1890. J PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 95 



we were not much better off. Some of them went off, and 

 loads of provision were bought by somebody to feed those 

 who stayed. 



" After that the look ahead wasn't bright, there wasn't 

 grain enough in the country for spring planting ; so, as 

 soon as we could travel, Ave put our claim into the hands of 

 an agent to sell, and, rigging up a prairie schooner, headed 

 for Colorado, thinking as hard luck followed all trials at 

 farming, we would try mining for a change. It was a long 

 journey and a rough one, but we struck Pike's Peak after a 

 while, and went on up to Denver. There were people 

 enough, and hurrah enough, and mining talk enough, there ; 

 but no mines. So we kept on west into a crack of the 

 mountain so narrow and so deep that sunlight didn't reach 

 the bottom, and it was crookeder than a meadow brook; 

 but it led at last to a mining town that was hanging around 

 promiscuously in the sides of the ledges, and called Black- 

 hawk. It didn't take more than two days for me to find out 

 that we were out of place. I could not find any leads, veins 

 or color of gold on the surface, I wouldn't work in a dark 

 hole a thousand feet deep down in the bowels of the moun- 

 tain, and I couldn't make salt shovelino; and washino; gravel 

 down in Clear Creek with a gang of Chinamen. But I had 

 my team, and could get good wages hauling rocks to the 

 smelter ; so we concluded to stop awhile, and we did for 

 eighteen months, but all the time trying to get information 

 so that the next move should be a good one, and a final one. 

 Our plans were finally laid, and we are so far on our way to 

 carry them out, and have only stopped here for a few weeks 

 to rest and refit. We have started for southern California, 

 to go into fruit raising; for, from all we can learn, that is 

 the coming thing. But of all the countries man or beast 

 ever traveled over, this along here caps the whole ; it is all 

 in hummocks tipped up or tipped down, there is no rain, no 

 water unless it smells of brimstone, nothing grows on it but 

 sage brush ; and this journey I reckon is like going through 

 purgatory to paradise." 



We did not dispute him, but bade the family good-by, 

 impressed by the sad, weary, hopeless look stamped on the 

 face of that wife and mother ; and also that men of a certain 



