MIDDLE PARK. 45

the Georgetown, Empire and Middle Park Wagon
Road to Middle Park, distant 26 miles, via the Ber-
thoud Pass. How I jumped at the kind offer I re-
ceived to join the party may be readily imagined; and
hastily throwing my blankets into the boot, mounted
the box, full of joy at this unexpected “streak of luck.”

As Mr. Patterson says in his account of this trip:
“A keen wind was blowing up the valley as we drove
down to Alvardo, but as the coach rolled over the
bridge upon the Empire road the sun struck us, and
we experienced only pleasant weather thenceforward.
From Empire to the mill—ground over which a coach
had never passed, and really the roughest part of the
line, as the Company have deferred until next spring
the contemplated improvements—our knight of the rib-
bons kept his fine team well in hand, watching care-
fully every crook and angle in the road. All went
well, and only once did he pause for a moment to let
the horses ‘blow,’ and to feast his eyes upon the
grandeur of those wonderful precipices which stand out
in bold relief on the north side of the stream, reaching
an elevation of nearly a thousand feet. These points
have heretofore been nameless, but as we distinctly saw
a weasel on the distant face of one of them, so clear
was the atmosphere, they shall henceforth be as re-
nowned as the ‘Peaks of Otter’ in Virginia, and be
known as the ‘Peaks of Weasel.’ Reaching the new
road six miles from Empire, the gallant team wheeled
to the right and our real experiment began. A grade

of ten feet in the hundred, not a break anywhere from .

 

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