128 Reminiscences of 



(worth to make about forty cents) was as large, meta- 

 phorically saying, as a cart-wheel. Everybody had 

 mines to sell, and no buyers, and expectant million- 

 aires were hard up for tobacco and stimulants. I 

 hired one afterwards to ride a mule with a load of pro- 

 visions and cooking utensils to go into the parks on a 

 hunting excursion, who modestly computed the value 

 of his holdings at twenty millions of dollars, and who 

 had put up his ten-dollar silver watch for a small loan 

 to tide himself over, as he told me. 



The occupants of the numerous caravans of 1863 

 and 1864, which had struggled across the plains so 

 manfully for the auriferous deposits of the Rocky 

 Mountains, with the suggestive mottoes on the sides of 

 their ships of the plains of "Pike's Peak or Bust," had 

 found that the accomplishment of the initial object 

 comprised the full sense of the alternative. 



Denver fell down nearly half in its population in 

 1866 by the exodus out, as soon as the plains were 

 practically cleared of the Indians. The different tribes 

 of the desert were largely overcome in 1866 and 1867 

 and placed under guard on reservations, and it was 

 found much cheaper to feed and blanket them than to 

 fight them. 



I fished about the streams of Boulder and Clear 

 creeks with indifferent success, owing largely to the 

 cloudy condition of the waters from mining works. At 

 Central City I met H. M. Teller — now United States 

 Senator from Colorado — who has been a long time in 

 political life. He was the leading attorney in the 

 State, and I trust he will take no offence if I mention 

 that I retained him, in view of possible want of advice, 

 for the sum of thirty dollars for the year. At the Gold 



