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




Cured of the Gold Fever

I realized, of course, that now and again there might be found a man who had been extraordinarily successful and had made himself suddenly rich in a few hours; but, fortunately, I had common sense enough to grasp the fact that it was all a matter of chance.

Thus I made rapid recovery from the fever, and no longer indulged in foolish dreams of journeying to that Tom Tiddler's ground of Colorado, where a fortune could be picked up for the taking; but I resolutely worked at such tasks as came to hand, saving up every penny I earned that was not needed to pay for my food and clothing.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

Gradually I had come to believe that all my life would be spent in the little town of Lawrence; that my humble part was to be that of one who earns his daily bread by what the Bible calls the "sweat of his face."

One day Mrs. Middleton surprised me by the announcement that she and her husband, with their children, and forty or more of their fellow-townspeople, had made up their minds to journey into the land of gold, not with the intention of digging, but with the hope of finding in the Colorado country a better farm than could be had in Kansas, for a small expenditure of money. There were in the company, however, some who were bent only on mining; but, as Mrs. Middleton made clear, her husband had no such idea. After having explained, as far as she knew, what they hoped to accomplish, she ended by saying, in her kindly way, putting her arms about my neck much as my own mother would have done:—

"Why not go with us, Seth? You say you want to be a farmer, and with the money which you have put away, I believe it might be possible to buy land enough to be called a real farm."