We took a long ride that afternoon under a peerless sky, with blue mountain-ranges on one hand, whose ridges, covered with snow, seemed like folds of satin, and on the other the great billowy Plains, bare and brown and smooth as a carpet.  The white horse, relieved of the kegs of nails, really performed prodigies of travel, all the more appreciated because unexpected.  A stone-quarry for which we were searching was not found, but a teamster was, who, while everything solemnly stood still and waited, and amid the agonies of an indescribable stutter, finally managed to enlighten us somewhat as to its whereabouts.  These adventures served to put us in excellent humor, so that when the road was found barricaded by a barbed wire fence, it only served to give one of the party an opportunity to air his views upon the subject—­to argue, in fact, that the barbed wire fence had been an important factor in building up the agricultural greatness of the West.  “For what inducements,” he exclaims, “does the top rail of such a fence offer to the contemplative farmer?  None, sir!  His traditional laziness has been broken up, and great material prosperity is the result.”

Whatever causes have operated to produce the effect, certain it is that the West is eminently prosperous to-day.  Everywhere are seen growth, enterprise and an aggressiveness that stops at no obstacles.  Immigration is pouring into Colorado alone at the rate of several thousands per week.  The government lands are being rapidly taken up, and the stable industries of stock-raising and farming correspondingly extended.  Manufacturing, too, is acquiring a foothold, and many of the necessaries of life, which now must be obtained in the East, will soon be produced at home.  The mountains are revealing untold treasures of silver and gold, and the possibilities which may lie hid in the yet unexplored regions act as a stimulus to crowds of hopeful prospectors.  But while Colorado is receiving her full share of the influx, a tide seems to be setting in toward the old empire of the Aztecs, and flowing through the natural gateway, our old Rocky-Mountain outpost.  It is beginning to be found out that the legends of fabulous wealth which have come down to us from the olden time have much of truth in them, and mines that were worked successively by Franciscan monks, Pueblo Indians, Jesuit priests and Mexicans, and had suffered filling up and obliteration with every change of proprietorship, are now being reopened; and that, too, under a new dispensation which will ensure prosperity to the enterprise.  Spaniard and priest have long since abandoned their claim to the rich possessions, and their doubtful sway, ever upon the verge of revolution and offering no incentive to enterprise, has given place to one of a different character.  Under the protection of beneficent and fostering laws this oldest portion of our Union may now be expected to reveal its wealth of resources to energy and intelligent labor.  And it may confidently be predicted that