Izzy Bird, 150 miles
October 06, 2020
In the last five days, Isabella has ridden 150 miles.
Shortly after she left the lovely cabin near Hayden’s Divide, she spent a “quiet Sunday with agreeable people” at Colonel Kittridge’s cabin.* Her one comment about the place was that it “was very small and lonely, and the life seemed a hard grind for an educated and refined woman.”
The view, however, contains three peaks of Pike’s Peak and is agreeable.
When she left the next morning, she slid off of Birdie’s back to open a gate, turned around, and Birdie was gone.** “I spent an hour trying to catch her, but she had taken an ‘ugly fit,’ and would not let me go near her; I was getting tired and vexed, when two passing trappers, on mules, circumvented and caught her.”
The pair rode on. They crossed the headwaters of the Platte River and found a ranch owned by “a great hunter named Link, which much resembled a good county inn.” They had a splendid if rustic supper. “While Mrs Link was serving us… she was orating on the greediness of English people, saying that ‘you would think they traveled through the country only to gratify their palates’; and addressed me, asking if I had not observed it! I am nearly always taken for a Dane or a Swede, never for an Englishwoman, so I often hear a good deal of outspoken criticism.”
*Remember him?
** I KNOW.
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