A Sportsman 357 



tory were much, unsettled, and when no other section 

 of the country could have equalled it in lawlessness 

 and rough life. In relating the experiences I had 

 there, which were fraught with so many unpleasant 

 incidents, which I do not look back upon with par- 

 ticular satisfaction, I have some doubt if my readers 

 may not look at them with some degree of incredulity, 

 and especially with wonderment that I should have 

 submitted myself to such experiences. But we do not 

 know what may befall us in our movements, and once 

 engaged we are usually necessitated to keep on, and 

 my recitations will be of simple facts as they occurred. 



The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad was 

 then building rapidly along the Rio Grande, having 

 been diverted from its proposed direction at the town 

 of Pueblo, in Colorado, by the opposition of the Denver 

 and Rio Grande railroad, which claimed the right 

 of way up the Arkansas River into the mining regions 

 of the Rocky Mountains. This route was through 

 a narrow gorge, where only space existed for many 

 miles for one railroad, and the dispute which occurred 

 led to an array of armed forces of several thousand 

 men, which threatened the peace of the whole Terri- 

 tory, and was finally settled in favor of the Denver and 

 Rio Grande railroad by its payment in compromise 

 to the Santa Fe" railroad of about a million dollars. 



Upon this settlement, the latter road, being com- 

 pelled to go somewhere from the weight of its mo- 

 mentum arising from the capital pledged and the 

 eager spirit of building which then prevailed, pursued 

 its course from La Junta, east of Pueblo, near the 

 New Mexico line, into that Territory, which, seemingly, 

 was about as sterile and unpromising a region as could 



