directly in the center of the turn! That is what this audacious railway does every few hours in the "toe" of the Muleshoe. From our lonely night-gripped dot of a house on the wild hill side, we could see squarely facing us both the Cyclopean blaze of the fierce headlight, and the two watchful red eyes glaring scornfully from the rear platform; by that we knew that the train had doubled on its own length of only six cars. Then, with hoarse panting and grinding of tortured wheels and rails, the two powerful locomotives began to force their way up the hill side right opposite us, the slanting line of bright windows showing how amazingly steep a grade of two hundred and seventeen feet to the mile really is. The beam of the headlight thrust itself forward, not level, as is its wont, but aimed at a planet that glimmered just above a distant ghostly peak.

"Do you remember," murmurs the Madame in a low voice, as she stands with bated breath beside me; "do you remember how Thoreau advises one of his friends to 'hitch his chariot to a star'? Doesn't this scene come near his splendid ambition? Will that train stop short of the sky, do you think?"

Surely it seemed that it would not, for only when the stokers opened the doors of the laboring furnaces, and volumes of red light suddenly illumined the overhanging masses of smoke, touching into strange prominence for an instant the rocks and trees beside the engines, could we see that the train stood upon anything solid, or was moving otherwise than as a slow meteor passes athwart the midnight sky. It was easy to imagine that long line of uncanny lights a fiery motto emblazoned upon the side of the dark mountain, and to read in it, _Per aspera ad astra_.

Yet the scene was far from fanciful. It was very real, and a fine sight for a man interested in mechanical progress, to watch those great machines walk up that hill, spouting two geysers of smoke and sparks, and dragging the ponderous train slowly but steadily along its upward course. Now and again they would be lost behind the fringe of woods through which the track passed, and then we would see the cone-like, rugged spruces sharply outlined against the luminous volumes of smoke. A moment later and the train disappeared around Dump Mountain, with a sardonic wink of the red guard-lights at the last; but presently we had knowledge of it again, for a fountain of sparks and black smoke from the engines blotted out the scintillating sky just above the highest crest of the ridge.

"Suppose it had broken in two on that hill-side," remarks the Artist, as I am carving the roast, five minutes later.

"It wouldn't have mattered," is the reply. "I once saw a heavier train than that break on this very mountain, the three rear coaches parting company with the forward portion of the train."

"But wasn't that criminal carelessness?" cries the Madame, who is death on inattention to railway duties. I should hate to be a neglectful brakeman before her gray eyes as judge!

"Not at all," she is informed. "The cars were properly coupled with what, for all any one could see, was a sufficiently strong link, but the strain proved too great for the tenacity of the iron."

"Well, I suppose they went down the track a-flying, or else over the precipice."

"Not a bit of it. The two parts of the train stopped not more than twenty feet apart. When the accident occurred the engineer knew it instantly by the jerking of the bell-rope, and stopped short. As for the rear cars, they were brought to a standstill at once by means of the automatic brakes. I tell you they are a great institution, and indispensable to success on any road which has heavy grades to overcome."

"How do they operate?"

"Well, it is the Westinghouse patent and rather complicated. Better go out to-morrow and see the apparatus on the engine. It works somewhat in this manner: When the valve on the retort under each car is set in a particular way, the letting off of the 'straight' or ordinary air-brakes causes the compression of an exceedingly powerful spring on each set of brakes. If, however, you destroy the equilibrium by forcibly parting the air connection between that car and the locomotive, as of course occurs when a train breaks in two, the great springs are released and jam the brake-shoes hard against the wheels, gripping them with tremendous force. That's what happened instantly in this case, and those heavy cars, which otherwise would have carried their cargoes to almost certain destruction, halted in a single second."

"But--what if--" began our lady member in an alarmed tone; whereupon she was speedily interrupted by the learned gentleman who was dividing his time between dinner and lecture:

"My dear Madame, our cars, like all the rest on this admirably-guarded railway, are provided with the automatic apparatus I have described. Since it is useless to pretend to one's-self, or anybody else, that an accident will never happen, it is well to understand that every precaution known to intelligent management has been provided against any serious harm resulting when things do go wrong. In consideration of all which profound explanations I think we deserve a second glass of claret. My toast is: The Automatic Brake!"

And we all responded, "May it never be broken!"

* * * * *

Sleep that night was deep and refreshing. The next morning broke cool and clear, and the Photographer proposed, with nearly his first words, that we all go to the top of Veta Mountain. Only the crest of one of the spurs could be seen, and this did not appear very far away, so that those who had never climbed mountains afoot were enthusiastic on the subject. Now in the humble, but dearly experienced opinion of the present author, the old saw,--

"Where ignorance is bliss
'T were the height of folly to be otherwise,"

fits no situation better than mountain climbing. I have said in the bitterness of my soul, on some cloud-splitting peak, as I tried to gulp enough air to fill a small corner of my lungs, that the man who belonged to an Alpine Club was _prima facie_ a fool. Scaling mountains for some definitely profitable purpose, like finding or working a silver mine, or getting a wide view so as properly to map out the region, or for a knowledge of its fauna and flora, is disagreeable but endurable, because you are sustained by the advantages to accrue; but to toil up there for fun--bah! Yet people will go on doing it, and those who know better will follow after, and the heart of the grumbler will grow sick as he sees of how little avail are his words and the testimony of his sufferings.

It was so this time. Admonitions that upright distances were the most deceiving of all aspects of nature; that the higher you went the steeper the slope and the more insecure and toilsome the foothold; these, with other remonstrances, were totally unheeded, and three misguided mortals decided to go. Then the growler yielded--what else could he do? He had survived many a previous ascent, and could not afford to assume a cowardice that really didn't belong to him. So he chose that horn of the dilemma, and left the reader to the conclusion that in telling this tale, after the previous paragraph, he "writ himself down an ass."

All went but the Musician. Among the gentlemen were divided the photographic camera and materials, and the whisky, while the Madame set off sturdily with field-glasses over her shoulder, and a revolver strapped around her shapely waist. Dinner was ordered for two o'clock, and up we started. The Madame wrote to her friend about it as follows (the letter, I declare, smelled of camphor):

"I assure you, my dear Mrs. McAngle, that not more than a hundred feet
had been gone over before the inexperienced of our party began to feel
the effects of rarefied air, although thus far it was easy enough
walking. There was no path, of course, and we simply tramped over a
grassy slope sprinkled with flowers and covered by trees that shaded
us from the sun. Gorges which were hardly perceptible as such from the
valley, now proved to be uncomfortably deep gashes in the broad
mountain-side, and tiny streams came down each one of them, to water
dense thickets along their banks. In one place, about a thousand feet
above our starting point, we came across the remains of a camp made by
some man who thought he had found precious metal. Dreary enough it
looked now, with its dismantled roof and wet and moldy bed of leaves.

"By this time breathing has become a conscious difficulty. I speak in
the present tense, my dear, because the recollection is very vivid,
and it seems almost as though I am again trudging over those
sharp-edged rocks. Every ten minutes further progress becomes an utter
impossibility for me, and rest absolutely necessary; but one
recuperates in even less time than it takes to become exhausted, and
starts on again. Nevertheless I can not go as fast as the gentlemen,
who have no skirts to drag along.

"Now the comparatively easy climbing is over. Flowers and grass have
grown scarce, and almost all the trees have disappeared. Nausea is
beginning to annoy me, and I was never more glad in my life than now,
when I discover some raspberry bushes and eagerly gather the ripe
fruit, whose pleasant acid brings moisture to my parched mouth and
comforts my sad stomach, for there is no water or snow here, and I
know it would not be best to drink if there were.

"Even the berries are gone now. Far above and on all sides I see
nothing but fragments of rocks. For centuries, wind, frost, rain and
snow have been hard at work leveling the mountains. They have broken
up the hard masses of yellowish white trachyte, and the dikes of black
basalt into small pieces--some as minute as walnuts, but most of them
much larger, with sharp-pointed edges that cut my feet. Across these
vast fields the wild sheep, thinking nothing of jumping and gamboling
over such steep slopes of broken stones, have made trails that cross
and criss-cross everywhere. Availing ourselves of these is some help,
as we all settle down to persistent, never-ending climbing.

"Up, up, up. You have forgotten how to breathe; your back and head are
aching; you have found a stick, and lean more and more upon it; you
look down on the back of a hawk far below you with sullen envy; you
devoutly wish you had never come, but will not give up. At length a
stupor creeps over you. You never expect to reach the top, but you do
not care; old long-forgotten songs go through your brain and seem to
try to lull you to sleep. You see in the distance one of the strong
ones reach the summit and wave his hat; you are beyond sensation, and
it is all a dream. Finally you stagger over the last ledge and throw
yourself down on the top and feebly call for--whisky. Mrs. McAngle, I
am a teetotaller; I hate whisky! But just then I would have given half
my fortune had it been necessary for the one swallow which did me so
much good."

Well, her companions having more strength, didn't feel _quite_ so bad, though near enough so, to make their sympathies strong. The crest having been gained, the Madame lay down on a rubber coat under the cap rock to rest, while the remainder of us dispersed in search of water. But let me quote that long letter again:

"The rocks, when I had recovered strength to look about me, I saw were
crumbling lavas of two colors, light drab and dark brown. Covered, as
they were, with lichens of brown, green and red, they were very
pretty. At last one of the gentlemen came back, carefully carrying his
hat in both hands, which he had made into a sort of bowl by pressing
in the soft crown. This I soon saw contained water, but such
water--foul and bad tasting, for it had been squeezed from moss. But
we drank it through a 'straw,' made by rolling up a business card, and
were thankful.

"Refreshed, and becoming interested in life again, the old hymn
occurred to me,--

'Lo, on a narrow neck of land
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand.'

Only the seas, in this case, were broad green valleys, and were
bounded in the distance by lofty mountains, best of all Sierra Blanca,
across whose peaks the clouds were winding their long garments as if
to hide somewhat the sterility and ruggedness of their friends. Above
them how intensely blue was the sky, and how the soft green foothills
leaning against them satisfied your eyes with their graceful curves.
Trailing among them, as though a long white string had been carelessly
tossed down, ran the serpentine track of the railway, and the famous
Dump Mountain sank into the merest foot-ridge at our feet. On the
other side of the ledge we gazed out on the misty and limitless
plains, past the rough jumble of the Sierra Mojada, and could trace
where we had come across the valley of the Cuchara. Nearer by lay
dozens of snug and verdant vales, in one of which glistened a little
lake tantalizing to our still thirsty throats.

"We all had our photographs taken, with this magnificent scenery for
a background--better even than the cockney-loved Niagara, we
thought--and strolled about. Not far away we hit upon a prospect-hole.
The miner was absent, but had left pick and shovel behind as tokens of
possession. How intense must be the love of money that would induce a
man to undertake such a terrible climb, and live in this utter
loneliness and exposure! Yet they say that many of the best silver
mines in Colorado are on the very tops of such bald peaks as this.

"At last, on asking my husband if he did not think he appeared like an
Alpine tourist, I found him recovered sufficiently to say that we
should all pine if we didn't have dinner soon, so we turned our faces
homeward. Now I hope I haven't wasted all my adjectives, for I need
the strongest of them to tell of that descent. It was frightful. Feet
and knees became so sore that every movement was torture. The sun
blinded and scorched me, and the fields of barren, sharp and cruel
stones stretched down ahead in endless succession. Mrs. McAngle,
however foolish I may be in the future in climbing _up_ another
mountain, I never, never will come _down_, but will cheerfully die on
the summit, and leave my bones a warning to the next absurdly
ambitious sight-seer. When I was on the crest, I thought what an idiot
the youth in 'Excelsior' was, but now I hold him in high respect, for
he had the great good sense, having reached the top, to stay there!"

Returning to Veta Pass, the promontory where the track winds cautiously around the brow of Dump Mountain--the name is given because of a resemblance in shape to the dump at the entrance of a mine tunnel--has been called Inspiration Point. I don't know who christened it; perhaps some would-be hero of a novel by G. P. R. James. If, to be in character, he "paused at this point in involuntary admiration," there was plenty of excuse, for one of the loveliest panoramas in Colorado unrolls itself at the observer's feet.

Coming up is fine enough, if you see it on such a day as the gods gave us. The Spanish Peaks, as we approached from Cuchara, were as blue as blue could be, with half-transparent, vaporous masses hovering tenderly about them; but these mists stopped short of Veta, which stood out distinct against its cloud-flecked background, majestic in full round outlines beyond the majority of mountains,--in hue purple and sunny white, with the mingling of forests and vast sterile slopes. North of it the landscape was almost hidden under rain-veils, into which the sun shot a great sheaf-full of slanting arrows of light, and beyond, range behind range were marked with phantom-like faintness of outline. A broad canopy of leaden clouds hung overhead, down from the further eaves of which was shed a wide halo radiating from the invisible sun above; and this snowy shower had stood long unchanged before our entranced eyes, making us believe that the brown cliffs, toward which we were running so swiftly, were the gates of an enchanted land.

Now, from within and far surmounting those portals, we stand gazing abroad, as in olden days they looked out of some castle tower through and beyond the great fortress arch. The typically mountain-like mass of Veta, satisfying all our ideals of how that style of elevation should look which does not abound in rugged cliff and sky-piercing pinnacles, but is smoothly and roundly huge, cuts off all northward outlook. Southward the crowded foothills of the divide between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas hide from view the central points in which they culminate,--even lofty Trinchera, whose sharp summit was so plain a landmark at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo yesterday. Beyond these swelling domes and gables, and ridges of green and gray, were lifted the noble pyramids of the Spanish Peaks, their angles well defined in varying tints of purplish blue, and their grand old heads sustained in generous rivalry. (Illustration.) Behind us was only a piney slope, close at hand: but ahead--the world! I think no one has ever said enough of the beauty of this picture in Veta Pass. From the precipitous, wooded mountain-side where you stand, the eye follows the little creek as it glides with less and less disquietude down through the protruding bases of the diminishing foothills, into the slowly broadening valley where the willows are more dense, and the heather and small bushes have taken on brilliant colors to vie with the splendor of aspen-patches higher up; on to the hay-meadows fenced with the many-elbowed and scraggy faggots of red cedar; on past the little park where the low brown adobe houses of the Mexican rancheros look like mere pieces of flat rock fallen from the mountains; on into the midst of minute cornfields; on out, beyond the surf-like ridges breaking against the base of the range, to the blue and boundless sea of the plains.

The western side of the Pass is a tortuous descent through continuous woods and lessening hills, until you emerge upon a plain where the ragged heights of the Saguache Mountains fill the northern horizon; and as you turn southward the glorious serrated summits of the Sangre de Cristo range come into view behind and beside you, on the east. This plain is the San Luis Park, the largest of those four great interior plateaus--North Park, Middle Park, South Park and San Luis--which lie between the "Front" and the "Main" ranges of the Rockies.

It has been truly said of the Rocky Mountains that the word "range" does not express it at all. "It is a whole country, populous with mountains. It is as if an ocean of molten granite had been caught by instant petrifaction when its billows were rolling heaven-high."

Nevertheless, popular language divides the system into certain great lines. The "Front Range" extends irregularly from Long's Peak to Pike's Peak, then fades out. The "Main" or "Snowy Range," which is the continental watershed or "divide," begins at the northern boundary, in the Medicine Bow Mountains: but in the center of the State breaks out of all regularity into several branches, so that it is only by ascertaining where the headwaters of the Atlantic and Pacific streams are separated, that one can tell how to trace the backbone of the continent, for many of the spurs contain peaks quite as lofty as the central chain. Thus the splendid line of the Sangre de Cristo, running southeastward, only divides the drainage of the Rio Grande from that of the Mississippi; yet the highest peak in Colorado belongs to it. The main chain, on the contrary, trends southwestward from the parallel groups in the heart of the State, only to become mixed up into half a dozen branches, all of enormous height and bulk, down in the southwestern corner. Even this is not all, for westward to Utah the whole area is filled with vast uplifts, standing in isolated groups, serving as cross-links, or lying parallel with the general north-and-south lines of great elevation. "I suppose," says Ludlow, "that to most Eastern men the discovery of what is meant by crossing the Rocky Mountains would be as great a surprise as it was to myself. Day after day, as we were traveling between Denver and Salt Lake, I kept wondering when we should get over the mountains. Four, five, six days, still we were perpetually climbing, descending or flanking them; and at nightfall of the last day, we rolled down into the Mormon city through a gorge in one of the grandest ranges in the system. Then, for the first time, after a journey of six hundred miles, could we be said to have crossed the Rocky Mountains."

Because we had ascended and descended Veta Pass, therefore, and saw on our left the seemingly insurmountable barrier which yesterday stood at our right, we had by no means got beyond the Rockies; for out there "mountain billows roll westward, their crests climbing as they go: and far on, where you might suppose the Plains began again, break on a spotless strand of everlasting snow."