Mr. KenCairn bemoaned the influx of "modem cowboys," new arrivals in the West who have little connection with the land and make their living at computer stations in their homes. "They don't participate in the life of the community," he said.

The Rockies are especially fertile ground for a proliferation of workers who, like Tipple, are variously known as the telecommuters, the modem cowboys or, as Philip Burgess, president of the Denver think-tank Center for the New West, puts it, the "lone eagles."