Contents ▼▲
Front Matter How I Came to Write my Story Who I am My Great Loss My Worldly Wealth Plans for the Future The Gold Fever My Great Disappointment Cured of the Gold Fever My Opportunity How I Might Work My Way Keeping My Bargain At Pueblo A Welcome Time of Rest Outbreak of Gold Fever Opportunity for Money Middleton Agrees With Me Middleton's Proposition Gold Seekers Land Claims Our Ranch Building a Dwelling Corn and Gold Dreams of a Harvest Disappointed Prospectors Returning Evil for Good Striving to Save Our Corn Defending Our Own A Council of War Interview With The Enemy Missouri Miners Make Sport How to Collect The Debt Possession of Cattle Night Before the Battle A War of Words The Prospectors Try to Kill Us A Real Battle A Truce Terms of Peace The Enemy Surrenders The Prospectors Depart The Growth of Our City Farming Or Mining My Share of the Harvest Middleton Goes on a Journey Auraria and Denver Middleton Turns Trader Middleton's Plan A Weighty Problem Middleton's Partner A Change of Homes Arrival At Auraria The Town of Denver We Hire a Shop I Regret Turning Merchant How We Transported Goods Middleton's Advice The Tide of Emigration Finding Goods By the Roadside Gold in Colorado How the Cities Grew A Post Office in Auraria Letters From Home Our Business Flourishes Denver Outstripping Auraria Claim Jumping The Claim Club The Turkey War The Need of Government Union of Denver and Auraria What Others Thought of Us Territory of Colorado Good Citizenship Civil War Breaks Out Need of a Jail Denver in Flames Our Loss By Fire Mrs. Middleton Consoles Us Good Resulting From Evil Middleton's Honesty Rebuilding Denver The Flood Destruction of the Town In Great Peril The City Destroyed Our Lives Are Spared Fears Regarding the Future Uprising of the Indians Begging for Help A Famine Threatens Horrors of an Indian War My Duty at Home Beginning Over Again My Story is Done

Seth of Colorado - James Otis




Mr. Middleton Agrees with Me

Late that night, after the unsuccessful miners had finished "swapping" their tales of woe and had gone to sleep, I confided to Mr. Middleton what I had been pondering over, and clapping me on the shoulder in his friendly fashion, he said heartily—:

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

"Ah, now you have got at the root of the matter, my boy! Did you think that I would wander hither and yon over this country looking for gold when I could make a home for my wife and children and find more wealth here than I could gain if I became a successful miner? We'll settle down as soon as we come to a favorable spot, and there you and I will make the beginnings of a town, while we raise corn and potatoes for those crazy dreamers who are shirking honest work, and hope to become suddenly wealthy by some lucky stroke of the pick or shovel."

Mr. Middleton went on to tell me that, after halting at Pueblo only long enough to rest the cattle, he, with four or five of the other men, had already laid plans to push on until they should reach a region where the soil gave good promise, taking care, meanwhile, to keep along the trail over which the gold seekers were coming and going.

Then, without delay, even before spending the time to build houses, we could live in the wagons for a while longer, seed was to be put into the ground.