A hand-drawn route and letters to settlers made a lone woman’s horseback journey safe.

Evidence

I had intended to leave Birdie at Denver, but Governor Hunt and Mr. Byers of the Rocky Mountain News both advised me to travel on horseback rather than by train and stage telling me that I should be quite safe, and Governor Hunt drew out a route for me and gave me a circular letter to the settlers along it. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 157

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the informal infrastructure of frontier hospitality — circular letters and personal introductions substituting for roads, inns, and police.
• FICTION: A circular letter to strangers along a route is a ready-made mechanism for pacing a journey narrative or a western.