How We Transported Our Goods

Mr. Middleton had found it a difficult job to get transportation for the goods which he bought in Leavenworth. All the wagon trains setting out from that place to the Colorado country were loaded with the goods of the emigrants, and so strong was the tide of people setting toward the mines that any one who could not command a team of his own was forced to seek high and low, and end by paying extravagant prices to people who would consent to carry his goods over the trail.

Those crazy prospectors offered to pay almost any price to get their goods hauled, acting more like madmen than like sensible citizens, for it seemed as if they believed that an hour earlier in arriving at the mines would make them rich beyond the dreams of avarice, while by delaying ever so short a time they might lose all chance of getting their share of the gold which nature had hidden so cunningly.

Mr. Middleton had been able to arrange for hauling only a part of the merchandise he had bought, trusting that the remainder would be forwarded as soon as might be possible. Thus, when our place of business was first opened, we had only the skeleton of a stock of goods; but yet it made a beginning, and gave me the pleasure of regarding myself as a real merchant.

When I learned that we must wait many a long day before getting our shop in proper order, it seemed to me that many chances were slipping by us. I had become somewhat like those would-be gold seekers who counted every moment precious; and I might have fretted until I had become a nuisance to those around me, had not Mr. Middleton one day reproved me