REYNOLDS GUERRILLA RAID.

305

member "lit out" for himself, the general direction being toward Texas, whence they came. Pursuit was made by the inhabitants, and one, named Holliman, was captured. He turned State's evidence. This did not amount to much, however, the robbers easily managing to elude the pursuit of large bodies. But they had nothing to eat, and five of them were caught by lying in wait for them at the ranches below Canon City. The other two escaped. They were first brought before a military commission, and then ordered to Fort Lyon in custody of Capt. Cree, Third Colorado Cavalry. At the old Russellville town-site, thirty miles out of Denver, the wagon in which they rode and their guard fell behind the command a little while watering the mules. Here "the prisoners," says the Rocky Mountain News, of that date, "made a concerted attempt to escape, were fired upon by the guard, and all instantly killed." In such tragic style ended this unique performance in the invasion or guerrilla line.

CHAPTER XII.

Lake County-Its Characteristics, Settlements-Arkansas River— Mining Districts, Westphalian, Pine Creek, La Plata, Georgia Bar, Hope, Lake Falls, Red Mountain, Arkansas Independent, California, and Sacramento-Approaches.

MOUNT LINCOLN is the north-east corner-stone of Lake County. Thence the boundary runs west on the 39th parallel to the western limit of the Territory, one hundred and fifty miles; thence south to the summit of the Uncompagre Mountains, one hundred and ten miles; thence east-north-east along the summit to the main Range; following that until it curves northward, it jumps across it and the Arkansas River to the crest of the Montgomery Spur, along which it proceeds to the top of Mount Lincoln, the place of beginning. Its area is about sixteen thousand square miles. It embraces the sources of the Arkansas River, and the course and tributaries of that stream for about fifty miles. It also includes the Gunnison Fork of the Rio Colorado. It is with the former section we have chiefly to do, however, as in that are the principal settlements. On the western slope of the Montgomery Spur, opposite Buckskin, heads California Gulch, worked more or less in former times for about five

miles in length. City. The upper Arkansas Valley is so wide, including its foot-hills, that it seems, from the summit of the Montgomery Spur, where the trail from Buckskin to Oro City crosses, like a not unworthy sister of the South or Middle Park. Bayard Taylor, who crossed here in 1866, says of it:

The settlement here is called Oro

"Our elevation above the sea-level could not have been much less than thirteen thousand feet. The timber line was far below us; near at hand we were surrounded by a desolation of snow and naked rock. Mount Lincoln, on the north, gathered together the white folds of the separating mountain-ranges, and set his supreme pyramids over them; while far to the south-east, where the sage-plains of the South Park stretch for a hundred miles, all features are lost in a hot purple mist. Before us, however, lay the crowning grandeur. The ridge on which we stood slid down, like the roof of a house, to the valley of the Upper Arkansas, which we could trace to the very fountain-head of the river, its pine groves and long meandering lines of cotton-wood drawn upon a field pearly gray-green. Starting from Mount Lincoln, the eye follows the central chain-the backbone of the Continent-in a wide semi-circle around the head of the valley until it faced us on the opposite side, and then kept on its course southward, on and ever on, slowly fading into air-a hundred miles of eternal snow! Beyond the Arkansas Valley (where there is a pass considerably below the timber line), glimmered as if out of blue air, the rosy snow of other and farther ranges.

Westward, seventy miles distant, stood the lonely Sopris Peak, higher than Mont Blanc.

"New landscapes are often best described by comparison with others that are known; but I know not where to turn for any mountain view at all resembling this in wondrous breadth and extent-in the singular combination of subdued coloring with great variety of form.* It is at once simple, sublime and wondrous. With a very clear atmosphere, the effect might be different; as we saw it, the farthest peaks and ranges melted insensibly out of the line of vision, suggesting almost incredible distances. There were no glaciers, thrusting down their wedges between the forests; no great upper plateaus of impacted snow, pouring their cataracts from rocky walls, as in the Alps. The snow-line, though broken by ravines, was quite uniform, but the snows were flushed with such exquisite color, and cut the sky with such endless variety of outline, that they substituted a beauty of another and rarer kind. This and the view of the Blue River Valley, in the Middle Park, are representative landscapes, and they alone are worth a journey across the Plains."

Across this park of the Upper Arkansas, to the south-west from Mount Lincoln, Lake Creek comes down from the main Range beyond, after escaping from which, it spreads out into two dark sheets of

*Gilpin, speaking of the Sierra Madre, says: "I am unable to illustrate it by comparison, because it stands supreme and alone, the standard to which all other mountain masses must be submitted." In this case the Doctors do not disagree.

ARKANSAS RIVER KANYON.

309

water, together about two miles wide by five long, and separated by a belt of land one-fourth of a mile wide, covered with pines. They are called the Twin Lakes, constitute the most considerable body of water in Colorado, and give name to the county. Dayton, the county-seat, is located under the Range, at their head.

Up the extreme left considerable fork of the Arkansas River is one of the easiest passes through the Range, opening out on Piney Creek or Eagle River, which puts into the Grand below the Middle Park. This pass is said to be three thousand feet lower than the Berthond Pass. Nearly opposite California Gulch, comes in Colorado Gulch from the west, more recently discovered than California, and worked from year to year with considerable success. Just below California, on the same side, is Iowa Gulch, also worked at the present time. It is twelve miles thence down to the mouth of Lake Creek, coming from the west, immediately below which is Cache Creek and Diggings. Then the mountains seem to crowd the river; the stupendous chasm through which it makes its way becomes gorged; the dividing ridges between the tributary streams, Clear, Pine, Chalk, Cottonwood, which come out of the Range at intervals of seven or eight miles, continue down to the very brink of the river, probably at one time damming it completely. On these tributaries, the valley becomes wider, and below the mouth of Cottonwood, which is forty miles from the sources of the river, down to the mouth of the South Arkansas, a distance of