Peak and Prairie From a Colorado Sketch-book   By: Anna Fuller (1853-1916)

By ANNA FULLER

A Literary Courtship: Under the Auspices of Pike's Peak. 28th thousand. 16° $1.25

A Venetian June. Illustrated. 15th thousand. 16° $1.25

Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch Book. Illustrated. 7th thousand. 16° New Edition. 12° $1.50

Pratt Portraits: Sketched in a New England Suburb. Illustrated, 12th thousand. 12° $1.50

One of the Pilgrims. A Bank Story. 6th thousand. 12° $1.25

Katherine Day. 8th thousand. 12° $1.50

A Bookful of Girls. 4th thousand. Illustrated. 12° $1.50

Later Pratt Portraits. Illustrated $1.50 net

[Illustration: "THE PEAK WAS SUPERB THAT MORNING, BIG AND STRONG AND GLITTERING WITH SNOW."]

PEAK AND PRAIRIE

From a Colorado Sketch Book

By ANNA FULLER

Author of "A Literary Courtship" "Pratt Portraits," Etc.

Illustrated by Emma G. Moore

New York and London G. P. Putnam's Sons

Copyright, 1894 BY ANNA FULLER

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

TO ONE TO WHOM I OWE COLORADO AND MUCH BESIDES THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED

PREFACE.

The sketches of Colorado life which make up this volume are little more than hints and suggestions caught from time to time by a single observer in a comparatively narrow field of observation. Narrow as the field is, however, it offers a somewhat unusual diversity of scene; for that most charming of health resorts known in these pages as Springtown, is the chance centre of many varying interests. In its immediate vicinity exists the life of the prairie ranch on the one hand and that of the mining camp on the other; while dominating all as it were town, prairie, and mountain fastness rises the great Peak which has now for so many years been the goal of pilgrimage to men and women from the Eastern States in pursuit of health, of fortune, or of the free, open air life of the prairie. If, from acquaintance with these fictitious characters set in a very real environment, the reader be led to form some slight impression of the stirring little drama which is going forward to day in that pleasant Land of Promise, he will have incidentally endorsed the claim of these disconnected sketches to be regarded as a single picture.

May, 1894.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE v I. A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST 1 II. BRIAN BORU 36 III. JAKE STANWOOD'S GAL 60 IV. AT THE KEITH RANCH 101 V. THE RUMPETY CASE 123 VI. THE LAME GULCH PROFESSOR 151 VII. THE BOSS OF THE WHEEL 187 VIII. MR. FETHERBEE'S ADVENTURE 217 IX. AN AMATEUR GAMBLE 240 X. A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHIPWRECK 266 XI. A STROKE IN THE GAME 301 XII. THE BLIZZARD PICNIC 335 XIII. A GOLDEN VISTA 369

Note. Of the thirteen sketches included in this volume six have previously appeared in periodicals, as follows: