Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/317

LETTER XVII.

 

Woman's Mission—The Lost Morning—Crossing the St. Vrain—Miller—The St. Vrain again—Crossing the Prairie—Jim's Dream—"Keeping Strangers"—The Inn Kitchen—A reputed Child-Eater—Notoriety—A quiet Dance—Jim's Resolve—The Frost-Fall—An unfortunate Introduction.

 

Cheyenne, Wyoming, December 12.

The last evening came. I did not wish to realise it, as I looked at the snow-peaks glistening in the moonlight. No woman will be seen in the Park till next May. Young Lyman talked in a "hifalutin" style, but with some truth in it, of the influence of a woman's presence, how "low, mean, vulgar talk" had died out on my return, how they had "all pulled themselves up," and how Mr. Kavan and Mr. Buchan had said they would like always to be as quiet and gentlemanly as when a lady was with them. "By May," he said, "we shall be little better than brutes, in our manners at least." I have seen a great deal of the roughest class of men both on sea and land during the last two years, and the more important I think the "mission" of every quiet, refined, self-respecting woman—the more mistaken I think those who would