Reminiscences of a Pioneer - Albert E. Sprague

Loveland Herald

             I presume by the first man that traveled it (we called it something like that) to the North Fork of the Thompson. Here we camped for two or three days, caught all the trout we could eat, made coffee in our goldpan, and fed like kings, prospected for gold a little and for some distance searched for a way out.

             We found that Griff and Jim were right, we could not go down the stream as it was closed by a box canyon.  We had to go up the fork and around a mountain to a glade, then followed down the glade to the stream and the mouth of Miller's Fork -- so named from the accidental killing of a man that name by a Mr. Dennison, an early hunter in the Estes Park Region. 

            Near the mouth of Miller's Fork we found an old prospector camping, and we made our camp near him. It was well worth an early stop, for he entertained us with the story of his wanderings until well after bed time. He had been in all the gold camps of the world and was then on a trip to find one of his own. He told us he had started somewhere in old Mexico and was going to follow the Rocky Mountains into the Artic Ocean, unless he found what he wanted before he reached that point. If I only had a picture of him and his outfit, I would certainly have it copyrighted. The little old hairy donkey that looked as though he had the habit of rolling in the ashes of the camp fire before all the coals were out, was a picturesque sight to behold. The hair was singed nearly to the skin in spots and long over the rest of his body.

             The man was just as hairy, only his eyes showed through a wad of matted hair that looked as though he had sawed the locks off with a dull knife when they got in the way.  Only for having seen "man animals" before, we would never have camped near the outfit. Among his stories was one of a big bear he met on a sharp turn around a ledge -- the trail so narrow that the donkey could not turn.  When he caught sight of the animal it was sitting on its haunches looking him and his outfit over. The donkey nearly broke the cinches of the pack drawing in his breath. The man was too paralyzed to move. The bear, after looking the outfit over, got down on all fours with a grunt and lit out on his back-track.  I did not tell him what I thought saved him.  No one could blame that bear for wanting to be somewhere else as soon as possible.

             After the night with the prospector, we made a detour to the south around a canyon, over a. ridge, and down another glade.  When near the creek, we ran onto our first bear in a cherry thicket. He did not stop to look us over -- he had finished his breakfast, I suppose.  He was nice and black and he wanted his hide to show the folks at home.  Milo with the rifle and Farley with the shotgun jumped from their horses -- Milo trying to get a bead on the escaping bear, and Parley running circles around us yelling, "Give me a cop, give me a cap!"  His