158 Reminiscences of 



We gave up our expedition to the North Park and 

 I shortly after returned to Boston across the plains 

 by stage, as I came out. When I left Boston for Col- 

 orado, I had five thousand dollars in New York drafts 

 given me by three friends, Oakes Ames, of Union 

 Pacific Railroad celebrity, B. E. Bates, President of the 

 Boston Bank of Commerce, and my friend, Peter 

 Butler, to use in the purchase of Colorado mines at 

 my discretion, and I was to have one half the results 

 jointly with them. I brought back those drafts to 

 them, and Mr. Ames remarked that it was the first 

 money, ventured upon an understanding of similar im- 

 port, which he ever had returned. 



IN the autumn of the same year (1865) I made an- 

 other trip across the plains to Colorado and back. 

 This time I proposed to go through the buffalo country 

 by the Smoky River route, a hundred miles or more 

 south of the stage line, and, having two friends who 

 accompanied me, we bought at the Missouri River a 

 stout pair of mules, with a wagon and saddle-horses, 

 calculating to join a caravan of prairie schooners for 

 protection, and to be a month or more on the road. 

 In the wagon we carried bedding, provisions, and neces- 

 sary articles. Our object in taking this route and 

 going in this manner was to avail ourselves of buffalo 

 and other hunting, of which we had abundance. From 

 the Missouri River caravans were departing daily, and 

 we had no difficulty in connecting ourselves with one. 



