 Letter XXI of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. In the train, two hundred miles west of Winnipeg, July 24th, 1882. As we seem to stop every two or three miles for some trifling cause or another, I am in hopes I may get through a long, maybe disjointed letter to post to you on our way through Winnipeg tonight, which we wish to reach about six o'clock, giving us time to drive out to the farm before it is quite dark. I told you we were proposing a trip up north west, and we really have had a most successful journey. A. has a friend, manager of the Bertle Land Company, who with others has bought up land, intends breaking so many acres on each section and then reselling it, hoping thereby to clear all expenses and make a lot of money besides. And as he had to go up and look after the property, it was settled that we should all go together, and very glad we are that we did do it, though we have had some very funny experiences. We are pleased to find that all the northwest is not like the country around Winnipeg, so awfully flat and without a tree. On the contrary, we have been through rolling prairie, almost hilly, and very well wooded in places. We started last Monday the eighteenth, having got up at four fifteen, which we did not think so terribly early as we might have done before the days we were accustomed to breakfast at half-past six, but had even then a terrible run for the train. We had had some heavy thunderstorms on the Sunday, and though we allowed two hours and three quarters to do our sixteen miles into Winnipeg station, the roads were so heavy and the mud so sticky and deep that we really thought we should be taken up for cruelty to animals, hustling our poor little mare. As it was, we arrived just in time to get into the cars, our packages and bundles being thrown in after us as the train was on the move. Luckily we managed to get all on board and found plenty of friends traveling west, one a government inspector, a most agreeable man, who has to certify and pass the work done on the line before government pays its share of the expenses. He was telling us how he and two other men spent three hours finding names for all the new stations along the line, and could only think of three. The stations are placed at the distance of eight to ten miles apart, and they are bound not to have any name already taken up in Canada, so that, for a way away extending over three thousand miles to the Rocky Mountains, names are a difficulty. We did him the favour of writing out a few, taking all the villages one was interested in in the old country, for which attention he seemed most obliged, and has promised a timetable of the line with the nomenclature of its stations when opened. They are building the Canadian Pacific at the rate of twenty-five miles a week, and every available man is pressed into service, so that it is not so surprising the poor farmers cannot find labour. The wages, two dollars to two and a half a day, are more than we can pay. There has not been much engineering required or shown on this line, as we went up and down with the waves of the prairies, and had only two small cuttings between Winnipeg and Brandon, three hundred miles, and were raised a few feet above the marshes, but considering how fast they work and how short a time they have been, it is credibly smooth. We disembarked at a city called Brandon, which last year was unheard of, two or three shanties and a few tents being all there was to mark the place. Now it has over three thousand inhabitants, large sawmills, shops, and pretentious two-storied hotels. We found our carriage, which had been sent on two days previously, waiting for us at the station, as we were to have driven on that night to Rapid City, but owing to the manager not being able to get through all his business, and his not liking to leave the two labourers he had with him on the loose, for fear they should be tempted by higher wages to go off with someone else, we decided to remain that night at Brandon, and were not sorry to retire to bed directly after dinner, about eight thirty. We were given not a very spacious apartment, the two double beds filling up the whole of it. In all the hotels we have been into, they put such enormous beds in the smallest of space, I conclude speculating on four people doubling up at a pinch. We luckily had brought some sheets, the ones supplied looked as if they had been used many a time since they had been last through the wash-tub. I cannot say we slept well, chiefly, I think, owing to lively imaginations and the continual noise of a town after the extreme quiet of the farm, and, as there was only a canvas partition between us and the two men, who snored a lively duet, we had many things to lay the blame to. We were on the move again at about five thirty, intending to breakfast at half-past six, and start on our travels directly after. But somehow, what with one thing and the other, the various packing-way of our different packages and parcels into our three wagons, it was past eight o'clock before we got off. We were rather amused at the expression at breakfast of our waiting-maid, when asked to bring some more bread and then tea. She wanted much to learn if we had any more side orders. Alcoholic spirits are quite forbidden in this territory. To bring a small keg of whiskey and some claret with us we had to get a permit from the governor. I am afraid the inhabitants will have spirits. The first man we met last night was certainly much the worse for liquor, and though in our hotel there was no visible bar, an ominous door in the back premises was always on the swing, and a very strong odor of spirits emanated therefrom. Our cavalcade, A. and the manager in the Democrat, we too in a buggy, and the two laborers with the man to drive in another carriage, produced quite an imposing effect. We had to cross the Asiniboine on a ferry, and then rose nearly all the way to Rapid City, twenty-two miles, going through pretty country, much wooded with hundreds of small lakes, favorite resorts of wild duck. The flowers were in great profusion, but we saw no animals anywhere, excepting a few chipmunks and gophers, which are sort of half-rats, half-squirrels. The chipmunks are dear little things about the size of a mouse, with long bushy tails and a dark stripe running the whole length of the body. Rapid City is a flourishing little town of some fifty houses, and is growing quickly. It is prettily situated on the banks of the little Saskatchewan, and has a picturesque wooden bridge thrown over the river. We had lunch, picnic style, and a rest of two hours. There was a large Indian camp just outside the town, and as we sat out sketching, several Indians passed us. Their style of dress is grotesque, to say the least of it. One man passed us in a tall beaver hat, swallow-tailed coat, variegated colored trousers, moccasins, and a scarlet blanket hanging from his shoulder. The long hair, which both men and women wear, looks as if a comb never had passed near it, and gives them a very dirty appearance. They all seemed affable, and gave us broad grins in return for our salutes. The Indian tribes on Canadian territory are the Blackfeet and the Pygons. The former used a number over ten thousand, but now are comparatively few. The smallpox, which raged among them in 1870, decimated their numbers. Also alcohol, first introduced by Americans who established themselves on Belly River about 1866, and in which they drove a roaring trade, as the Indians sacrificed everything for this fire water, as they called it, and hundreds died in consequence of exposure and famine, having neither clothes to cover them, nor horses, nor weapons wherewith to hunt. Luckily in 1874 the mounted police put an entire end to this abominable sale of whiskey. The Indian is naturally idle. To eat, smoke, and sleep is the sole end of his life, though he will travel immense distances to fish or hunt, which is the only occupation of the men, the women doing all the rest, their condition being but little better than beasts of burden. The Indian of the plains subsists in winter on buffalo, dried and smoked, but in spring, when they resort to the neighborhood of the small lakes and streams, where innumerable wild fowl abound, they have grand feasting on the birds and eggs. The tribes living near the large lakes of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and Winnipegosis have only fishest food, which they dry and pack for winter use, and eat it raw and without salt, which sounds very palatable. When the Dimension Government obtained possession of the Northwest Territories, by the extinction of the Hudson Bay Company's title in 1869, it allotted to the tribes inhabiting the country, on their resigning all their claims to the land, several reserves, or parcels of ground, which were of sufficient area to allow of one square mile to every family of five persons. On these lands the Indians are being taught to cultivate corn and roots. Implements, seeds for sowing, and bullocks are given them, besides cows and rations of bead and flower, until they are self-sustaining. They are also allowed five dollars ahead per annum, so that several wives, polygamy being allowed, and children are looked upon as an insured income by a man. This treatment by government has been very successful, and many tribes are abandoning their precarious life of hunting. Horse-stealing in former days was looked upon by the young men as an essential part of their education, but now the settler need be in no dread of them, as they are peaceably inclined and kept in check by the mounted police. A core of whose services, and pluck all who have had any dealings with them, cannot speak too highly. The officers are men of tact and experience, and the core numbers about five hundred strong. They move their headquarters from Fort to Fort, according to the movements of the Indians and the advance of immigration. On leaving Rapid City we took a shorter track than what is generally taken, thereby saving ourselves at least forty miles to Bertle. Our first night, distance about twenty miles after luncheon, we spent alongside of a small storehouse on the Oak River. We had passed some very comfortable-looking settlements that afternoon, one where we got information about our road belonging to a man called Shank, who had been settled about four years and had quite a homely-looking shanty covered with creepers and a garden fenced in. At Oak River we had a rather speculated on getting both food and lodging, but when we found the fair offered no better than ours we decided to have our own supper, getting the woman to boil us some water for our tea. We also refused the lodging. The house was groupulously clean, did o' the woman, but we couldn't quite make up our minds to share the only bedroom with her, her husband and two other men, one ill with inflammation of the lungs, rejoicing in an awful cough, and rather given to expectoration. So we had our first experience of real camping out. Our tent was an A-tent, just big enough to allow of two people sleeping side by side. The only place to stand up in was exactly the middle, but we arranged it very fairly comfortably by putting some straw under our buffalo-roaves and our clothes as pillows. The men had to make their couch under the carriage with whatever cloaks we didn't want to keep the dew off them, and by lighting a large smudge to keep off the mosquitoes we also let pretty well, though Mother Earth is very unrelenting. If however we wanted to change our position we were sure to awake. The following morning, Tuesday, the men had a bath in the river, which we very much envied them, though having brought our India rubber bath and there being plenty of water handy, we did very well. We were off again at seven o'clock. Our breakfast bill of fare not much varied from that last night. Tea, corned beef, ox tongue, and bread and butter. The country through which we passed was not so pretty as on Monday with fewer trees. Our cavalcade was increased by another man in his buggy who was on his way to Edmonton, and he traveled with us most of the day. Midday after eighteen miles we came on a small settlement of four Canadians who were just finishing their dinner. They were very nice, delighted to see ladies, place the hull of their place at our disposal, and though of course they could do but little for us, we were not allowed to wash up our plates nor to draw our own water. They had everything so tidy and nice, rough it was found to be. Like thousands of Canadians they have taken up land, two hundred and forty acres apiece, and are working them together, with two yolk of oxen and a pair of Indian ponies. Whilst we were resting the manager drove on to find his farm, but as they have bought several sections in different townships from the railway company it was difficult to find out on which section his men were working. The only thing he knew was two of the numbers of the section, the only thing he knew was two of the numbers of the section and that the Arrow River ran through the property. The Canadians told us that Ford Mackenzie, for which we had been steering all the morning, was six miles further on, so that when we left them about two o'clock, amidst many expressions of regret, they repeated to us several times how delighted they were seeing ladies, not having seen a petticoat since they came up last spring, we had to wonder many a mile before finding either the Ford or the farm. As it was we mistook the Ford and had to cross and recross the river three times, which we in our buggy didn't at all appreciate. The banks were so steep we felt we might easily be pitched out. At Mackenzie's Ford we found a wretched man who, having settled here two years ago and was getting on well, had last month brought his wife and children up by steamer on the Asinoboyne, where they had caught Diphtheria. Two children had succumbed to the disease, and his wife, he greatly feared, couldn't live. We luckily had some whiskey with us and were glad to be able to give him some, as the doctor had recommended stimulants to keep up the poor woman's strength. From him we heard where the manager's camp really was, and reached it very tired about seven o'clock, to find everything in the most fearful state of disorder and mismanagement, not even a well-dugged to provide water for man or beast. The men had mutinied, ten of them gone off, and only three in a woman as cook-lecked. She had known much better days, and was perfectly helpless and unable to manage the stove or the cooking in a shed made of a few poles with a tarpaulin thrown over. A. is the most splendid man. Whatever difficulties there are he makes light of them, and directly the horses had been unharnessed he set to work to put our tent up and lay out our supper, which was improved by the addition of some fried potatoes. Our table was the spring seat of the wagon, our seats the boxes the stores have come in, or our bundle of rags, and though the ground was harder to sleep on, as we had no straw under our buffalo-robe, still we got a fair amount of rest at night. Two very pretty Italian greyhounds we had brought up with us kept our feet warm, as it was quite chilly, the dews being very heavy. The men were horribly disturbed all night by the mosquitoes which were in myriads. No smoke of the smudges really keeps them off, though it stupefies and bothers them a good deal. On Wednesday, contrary to expectation, we got some water to wash with, the manager having had a whole dug. Water is so easily procured with digging, and at no great depth, that there is no excuse for not having it in abundance. We then spent our morning, whilst the men were going over the various sections, in trying to teach the woman to cook, making biscuits which were not a success, mending clothes, and riding up our diaries, so that the time flew all too quickly. We drove on twenty-two miles in the afternoon, and being all downwind were pestered with mosquitoes and most fearfully bitten. The country much the same as the previous day, very little taken up, but the wildflowers lovely. We counted forty-two different specimens, those yellow orchids you are so proud of at home, also red tiger lilies, phyloxes, and endless other varieties. Bertle, another mushroom town, looked so pretty and picturesque as we came down upon it by the evening light, situated in a deep gorge much wooded on the bird-tail creek. You would have laughed to see us arrive at what we thought our destination, a nice house on the top of the opposite hill belonging to a friend of the managers, where we were to be hospitably entertained. The house was locked up, but that was no obstacle. We forced the windows open, and whilst A put the horses up, the manager went down the hill for water, eye foraged for eatables, eave for wood to light the fire, and we very shortly afterwards sat down to a very fair meal, our neighbors' bacon and tea, but our own bread. Luckily a Winnipeg lady, hearing of our arrival, came up to offer her services in the shape of food or lodging. The latter, we too greatly accepted, instead of pitching our tent outside the house, which was already full, three bachelors living there and our two men intending sleeping between the walls, kut kakut. The house we spent our night in was a log one, and though un-papered, looked very comfortable, and was prettily hung round with Japanese fans and scrolls, and various photographs. We had a funny little canvas partition in the roof allotted to us, but were not particular and did a great credit to our feather bed. And how excellent our breakfast was next morning, porridge and eggs, we hardly knew when to stop eating. We started early to Fort Ellis, one of the Hudson Bay Forts, hoping to find the steamer on the Asiniboine to take us back to Winnipeg, but unfortunately it had stuck on the rapids. So after waiting twenty-four hours at the fort, we determined to drive down to the end of the Canadian Pacific Railway and so home. The old fort is very altered from what it used to be, surrounded by its wooden palings and having a store on the left side of the entrance gate, where all the Indians come to make their purchases in cotton goods and groceries in exchange for their blankets, moccasins, or furs. The Asiniboine we crossed just before getting to the fort, on a ferry. It is a grand winding river with fearfully steep banks, three hundred and eighty feet almost straight up, which was a pull for our horses, the tracks being very bad and not well engineered, going perpendicularly up the hill. Mr. McDonald is the boss at the fort, and had known two of our friends who were up here several years ago. There is a Lincoln shearman farming on a large scale settled not very far away from the fort, but we had neither time nor inclination to go further north. We had hoped against hope that the steamer might get up, but on Saturday gave it up as useless and settled to drive towards Gopher Ferry, trying to find a friend who, when out at sea farm, told us he was living on section twenty-seven by thirteen and near two creeks. For the first five miles our road lay along the Beaver Creek, which was pretty, but afterwards the scenery much resembled Winnipeg, flat and uninteresting, not a tree, and without even the beautiful vegetation and flowers we had had on our previous drives. We had to stop several times to look at the section posts. It was quite an excitement to mark every new number we came to. Our road took us pretty straight to the Mouse Mountain trail, but at a shanty being advised to leave the track and go straight over the prairie, we overshot the tents we were in search of by a short distance. Our friend had not returned from Winnipeg, but we made ourselves quite at home, pitching our tent alongside of his men's. He had four Englishmen working for him, two of them were tenant farmers at home, one man who had been out two years, had a large farm near King's Lynn, and has taken up a section close by, but as he bought his land too late in the spring to do anything to it, beyond hoping to build himself a shanty before the winter set in, he is working for our friend, who has two thousand acres. Another of the men was a newly arrived immigrant. He and his three children were nearly devoured by mosquitoes, and were most grateful for some concoction we gave them to allay the irritation. He had been quite a gent in his own country, but bad times and alcohol had been too much for him. I don't think he had all relished the work he had to do, plowing with oxen all day, etc. They plow almost entirely with oxen up in this country. The oxen are easier to feed, and don't suffer so much from the alkali in the water. But most of the Englishmen, when they first get out here, dislike using them, they are so slow, and I should agree with them. A great many newcomers find the ways and means difficult to conform to, and would give a good deal to go back, but after they have been out a year or two they drop into fresh habits and seem to like the life. On Sunday we started late, for two reasons. The horses, which had been very restless all night, driven mad by the mosquitoes, could not be found, having wandered over the brow of the hill to the river-edge to catch the slight breeze blowing, and secondly we thought we would have a rest and did nothing but regret it all day, as the heat was fearful and as we went down when the mosquitoes were ditto. Also we got into camp very late at Flat Creek, where we had hoped to find a freight train to get on as tax as Brandon, where as we had to camp close to a marsh just outside the city, the city comprising a cistern to provide the engines of the train with water and half a dozen tents all stuck on the marsh. We were rather amused by the name of one lodging tent, the unique Hotel. In other words, beds were divided off by curtains so that you were quite private. We pitched our tent on the highest spot we could find, but the mosquitoes, to accommodate us, left the marshes and came in perfect myriads around us. We lit smudges on all sides, but as there was hardly a breath of air the smoke went heavenwards, and consequently we had to sit almost into them and could hardly see to eat for the denseness of smoke. Query which was the worst, the evil or the cure. That last night was the most uncomfortable of the whole lot, and I don't think any of us disliked the prospect of a comfortable bed. But in spite of all our roughing we have enjoyed it and very glad we went. It is satisfactory to know that all the prairie is not as flat as around us at sea farm, that it is rolling and covered with bluffs or brushwood. A is pleased, as he has seen no ground as good as his own, and declares he wouldn't exchange his four hundred and eighty acres for a thousand up west. The land is certainly of a much lighter nature, having more sand in it and is easier to get into cultivation and consequence, but he doesn't think it will stand the same amount of cropping. The trails which are only tracks made by the half-breeds and Indians on the prairie have been good throughout, but in spring are full of mud-holes or slows. The new carriage has turned out quite a success and been very useful, as it has carried all our clothes, buffalo robes, buckets and oats for the horses, our provisions, etc., even to our tent, the poles of which were slung along the carriage just above the wheels, and the hole so light that A pushed it easily three or four hundred yards when we were moving our camp at Fort Ellis. End of Letter XXI. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter XXII. Of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba, by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Queen's Hotel, Winnipeg, July 25th. We cannot fancy ourselves in this elegant brick edifice, but it's an ill wind that blows no one any good, and had we not been nervous of driving sixteen miles in a raging thunderstorm last night, you would not have received a letter by this mail. The heat is so great that I am afraid my ideas won't flow. It is a hot, thundery day, cloudy and close. The thermometer is at one hundred and nine degrees in the shade, and everything one touches seems to be at melting point. Unfortunately, we have had all our cool things for our journey, and they are too dirty to wear in a live town. These last three days are the only days we have had to grumble at the heat, and I expect, if we had been out at the farm, quietly doing our various works, we should not have felt it so much, but a tent on a hot day is like a stove-house, quite fearful. We have had a very successful tour of seven days, sleeping five nights on Mother Earth which was mercilessly hard. Lived chiefly on corned beef, tea, and marmalade, three times a day, driven one hundred and seventy-three miles, nearly the whole time in pretty, sparely inhabited, wooded and undulating country. Had another three hundred miles, too, and fro in the train, and arrived here last night hoping to get home to our own beds, when we distressed at finding no buggy from the farm, though we sent them a telegram early in the morning before leaving Flat Creek, which we conclude they haven't received. Just as we were starting, and before our small packets could be fetched from the station, a fearful thunderstorm, preceded by a dust storm, came on, and we had to take refuge in a hotel, which contrary to our expectations was not only clean, but comfortable. The climax to all our troubles has been that the man from the livery-stable was unable to get our handbags, so that we actually had to go to bed last night and get up this morning without a sponge, comb, toothbrush, or any blessed thing. We were nearly sprinkling ashes on our heads and rending our garments when the fact was broken to us, but considering we had no other clothes to fall back upon, we suppressed our feelings and drowned our tears in sleep, putting in nearly twelve hours, as it was nine-fifteen when we woke this morning, and it was not very late when we retired. We had neither of us slept well the night before, and it had been a hot, suffocating day for traveling, so that we were very tired when we got in. What useful things hairpins are! I have always found them excellent bodkins, button-hooks, wedges for misfending windows, and et cetera, but until today I had never realized what a capital comb they would make held tightly. I don't know that we have had any very amusing adventure, but the whole expedition has been an adventure, and, therefore, as it proved the business of the day it was taken seriously. I mean, we hardly laughed when we all shared the same drop of water in a bucket to wash our faces and turns, and then hands, drying ourselves with the same towel, which was not always of the cleanest, and when we shared the same tin-cup to drink out of. Of course we managed to get in a very fair amount of chaff. And it was said that if ever there was a hole or stone on the trail I used to bump, bump over it, shooting the others almost out of the carriage, so that there were cries of danger ahead when they declared they had to hang on to each other for safety. We had to leave A. behind us yesterday at Flat Creek with the carriages and horses to follow us in a freight train, and he has just turned up, very hot and weary and out of temper with the railway authorities as they make so many unnecessary difficulties in unloading. Instead of following us directly yesterday, as he was told he would do when he first put the horses on the train, they did not start until late in the afternoon and have been traveling all night, A. sleeping very peaceably in the horse-box. We are about to go out to the farm as soon as the horses have been fed, and we can reclaim our lost baggage of last night. I am thankful to say that we never came across any snakes during our expedition, though they are said to abound by Brandon and further west. The only one we saw was when the conductor on our train brought us a parcel and showed one coiled up inside. It was a trial to our feelings, but I believe it was dead. There are none around Winnipeg, not even a worm. End of letter twenty-two, read by Savela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter twenty-three of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. See Farm, July thirtieth. We found the most lovely batch of letters, almost worth being away from home for ten days, on our arrival here at twelve o'clock p.m. on Tuesday, which completely revived our drooping spirits. We were feeling rather limp and tired after a long day in Winnipeg, and losing our way across the prairie coming home. It was very dark, and the only guide we had was when the vivid flashes of lightning reflected the farm buildings. As it was, we drove through the big marsh, the mosquitoes nearly eating us up, and, A, so worried by them that he couldn't think of the trail, and trusted to the horses finding their way. The joy of coming upon our own fence is better imagined than described. I pictured to myself that we should be like one of our laborers, who having gone into town just before we started up West, lost his way coming out, unharnessed his horses and picketed them, and sat down quietly, waiting for daylight before he ventured on. It is marvelous that anyone finds their way on the prairie. There are numberless trails made during the hay harvest which may mislead, and in a country which has been surveyed some time back the section posts have almost entirely disappeared, the cattle either knocking them down, or they haven't been struck by lightning. We found our bedroom very full of mosquitoes, so that our sleep was much disturbed. In fact we never slept properly till after the sun rose, but our letters cheered us up, and were far more refreshing than ten hours sleep. The netting over our windows had got torn from the tax, so that the mosquitoes had come in by shoals just to show how they appreciated the attention of having things made easy for them. Otherwise we are not generally much bothered with them in the house, netting being over every door and window. The cat sometimes thwarts our protection by jumping through them in the morning, and no thumping seemed to impress her with respect for the said net. We are told the mosquitoes will be gone in a fortnight. Certainly the big yellow ones have lived their time and are not so plentiful, but they have been succeeded by a small black species which is quite as venomous and not so easy to kill. We went to church yesterday at Headingley, quite a red-letter day. It was only the second time we have been able to manage it in the ten weeks we have been here, and though it was very hot in church, we were ashamed to take our gloves off on account of the scars. The church is quite a nice little building, and the service delightful after so many weeks of not hearing it. We had to take our horse out, tie it to the churchyard pailing, and put the dog in the buggy to take care of our goods and chattels. We are getting quite low at the thought of leaving this in ten days time, being rather like cats, attached to any place where one has heaps of occupation, and where one is treated kindly and well fed, however ugly that place may be. We have been very busy hay-making since we got home, and a grand stack is in the course of erection nearly opposite the dining-room window. We never saw anything so astonishing as the way the oats, potatoes, etc., have shot up in our absence. Even the puppy, which we left a fluffy ball, seems to have grown inches. Then all my chickens are hatched, and are in endless pleasure and anxiety. I am supposed to spend hours over them. We have received four sheets of official paper from Mr. W., full of directions about our journey to Colorado, describing his home, etc., even to the nickel-plated tap we shall find in his kitchen, which is to supply us with an unlimited amount of water. He tells us we need bring nothing but a saddle and a toothbrush. He will find all the rest, and that we are to make it a note that it is one of the strictest rules of mining-camps that guests are never allowed to pay for anything. As we hope he is making a fortune by his minds, we shall not have so much compunction of accepting these terms. We are to sight-see, climb mountains, go into the mines, wish for trout, and do nothing the live long day but amuse ourselves. I am afraid A. will miss us terribly, dear old soul. He is very fond of having us here, and is always bemoaning our departure. I think it will make a great difference to him and to his humdrum, hard-working life, as we are always cheery, and never have had a difficulty or annoyance of any sort. End of letter twenty-three, read by Cebella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter twenty-four of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba, by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. August sixth. We are rejoicing now that we have settled to go to the Rocky Mountains, as the hot weather we speculated on avoiding has come in with a rush, and for a whole week the thermometer has been at eighty to eighty-five degrees. One morning before a thunderstorm, when it fell forty degrees in a few hours, it was up to ninety degrees. We have had some rain, but not the heavy. If storms we have seen wandering round which generally follow the course of the Isinaboyne, a relief to our minds as our hay is still out. It has been cut nearly all round the property outside the fence, in spite of the risk one runs of having it subsequently claimed by the owner of the section, who is generally a half-breed, a loss only to be avoided by leading at home at once, which we are doing. This has happened to our neighbor, with whom, I afraid, we do not sympathize very keenly, as he had taken up the marsh which our men cut last year, and had the full intention of doing again this year, so they looked upon it in the light of their special property. We have only two wagons working here, as nearly all the men and horses are gone over to Boyds, and as our hay is a mile and a half away, we don't get much more than five loads a day, so that the stack does not grow very fast. Our excitement this week has been a cricket match with Boyle's farm. Four of their men we challenged. It really was too amusing. They had a bat and a ball, stumps but no bales, and played on the prairie, which was so fearfully rough that it was almost dangerous. The ball shot in such various directions after hitting the tufts of grass. Everybody fielded, but a ball going into the wheat field behind the wickets was not counted as a lost ball. The total score of the two innings was only ten, and in one our opponents went without a single run, so you may fancy the howls of either applause or derision at every ball. End of Letter Twenty-Four, read by Subella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Twenty-Five of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. August Seventeenth. The farm, with all its toils and pleasures, is a thing of the past. We were both very low when we turned our backs upon it and its inhabitants just a week ago. We have been in such robust health the whole of our three months, hardly a headache or finger ache. Our maid of all work, life, has suited us, and we have acquired such an immense deal of practical knowledge that for those reasons alone we might be gratified and pleased we came. Since then we have been staying with Mike in Minnesota where we were either riding or driving, anything to do with horses, all day long, driving four miles, jumping the horses over a pole, taking them down to water, having a mule race, which was truly amusing as the course was just in front of the house and several bolted home, and driving, a gangplow, where a few of the diversions found for us. Our host was most kind and anxious to make us comfortable. He worked heaven and earth to get his house ready, the contractors having taken so much more time than they said. Anyhow he turned the carpenters out of the house the day previous to our arrival, carried in the furniture, nailed up mosquito-blinds, and did many things himself so that everything should be in spick-and-span order. As these men, Mike having two partners, are farming thirteen thousand acres, they are on a much larger scale as regards buildings, numbers of horses, etc., to anything we have seen before. Their living-houses are about double the size of sea-farm. They have also huge stables, which A. fancies will be cold in winter, but have a most imposing appearance, as have also their implement-houses, sheds, etc. The lands seem much the same as ours, a rich black loam, but very much wetter, marshes everywhere. They have broken two thousand acres since the beginning of June, and were busy whilst we were there, cutting hay, Mike hoping he had already got over five hundred ton up. We drove one day to see a neighboring farm, which is said to be the boss one in all the country, belonging to a man who has been out five years. He was just starting to cut his two square miles of wheat, and we watched the seven self-binding machines with great interest. We seemed as light as a reaper, and the machinery comparatively not intricate. We were driven through some standing corn, which was rather agonizing to our British ideas, but he thought nothing of it. The straw was four-and-a-half feet high, and he hopes to get forty-two bushels to the acre. His farm, being on the Snake River, and having many creeks running through his drainage, is a great advantage. His vats were pronounced no better, if so good, as ours at sea-farm. We remained at Warren a day longer than we had intended as we got to the station just in time to see our train move off. We accused Mike's Irish groom, who is quite a character, of bringing round the carriage too late on purpose. If he did, I think all the party forgave him. We were very happy. It gave us another night of A's society. Mike was low at our going. Poor man! One cannot be much surprised at his liking to keep us, as besides the fascinations of Lady's society he has no neighbors whatsoever, and accepting the two men he has in the house, there is not a gentleman nearer than Winnipeg. He offered me seventy-two dollars a month to be his housekeeper. E was to have two dollars a week as parlor maid, which C considers an insult, or she might have seventy-five cents a day if she would drive the plows. Servants and laborers get higher wages there than in Manitoba. All the men were averaging thirty-five to forty dollars a month and their keep. They were all Swedes and Germans, of whom there is an enormous colony in the state. We are now trying to spend our day at Council Bluff, a large junction of the Grand Pacific Railway, having come in here at eight o'clock this morning, and our train to Denver not leaving till seven o'clock this evening. The hotel is right on the station. The weather is so hot that as yesterday at St. Paul's, where we also had to spend a whole day, we have never summoned up courage to go beyond the door. It was suggested we might take the tram and go up into the city. But E has a notion that one city is much like another, particularly on a hot day. It is curious how Americans live in hotels. There are several families in this, and if my letter is not very intelligible you must forgive me, as I am riding in the Grand Corridor to try and catch the slight draft of air blowing through, at the same time that half a dozen children are playing up and down. The scenery yesterday from St. Paul's all along the banks of the Missouri was very pretty. We both of us sat outside the Pullman as long as daylight lasted, feasting our eyes on the water, trees, etc. The height and luxuriousness of the latter seemed quite incomprehensible after the total absence of forest scenery for so many months. It is pretty round here, and by the time we get to the Rocky Mountains we shall have got beyond the stage of thinking a hillock, a mountain, and farish-sized trees not so wonderful after all. But at the present moment we are in that pleasing state, ready to admire anything and everything. We hope to get to Denver on Saturday night and rest there Sunday and part of Monday, and we also hope to get to church there. Mike offered to drive us into Warren last Sunday, but as the service was a Swedish Presbyterian we didn't think we should be much edified. End of LETTER XXV We arrived here Saturday evening, very tired and not at all sorry to exchange the Pullman for a comfortable room and bed, which we had telegraphed for, and therefore not, like so many of our fellow passengers, obliged to seek shelter elsewhere. The Pullmans are most comfortable, and for a long journey like ours nothing could be so good, but I am glad that in England we don't have either these or the ordinary American car in general use. The publicity is so odious, and one does get bored by the passengers constantly wandering up and down the train, and the boys who pass and repass every ten minutes selling books, newspapers, cigars, candy, and the unripe-ist of fruit, which they are always pressing you to buy, to say nothing of chewing, spitting Americans one has to countenance all day long. The last four and twenty hours of our journeys have been very tiring. The scenery has been so monotonous, endless long undulating planes like the waves of the sea, covered with grass quite dried up, a few flowers, and a bee-shaped cactus. The heat was oppressive, a hot Sirocco wind blowing which obliged us to keep our windows shut on account of the fine alkaline dust. E. had her window open last night, and awoke this morning to find herself in a layer of ashes. We skirted the South Platte River most of the time. It was only a bed of shingles, wide and shallow, with not a drop of water in it. These plains, extending for thousands of miles in all directions, are the great ranching or cattle-farming districts, formerly the favorite breeding grounds and pastures of the Buffalo, which alas have all disappeared. We only saw a few tame ones amongst the herds of cattle. They have been killed in the most ruthless, indiscriminate way for their furs, and will soon be things of the past. We have wondered much, with the river and every visible stream so dry, how the large herds of cattle and horses were watered, but have since been told that water is so near the surface the herdsmen have no great depth to dig to procure any quantity. We thought we could have made a good pick or two amongst the horses, but we didn't care for long-legged, ugly, big-horned cattle-brutes. Here and there there was a herdsman mounted on a small Indian pony with a high Mexican saddle, enormous spurs, and a long lasso, galloping and dexterously turning his animals. Our train had to pull up several times and whistle loudly to turn the animals off the track. There being, as usual, no rail or protection, but pulling up for them was not half as exciting on Thursday night, when we stopped repeatedly to turn a man off the train, who not having paid his fare nor apparently intending to do so, had swung himself in some marvelous way under the cars, hanging on by the break. Before we slackened speed he jumped off, walking quite unconcernedly alongside, but the moment we moved on he got on again. We never knew how far he continued his perilous ride. I fancy that even the officials gave up remonstrating. Anyhow, as long as daylight lasted and we could watch the man, no efforts on their part seemed to make the smallest impression. Three hours before getting into Denver we had our first glimpse of the Rockies, and although they were then only in the blue distance we were quite excited about them, and at Greeley's station, much impressed on our minds by having read Miss Bird's book just before coming here, we came in full view of Long's Peak, almost wishing Mountain Gym might still be alive to ascend it with us, and the whole of the gorgeous range, and quite one of the loveliest sights I ever saw was watching two thunderstorms on either side of the peak, break and disperse, whilst the reflections from the sunset glow lit up the rest of the heavens. The railway and Denver City itself is about thirty miles distant from the mountains, but the atmosphere is so clear that they look as if quite within an easy gallop. It is difficult to understand why the town has been built so far from the mountains, situated as it is on a sandy, treeless plane. It is growing like most of the western towns at a tremendous pace, and we are lodged in a luxurious hotel, our room on the fourth floor, Numbers 454. We found the avenues of trees lining every street and immense boon this morning in going to church at the Cathedral. The heat, though great, is not so oppressive as at either St. Paul's or Omaha, but then we are at a height of five thousand feet, and this afternoon the air has been cleared by a thunderstorm preceded by a great sandstorm, which we watched from our windows encircling the town, so thick that mountains in all view was obliterated for the time being. Denver is a great resort for invalids, chiefly those suffering with asthma. End of Letter 26. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter 27 of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. August 22. Before leaving Denver we went to a gunsmith and invested in a fishing-rod and numberless flies, with which we intend to do great execution. We also went to the exhibition, opened a month ago, and still unfinished. One of the leading men, to whom we had a letter of introduction, showed us everything. It is chiefly interesting to minors, as the display of minerals from Western America is unrivaled. There seemed in the specimens enough gold and silver to make us rich forever. Unfortunately our ignorance on the subject of war is too great to thoroughly appreciate it. End of Letter 27. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter 28 of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Ure, August 24. It is not easy to sit down and write after forty-eight hours traveling, as we have been doing since leaving Denver on Monday night at seven o'clock. But in such scenery and air so exhilarating we do not feel as tired as we expected. You should have seen the omnibus, stagecoats, chariden, or any other name as you pleased to give the lumbering vehicle in which we performed our last twelve-hours drive. It looked truly frightening when it drove up to Cimarron Depot, one tent last night to pick us up, intended for twenty passengers in any amount of luggage, and swung on great straps. It was wonderfully well-horst, and we changed our teams every ten miles, but only then came at the rate of five miles an hour. We both of us started for our sixty-four miles drive on the box seat with the driver, who happened to be an extremely nice man and an experienced whip. In former days he had driven the stagecoaches across from Omaha to San Francisco, a journey of three weeks. But he took up much room on the seat, and every time he had to pull up his horses his left elbow ran into me, until he guessed my ribs would be pretty well bruised. At about midnight, when our only other fellow passenger turned out from the inside of the coach, I entered it, though I expected nearly every moment would be my last, the bumping was so fearful. I managed to get a few winks of sleep towards morning. E's sat outside all night, finding it very difficult not to drop off the coach from drowsiness. The early hours of the morning, after the moon went down until dawn, were truly wretched, what between the outer darkness, the flickering of our lamps, the unevenness of the road, and the clouds of dust, and one almost began to wonder if the journey was worth so much trouble. But with daylight we quite altered our opinions, as really I do not think if you searched the whole world over you would find anything more beautiful than the uncompagra valley and park looked in the morning light. Mr. W. met us at five o'clock a.m. at the hot springs, so called from the boiling water that gushes out of the ground, and which is said to give the name of uncompagra to the district, that being the Indian word for hot water. He brought us out hot coffee and food to refresh us, and drove us the last nine miles up the valley. We came slowly, thoroughly enjoying the scenery. On either side of the road are well cultivated farms. In two miles of ore, the park narrows into a magnificent gorge, bounded on each side by precipitous cliffs of red sandstone, covered with pines and quaking aspen, the whole crowned by arid peaks. From this gorge you suddenly come upon the town, situated in an amphitheater of grand, gray, truck-eyed rocks. Our house is in Main Street. The ground floor is an office. Our four rooms are on the first floor, to which we ascend by a wooden staircase outside. Every nook and corner is filled with some curiosity or mineral specimen. Our host, being a great sportsman, there are various trophies of the chase. A mountain lion, wild sheep's heads, bears, cranes, even to a stuffed donkey's head. There are also cabinets of fossils, specimens of ore, etc., and great blocks of the same piled on the floor. Our family consists of our two hosts, Mrs. W. and B., two Indian ponies, a mule, two setters, two prairie dogs, which are reddish buff marmots. We are only to remain here one night, and if thoroughly rested after our journey, go up to the log cabin in the Imogen basin, three thousand feet higher. We are both looking forward to it immensely. It is right in the heart of the mountains, ten thousand six hundred feet, and with no one near us, as all the minds surrounding the cabin belong to a company which had to suspend its works last month for wanted funds, so that they are not being worked. The air is glorious, and we feel already perfectly restored to our usual health, though we are warned that strangers cannot walk much at first, the air is so rarefied, that one is soon out of breath. Anyhow, the atmosphere has been so clear that it much added to our enjoyment in seeing the ever-varying beauties and distant mountain view all along our journey from Denver to here. We unfortunately came through the Grand Canyon at night. Had it been clear, the porter on the car was to awake us to see it. We could quite picture to ourselves its beauty by the scenery in the Black Canyon we came through yesterday by daylight. The engineering all along the line is marvelous, the way we rose nearly seven thousand feet by a zigzag over the Marshall Pass, or the Great Divide going down nearly as many feet on the other side, and then through these canyons, which are only narrow gorges for a raging torrent to rush through on its headlong career. Our train was a very narrow gauge with bogey wheels, and we twisted so, in and out of the bends of the river, that the engine often looked as if it might easily come into contact with our carriage, which happened to be the last. That is the great advantage of the Pullmans they are always on last to the train when passing through any pretty country, and when there are no other carriages of the same, so that one can sit on the rear platform and see all the scenery. We entered into conversation with two Germans, and were amused by one of them surreptitiously bringing us two pink trout from his luncheon at the Wayside Hotel, we having remained in the carriage for our frugal meal, and though we had got to the sweet stage, felt hound to begin again, and much enjoyed our fish. The food provided at these Wayside Inns is generally so bad and dear, a dollar ahead charged for sixteen to eighteen dishes of almost un-eatable messes, that we prefer the tinned meats and fruits we have in our luncheon basket, and for drinks we have beautifully iced water in all the carriages, the ice being replenished at every big station. The last forty miles of our railroad journey was over a line only open ten days ago, by which, I am thankful to say, we avoided twelve hours more of the stagecoach and a night in a Colorado Inn, which we are told is anything but pleasant, there always being many more bedfellows than what one bargains for, and we should have not seen the Black Canyon and its thirteen miles of grandeur and sublimity. The railroad track is cut out of the sides of the overhanging rocks, and in places is built on a bed of stones in the creek itself. The rocks at times almost seemed to meet overhead, then widened, we crossing and recrossing the torrent by wooden bridges, which shortly are to be replaced by iron ones. The coloring was so beautiful, the chasm being generally in shade with the mountains above standing out in glorious sunshine, covered as they were in many places, even as far down as the water's edge, with pines. Nature is marvelous in its productions, but the ingenuity of man is also wonderful, and we quite came to the conclusion that the scenery of that canyon was worth coming all these thousands of miles to see. END OF LETTER XXVIII. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XXVIII. The name of Ure, given to this town, is from the last chief of the youths, who, with his tribe, lived to within a couple of years on a reserve down in the park. The first stake is said to have been struck by white men in 1865, but no cabin was built until 1874, and from that time the town has been growing rapidly, having now about one thousand inhabitants. In the southwest portion of the basin in which it stands, and where the waters of Canyon Creek flow into those of the Incomahagre, there are some lovely canyons and picturesque gorges, and here, in places where the hot springs overflow the banks of the main stream, the rocks are covered with maiden hair and other ferns. These hot springs serve to keep the river unfrozen, even in the severest weather. END OF LETTER XXIX. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTER XXXV of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba, by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. END OF LETTER XXII. This is a glorious region, and we send you the enclosed sketch to show our picture of comfort and perfection. I assure you, nightly, as we sit down to our evening repast, or later round our wood fire in our parlor, we congratulate each other, and fancy we would not change places with the highest of the land, the air and life are so intoxicating. After twenty-four hours in Ure, we came up here, sending the darky Henry and our luggage on before us in a wagon. We have brought nothing but the bare necessities of life. All our heavy boxes are gone to Chicago to await our return, being worn to bring as little as possible on account of the difficulties of transport in the mountains, also of only being allowed fifty pounds weight on the coach, every extra pound charged ten cents. We ourselves rode up here, arriving about six o'clock, and found poor Henry waiting outside, not having been able to get into the cabin, the door key being carefully in Mr. W.'s pocket. But as everything is always left in order, it didn't take us long to make ourselves comfortable, and as at sunset the cold had been piercing, a fire soon lit was very acceptable. This cabin is quite unique. It consists of two rooms on each side of the front door, with a tiny passage used as larder, wood-hole, saddle-room, etc. Our room is our bed and drawing-room combined, which is hung all round with every imaginable skin, wolf, skunks, lynx, etc., stuffed animals and birds, guns and traps, to say nothing of shelves covered with different specimens of ore taken out of the adjoining mines. It was quite creepy, the first night, having to sleep with a bear's head at the foot of our bed, with a stuffed fox just over our head, which has the most awful squint, and is the first object that catches the eye on awakening, and a dried root, the fibers of which so much resemble a man's beard that it looks horridly like a scalp. The hay mattress on our bed has to be shaped into grooves for our poor bones to rest comfortably. In the daytime it is covered up with skins, and then is called the lounge. Our washing stand is primitive, a box standing on end, in which our tin basin and cans are concealed, so that we consider our parlour quite correct. Our other room is the kitchen, and fitted up with four bunks against the wall, which Mr. W. and Henry occupy. We breakfast and dine out of doors, at a table placed just outside the cabin, and on the only bit of flat ground we have near, as we are situated on the slope of a mountain, and a most beautiful stream of cold water runs about forty feet below us, with the clearest and coldest of water. One of our first occupations in the morning is to take the animals down to water, and afterwards to picket them in amongst the long grass, growing in great profusion and height during the short summer, on all the foothills and wherever there is an open space. The first afternoon we were up here we went for a ride around Imogen Basin, and were delighted with the wild flowers, which are quite innumerable, columbine, phyloxes, blue gentian, dandelions, hair-bells, vetches, and fifty other species. E. picked a good many, and hopes to draw them for the benefit of you all at home. The flowers shoot up almost before the snow is melted, and make the most of their short existence, which lasts about two months and a half. We tasted the bearberry, which grows as a bush, and has a round, brown berry, quite bitter, but, as the name shows, is much appreciated by the bears, who come any distance to get it. End of LETTER XXXI of a Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. September 4th. We are enjoying this mountain life, the weather is all we can desire, and we are in the most robust of health. We live almost entirely out of doors, sketching all the morning, in the afternoons making expeditions, either into some of the mines or over a mountain pass, and for tender feet, the name given to all newcomers, are pronounced to be good mountaineers, but our ponies and mules are so sure-footed and pleasant that we follow any trail, however narrow and uneven, with the greatest confidence. The scenery everywhere is far beyond our sketching capacities, but we find spoiling many sheets of drawing paper and never failing amusement and occupation, and we can sit out anywhere, as neither snakes nor mosquitoes are known in these altitudes. Our Darkie's criticism might be discouraging, he's saying he cannot understand our wasting so much time on things not at all like nature, were it not counterbalanced by the praise given us in the ore times which paper we sent home to you last week. The Balsam Pine, which is about the only tree we have, is rather monotonous and somber-looking, being of a blackish green, and we have not here, as in the valley around ore, the beautiful sandstone and porphyry rocks for background, only never ending blue distances, brought out so clearly on account of the extraordinary dryness and purity of the atmosphere. We have been escorting two men to-day over a past twelve thousand five hundred feet, part of the way to San Miguel, going as far as the ridge, from once we had a most glorious view in Panorama, as we could see into the valleys and canyons some miles below. Mount Wilson, which unfortunately was shrouded in dark, stormy clouds, a range of mountains in Utah called Sierra La Salle about one hundred and twenty miles distance, and a long way into New Mexico. In returning home we got into clouds, and could hear a thunderstorm raging in the valley below us, for some little time losing our trail, and not sorry when we found it again and were able to descend from higher regions. The cold was so intense, not so surprising as we found when the mist lifted that snow had fallen on all the surrounding peaks. End of letter thirty-one, read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter thirty-two of A Ladies' Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Image in Basin, September twelfth. Two days after our expedition to San Miguel we awoke to find ourselves in a white world. The snow being two inches deep. It is said to be a most unusually early storm, but it was not altogether a surprise. The glass had been falling, and storms had been audibly growling all round us. The snow only lasted about twenty-four hours, just long enough for us to realize and admire imaging in its winter garb, and enable us to try and walk in snowshoes. We did not attempt either going up or down hill in them, so that our performance was confined to the small space in front of the cabin. With the exception of this one storm our weather continues lovely. Bright, sunshiny, warm days we do not even require an extra jacket out of doors until after sunset, with a slight frost every night. Last Monday we started early, taking provisions with us, and spent a long day in Red Mountain Park, sketching the marvelously brilliant Scarlet Peaks, whilst Mr. W. shot grouse, of which he got three-and-a-half brace. The grouse are pretty much like ours, only larger and roost in trees. These parks abound in game. We have been wishing to see a bear, at a safe distance, perhaps, but have never succeeded, although several have been killed since our arrival. Whilst shooting Mr. W. came upon the fresh trail of one and its unfinished meal of a gopher not very far from where we lunched, only fancy what a stampede there would have been had the bear appeared. We are always looking out for thin trees round which a bear's claws would overlap, and therefore they could not climb to take refuge up in case of danger, but they very seldom attack, unless wounded or a she-bear with cubs. In the spring and autumn these parks abound in deer, but in summer they go above Timberline to graze on the succulent bunch grasses and to be free from flies. There are also mountain sheep, coyotes, and foxes, and along the streams several beaver, but we never have seen any animal bigger than a prairie dog or smaller than a coonie. Chipmunks and the mountain rats disturbed our slumbers at night, running about the cabin, and I do not think at all we should like our dormitory where we not watched over during our slumbers by a cat, the most sociable of beasts, who as a rule sleeps between us, and protests loudly if we either of us move or wake him. End of Letter Thirty-Two, read by Subella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Thirty-Three of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. September Seventh. By degrees we are learning something of the mines and miners. Also are beginning to know all the packers who daily go up and down the trails, each with a train of ten donkeys, carrying the oar from the mines. The men's appearance is of the roughest, but they, one and all, are most civil, both of speech and manner. Women are rare in these districts, the wife of the manager of the Wheel of Fortune Mine being the only one living up here. She has been here two years, and is quite idolized by the miners and trappers, as she has never been known to refuse hospitality to any. We were much amused whilst going through the Wheel of Fortune Tunnels last Saturday to hear one of the miners ask who we were, and when told with the ready answer, natural to this country, that we were duchesses, he wished much to know if that was not something like the Prince of Wales. We went into a lower shaft whilst two fuses were fired in an upper. The anticipation of the shock was worse than the realization. Each of us carried a candle, and the concussion blew them all out, but beyond that, the smell of gunpowder and smoke we experienced no harm, and as we had matches and the candles were soon relit, we had not to grope our way back in darkness. We have been into several of the tunnels on the eight well-defined lodges in this basin, also into some in snuffles. These veins may all be traced through into Red Mountain Valley, which seems to be the volcanic center of this neighborhood. The porphyry vein, matter, or ore-bearing quartz, having decomposed more readily than the track-ite of the mountains which they intersect, in some instances, as in the peak just above our cabin, they have cut deep notches in the summit of the ridges, making the outline very jagged and rugged-looking. The mineral wealth around us is astounding. Hundreds of rich mines have been discovered in all the surrounding mountains, and are being discovered now. Three men, whilst at a dinner a month ago in Red Mountain Valley, in picking around with a small axe where they were sitting, knocked off a piece of rock which, when analyzed, proved to be so valuable a load that they have since then sold their claim for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Any man can stake a claim of fifteen hundred feet on a vein if not previously done, but he has to expend one hundred pounds on it in the first five years to enable him to obtain a patent from the government, which secures the property to him forever. There must be a certain amount of excitement to miners as to what treasure will be produced after every blast of gunpowder, but, oh, how I should hate the life living underground in these subterranean passages which are all more or less wet from the water percolating through the rock, and never able to see the sun or the beauties of nature. The wages of the men are enormous. Able miners getting four dollars a day, sorters or the men who break and turn over the stone, three and a half. Mr. W. had a hard life when he first came out here in eighteen seventy-seven, as he and his partner worked with no other help for four years underground mining, besides having to build their cabin, being their own blacksmiths, assayer, cook, etc., and he declares he enjoyed it immensely, with the exception, perhaps, of the first winter, when, getting in their supplies very late, they had to live on bacon, and that, rancid, and flour, but little else. Stores for the winter have to be brought up in October, as the trains early become impassable, and all outer communication can only be kept up on snowshoes. The snow average is about seven or eight feet, though in this basin it has been known to be thirty-eight deep, but in the Uncomba Hagra Valley and down by Ure it averages only a few inches. Animals are left out to graze there all the winter. End of Letter thirty-three, read by Subella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter thirty-four of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. The ranch, Uncomba Hagra Park, September sixteenth, ten miles below Ure. Amidst many tears and regrets we have torn ourselves away from the cabin, where we could have spent another month or six weeks in perfect contentment. But a storm being predicted, and duck-shooting and fly-fishing being part of our Colorado program, we accepted the loan of a house on a farm down in the valley and are installed in it. It wanted a certain amount of pluck on first seeing our accommodation to come down. Our house is one room, thirty feet long by about eighteen wide, an open roof with plenty of air-holes and no partition whatsoever, accepting what we have made by hanging three blankets from a rafter, behind which is our bed, or lounge in daytime, the washing-stand, a box set up long ways and a tin basin, an armchair which consists of two pieces of wood, and an old wolf-skin, much worn, and a rickety table, at which I am riding now, guided by a candle stuck into a bottle. On the other side of the blanket partition is the kitchen stove, big table, store-shelves, a pile of saddles, et cetera. Mr. W. sleeps in a tent outside, Henry in a wagon. He, poor man, is not at all happy, as he imagines bears and coyotes are nightly intended making their evening meal off his portly form. He is the greatest coward I ever saw, and came in horror confiding to me that he had seen a snake, yards long, which Mr. W. killed the day following, and it proved to be a small water-snake, hardly ten inches. Henry affords us a great deal of amusement. He does not at all presume, but in his quaint way wishes to tell, and asks so many things, queries which are often almost unanswerable. The day we spent an ore on our way down from the cabin here, we much distressed him by not striking a show in the street, and not wearing smart clothes which had a tog, if it were only to show that we consider Mr. W. a big bug. He left his wife in the south eleven years ago, and, in spite of all our protestations and lectures, informs us he is going to marry again, as in the Bible he reads that it is wrong for man to live alone. It is a matter of infinite surprise to him how we can remain out of doors with no coverings on our heads. He could not stand the rays of the sun as we do, and why our complexions and consequence are not as dark as his is a mystery to him. End of Letter Thirty-Four, read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Thirty-Five of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. The Ranch in Kampahagra Park, September twenty-fourth. Although this house does consist of only one room, it is situated in a stony field, with not a tree near us, and that we are not having good sport, either trout fishing or duck shooting, we should be quite happy and contented, were it not for the bee flats which abound, the first we have come across, which Henry assures us are not from dirt, but grow in the pine wood. Why are they not, then, in the log cabins, which are entirely built of pine? We have not disclosed the fact to Mr. W. He is so thoroughly enjoying his holiday, as we know that we should instantly be ordered back to Ure, where he would have to begin his work. Whilst he is out shooting we can make expeditions, exploring all over the foothills. One day, after wandering up a beautiful valley, we came upon a park, or mesa, and I do not ever remember having seen such a view, miles of grass on which wild cattle and horses were feeding, with clumps of trees artistically dotted here and there, and for background the orange and scarlet-tinted foothills, pines on higher regions, and a glorious panorama of snow-capped mountains beyond. But for the mountains one might almost fancy oneself in some English park, and at every turn we felt we ought to come upon an Elizabethan house. There were many tracks of deer, but none were visible. We overtook a man driving a team of ten oxen with lumber, and of him asked our way, as one might very easily lose oneself in these rolling park-like glades, intersected with deep canyons, with no trails or roads, accepting here and there one made by lumberers. In coming down the hill again, close to a large sawmill, we watched a man breaking in a horse of five years old. He had secured a dozen, all wild, in a corral or fenced enclosure, and had thrown a noose over this one's head. He was trying to dried up by means of a thick rope to the fence, the rope getting tighter and tighter as the animal backed or tried to gallop around with the other horses. Finally, when the poor brute was almost choked and perspiration was streaming down him, he allowed the man to go up to him, who very dexterously and quickly slipped a halter over its head. The horse then was tied up to the post, the others turned out, and the man intending keeping him there until the following morning without any food, when he would put a saddle on and ride him, and hoping to sell him as broken for eighty dollars. Many of these horses are not broken at all. We were shown a good-looking mare of thirteen years old who had never had a bit in her mouth. End of Letter Thirty-Five Read by Cibella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Letter Thirty-Six of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. The Ranch, September 29. This is the country I should like to have a farm in, where I bound to immigrate. In this valley every sort of grain and vegetable seemed to grow in the most luxuriant way, and we have been feasting on tomatoes, cabbages, beets, lettuces, etc. The Butcher, who is also greengrocer, sent a potato twelve inches long by nine round, hoping the ladies would take it in their trunks to England as an average specimen. Then on the mesa, or parks above the foothills, large herds of cattle can always graze through the winter. We have had jelly made of squabberries and the Oregon Grape, which is excellent. There are also wild gooseberries and black currants, both of which we have found. This ranch is one hundred and sixty acres. The only buildings the owner has put up are the dwelling house, and one shed as a stable and implement house. Hey last year was selling at ten to twelve pounds a ton, potatoes three pence to six pence a pound, oats four pence a pound, and everything in proportion, eggs three shillings to four shillings a dozen all year round, milk six pence a quart, so that any man ought to make a very large profit. The land originally costing him nothing, and accepting in hay or harvest time very little labor required. Oats are cut very green and stacked for winter fodder. These fertile valleys are very limited in number, and as the consumption must be on the increase, mines being discovered and opened out, some time must elapse, and the railway come nearer, air competition reduces the prices, or the farmer's profits are lessened. The people round are most kind and friendly, and would be more so had they received the slightest encouragement, but Mr. W. gave out we wanted to know no one, that we were not to be an ore, and that all our time was to be taken up seeing the country. We went one day up Bear Creek, as Mr. W. was asked to see a mine, and dined with the manager and his wife. They gave us a sum she was for past, and tried to persuade E. and I to remain the night, though we were only about four miles from home. But even we two are not un-Englishified as yet not to object to sleeping with two other people. They had only one room for kitchen, bed, sitting-room, etc., and it is curious how little one thinks of the bed standing in one corner, though washing stand in another, whilst the kitchen stove and scullery fill up a third. I suggested that when strangers did sleep there, they gave them the adjoining cabin, but was told that a trestle bed put alongside of the host took no room whatsoever. Mr. W. tells a funny story of a picnic party in the mountains in an old cabin of his, which only contained one room, and where five women and six men had to sleep the night, the women occupying the bunks, the men, after promenading outside whilst the women were getting into bed, sleeping on the floor. They all laughed and talked so much that daylight almost appeared before any of them got to sleep, and there was a regular stampede under the blankets among the ladies when a match was struck, one of the men objecting to his neighbor lying alongside of him with all his clothes on. CHAPTER III How the time flies! In forty-eight hours from now we shall have said good-bye to the most fascinating of regions, and Ore and the Rocky Mountains, with all the glorious scenery, will only live in our memories and be things of the past. I fancy one could never tire of it, and wish so much I could describe the view we had from our ranch looking up the Unca Bahagra, the valley bright yellow with the grasses and aspen trees turning color from the frosts, the scarlet dwarf oak in the foothill, the mountains lost in the blue distance. During our six weeks' stay we have tried all the different phases of life. The cabin life in amongst the mountains and miners, the ranch and town, and certainly give palm to the first mentioned. As we anticipated our ranch life was brought to an abrupt end the moment we owned to Mr. W., how our slumbers were disturbed, with the B. flats. We had to return into Ore and have been living here some days. Mr. W. found such an accumulation of work on his return that, accepting at meals we never see him, and have to contend to ourselves wandering and exploring on our ponies all the different trails, and we shall soon be acquainted with every one within miles. The only ride we do eschew is the toll-road up the park, the only piece of flat ground anywhere about, and fit for cantering along. It is the favorite resort of the ladies of the town, who are smartly arrayed in very long skirted habits, ornamented with brass buttons and velvet jockey caps, and who must naturally look down upon us as disgracefully turned out in our everyday gowns and broad-brimmed hats, which, to say the least, have seen better days. Ladies riding alone are required to pay no toll, a custom we think ought to be very much encouraged all over the civilized world. We have spent one more night at the cabin in Imogen, leaving Henry and Ore and doing for ourselves, and whilst Mr. W. and the expert, for whom we went up, were inspecting mines, we too fetched the water, made bread, and had a general sweep out. The cat was supremely delighted to see us, and could not apparently make enough of us when not allowed on our knees, stood up against or walked round us. The heavy snowstorm of last week destroyed all the grass and flowers. They were so high when we left that a mule could hardly have been seen whilst grazing, and now they are laid quite flat, with not a vestige of their beauty left. The wind was very high as we went up the canyon, so we had to hurry past the patches of aspen's growing on the rocks, and having very little hold for their roots, which were being blown over and pleasantly near us. This will be the last letter you will receive, as when once started we shall go as fast as the stagecoach, rail, and steamboat can take us to England, I having had a telegram which hurries us home. Good-bye. We look forward immensely to seeing you all again, but we have had such a pleasant trip throughout, without a single contra-tongue, that we can but be delighted we came, and shall always look back with immense gratification on our six-months sojourn in the Western Hemisphere. End of LETTER XXXVII. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTER XXXVIII. OF A LADY'S LIFE ON A FARM IN MANITOBA. BY MISSISS CISEL B. HALL. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. LONDON. DECEMBER, 1882. Since arriving in England I have received the following letter from my brother in Manitoba, and as I want this book to be a sort of guide to colonists, I think it well to add it. SEE FARM. NOVEMBER XIV. I am writing now to send you a kind of statement of our farm accounts, though it cannot be quite correct, this year's crop of oats not having been thrashed out, so that the calculation can only be approximate. First, the land. The cost of the land is taken as the first purchase money and the amount it has cost to bring four hundred and ten acres under cultivation. Second, the buildings. They consist of two dwelling houses and two stables. One of the houses, being for the men, is also used as a warehouse and granary. The contract price was very low and also the price of timber, now both gone up, but put down at the original cost. Third, the horses. Valued, I think, rather low at two hundred and fifty dollars a team, five hundred dollars for the stallion. The four thousand three hundred twenty-six dollars include their cost, the amount of oats, and the hay they have eaten. The cows include their original cost, hay, and percentage of keep. The price of cattle now is high. We sold two cows this summer at an average price of seventy-five dollars. Implements have been reduced about thirty-five percent for their two years' wear. Carriages, being new, we have taken nothing off them. Pigs have the cost of their feeding added, the young ones taken at an average of ten dollars. Furniture, a slight deduction for wear and tear. Oats, we are calculating twenty-five hundred bushels off one hundred eighty-one acres. Hay is difficult to calculate. I do not think we have four hundred tons. The price now is very low, five dollars a ton, and it would cost us three dollars to get it into Winnipeg. Potatoes are uncertain. They are worth one dollar a ton now, and if we can manage to keep them during the winter they will be worth a good deal more, but they are difficult to keep, although we have a good root-house. If the frost happens to get to them they will all spoil, and it is difficult to keep the frost out, going as it does twelve feet into the ground. The fence is quite worth the money, so you see that putting most things at a low price one has a certain profit, though not in hard cash, and it is satisfactory to find that one hasn't been working for two seasons for nothing. No one expects a farm to pay in this country during the first two years. Land, four hundred and eighty acres. Original value, four thousand one hundred ten dollars, worth thirty dollars an acre. Present value, fourteen thousand four hundred dollars. Building, two houses and two stables, four thousand eight hundred fourteen dollars. Present value, four thousand eight hundred fourteen dollars. Horses, twenty one horses, one stallion, four thousand three hundred twenty six dollars. Present value, three thousand dollars. Cattle, eighty four cows, two thousand six hundred sixty eight dollars. Eighty cows and forty six calves, three thousand seven hundred dollars. Carriages, two hundred twenty nine dollars. Present value, two hundred twenty nine dollars. Harness, four hundred ten dollars. Present value, three hundred dollars. Implements, one thousand eight hundred ten dollars. Present value, eight hundred dollars. Pigs, one hundred twenty five dollars. Pigs and twenty nine young three hundred fifty dollars. Poultry, twenty dollars. Thirty three chickens. Present value, forty dollars. Furniture, four hundred ninety five dollars. Present value, four hundred dollars. Profit and losses, ten thousand six hundred eighty one dollars. Oats, two thousand five hundred bushels at fifty cents, one thousand two hundred fifty dollars. Hay, four hundred tons at five dollars, two thousand dollars. Potatoes, one thousand bushels at one dollar, one thousand dollars. Flacks, one hundred dollars. Wire fence, five hundred dollars. Original value, twenty nine thousand one hundred eighty dollars. Present value, thirty two thousand eight hundred eighty eight dollars. NB, the profit and loss comprises the wages to laborers and cost of living both to masters and men. This estimate is given after two years farming. End of letter thirty eight. End of, A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read by Cibela Denton in Carrollton, Georgia in January two thousand and eight. All LibriVox files are in the public domain.