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1. No allowance need be made for de- | ter of present fear; for, leaving out two preciation of stock, as the cattle can with proper care always be sold for beef.

most important factors-the great and increasing demand for our beef in Europe, and the new uses to which it is put in this country-our population has hitherto in3. No account is taken of interest on creased faster than the supply of good profits.

2. If the profits be invested in cattle, they will be largely increased.

4. No account is taken of the gradual improvement in the quality of the stock.

5. Profit can often be made by buying cattle and keeping them for a year.

6. During the latter part of the winter and the spring the food is of course poorer than before, and as the cattle are not then in the best condition, there is much demand for good beef for local consumption. | By feeding cattle during those months for sale in Colorado, excellent gains should be realized. Good beef on the hoof was worth four and a quarter cents per pound in Pueblo in the spring of 1879.

7. A ranch purchased in Southern Colorado at present prices is almost sure, in view of the great increase in the business and the decrease of suitable land, to appreciate considerably in value-say, at least ten per cent. per annum.

meat.

Q. Where had I best go?-A. You must decide for yourself, after obtaining all possible information to guide you.

Q. Can I obtain trustworthy information, not only about this, but also about all details of this business?-A. You most certainly can.

Let no one hastily imagine that the foregoing answers have been formulated and the foregoing figures compiled under the seductive influences of a region where people ride a day's journey on their own lands, and give away a few hundred thousands of acres with "lightness and freedom," or that they have not passed through the crucible of sober second thought. Nothing is more certain than that, in the first place, there is much ignorance and misunderstanding in other parts of the country about Colorado; and, in the second, that harm has been and must be done by giving too roseate a coloring to its characteristics and belongings. It is the aim and determination of the writer to state things, as far as in him lies, exactly as they are. He would even qualify his enthusiastic descriptions of the natural feaBALANCE-SHEET AT END OF THIRD YEAR. with the assurance that they are only for tures of this great dome of the continent

It will be plain to any one who will examine carefully into the matter that under ordinary and favorable circumstances profits will mount up each year in an increasing ratio, and he can readily make figures for himself. In the mean time we have a

ASSETS.

Ranch, with three years' appreciation, at 10

per cent..

5400 cows, at $18.

80 bulls, at $50..

1400 two-year-old heifers, at $15
1890 yearling heifers, at $10.
1400 three-year-old steers, at $26.
1400 two-year-old steers, at $16
1890 yearling steers, at $10
Total

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the benefit of those sympathetic souls to whom the mountains are a perpetual joy; $65,000 97,200 and as a counterpoise thereto, he would 4,000 quote that excellent though unrecorded 21,000 saying of the wise man: "Blessed is he 18,900 that expecteth nothing, for he shall not 36,400 22,400 be disappointed!"

76,000

18,900 It is perfectly certain that the life of a $283,800 ranchman possesses the utmost fascination for men thoroughly accustomed to the resources and habits of the highest and $50,000 most refined civilization, and presumably 28,149 liable and likely to greatly miss them. $114,651 One may meet, sitting in the doorway of 15,000 $129,651 the hotel at Pueblo, surrounded perhaps $283,800 by "honest miners" in overalls, and railroad hands out of employment, gentlemen who will talk, with faultless Piccadilly accent, of the last gossip from London, and ex-officers of " crack" regiments, not unknown to fame. No one's felt hats have broader brims, no one's flannel shirts are rustier, and no one's boots more thor

A risk to be taken into account would be a possible outbreak of disease at some time, but out of profits as shown an insurance fund could readily be created. That so many cattle will be raised that prices will greatly fall need not be a mat

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oughly covered with adobe dust; and ev- greatest force-those unfortunates to ery one will tell you that he is as happy whom the doctors each winter talk about as a king. May it not occur to more than Aiken and Florida, and "coming north one young man anxious to do good work with the strawberries." Perhaps, in wan

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in the world, and conscious of the draw- | dering about this region, you may meet backs of business life in great cities, with its fierce competition and unavoidable risks, that life on the plains might give him ample occupation, comfortable gains, and a sound mind in a sound body?

And there is another class of men to whom this life should appeal with the

an acquaintance, remembered in New York or Boston as a thin, pale man, of whom people used to speak as "poor fellow," and to whom each winter was a new terror. You will hardly recognize him in the brown-bearded horseman who has come in thirty miles that morning, and

THREE DAYS LATER FROM PUEBLO.

will think nothing of riding out again before night, with his letters and a few purchased necessaries in his saddle-bags. Whatever requirement Colorado may fail to meet, there is one thing which it can do beyond all doubt and dispute, and that is, arrest the progress of pulmonary disease, if sought in time. It is very pleasant, without doubt, to lounge in the old fort at St. Augustine, or to frequent Nice and Cannes and Pau, but it is more efficacious, and far more manly, to "shun delights, and live laborious days," and to be doing yeoman's work and gaining health at the same time.

These were our cogitations as we sat in the evenings in front of the house, drinking in what our host happily called ozone, and waiting for the mail, which came semi-occasionally from Pueblo in a bag hung to the saddle of a small boy mounted on a tall horse-a primitive fashion, no doubt, but endurable for the last twenty miles, since our welcome letters came the preceding two thousand in fast express trains.

But all pleasant things must come to an end, and after breakfast one morning the large wagon came to the door, and we drove out through the gate, and past the

end of the bluff, and over the rolling plain, dampened by the welcome rain of the night before, in the direction of Pueblo. It was a drive to be long remembered, with its accompaniments of a delicious and invigorating air, the sight of all the mountains, and glimpses of the Arkansas flowing to the eastward, miles and miles away. As we neared the town, musing, as one must under such circumstances, on the days, not long gone by, of the fierce Indian and the roving trapper, a change came o'er the spirit of our dream, for we saw in turn the smoke of a smeltingworks, a China "washman's" shanty, a derrick by means of which some one hoped to "strike ile." a saloon where there had been a first-class shooting affair, a stand for the sale of lemonade and chewing gum, and an advertisement of H. M. S. Pinafore. The Commodore, who is nothing if not romantic, was greatly disturbed at this abrupt transition, and relapsed into a troubled silence. It was only after some time had passed that a happy idea seemed to strike him. He departed in the direction of a telegraph office, and on his return seemed quite himself again, and threw out hints of a pleasant surprise preparing for us at Colorado Springs. And then the little impudent noisy narrow-gauge train, which had left the San Juan country that morning, and come over the Sangre de Cristo at an elevation of 10,000 feet, came puffing up to the platform, and took us in; and we rolled out through a cutting, and away from the river, and up the Fountain Valley, and a boy came into the car and offered us books and magazines and figs, just as if we were going from New York to Yonkers or Paterson, instead of along the base of the Sierra Madre.

"Is it not a shame," asked the writer, in a thoughtless moment, of a well-known pioneer, "that the train should be so delayed by 'wash-outs'?"

That is not my view of the matter,"

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replied he. "I am rather inclined to | inappropriate names of Esmeralda and continual wonder and gratitude at what Montezuma) sent up to the Springs, and has been accomplished in putting these telegraphed from Pueblo to have them at roads here at all in the face of such ob- the station. stacles."

Some distance above Pueblo the valley grows greener and greener, and the railroad nears the great mountains. We stood on the platform watching the lights and shades on the range, and thinking how beautiful they were, when a long whistle came from the engine, and we saw that we were nearing the station at Colorado Springs.

At almost any other place in the world a deep dejection would have settled on the Colonel, but at Colorado Springs one has at hand a panacea for greater troubles than the forced possession of a burro, for, like old King David, he can "lift up his eyes unto the hills." It was impossible to think long of anything that afternoon but the majestic appearance of Pike's Peak as it towered above the line of mountains before it.

The first stage of our journey ended, as it had begun, on the platform of a railway station, and the bustle and confusion brought to mind the morning at Kansas City, and caused the Colonel, remembering his interlocutor there, to remark to a friend, just as the sun came out from behind a cloud, and gave a new glory to the range: "The old fellow was right; it is a white man's country."

And then on the face of the Commodore there appeared a novel expression, in which a species of embarrassment struggled with a fiendish delight. The cause was not long in making itself known. In front of a curious log-cabin, devoted to the display of curiosities, stood a very thin and feeble boy, almost extinguished by a gigantic hat, and holding the bridles of the two wretched burros. And then the deep design all came out. The Commodore dropped all pretenses, and said that if any one thought that a burro was going to get the better of him, he would-his clothes and shoes looked as if he had soon show him that he was mistaken; that he would fight it out on that line if it took all summer; and that he had had the two brutes (and the ignominious pests, according to him, bore the singularly

And then an aged stranger, with a brown and wrinkled face and gray beard

walked all the way from Leadville down through the Ute Pass-who had come close up to the speaker, quietly remarked: "You bet that's just everlastingly so, Colonel, and don't you forget it!"

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CHAPTER XI.

DRAWING NEARER.

HE is all alone on deck. The morning sun shines on the beautiful blue bay, on the great castle perched on the rocks over there, and on the wooded

green hills beyond. She has got a canvas fixed on her easel; she sings to herself as she works.

Now this English young lady must have beguiled the tedium of her long nursing in Edinburgh by making a particular acquaintance with Scotch ballads;

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"NOT DARING TO STIR HAND OR FOOT LEST HE SHOULD DISTURB HER.

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