Mr. Middleton Goes on a Journey

When we had harvested our crops and had sold all the corn, save what was kept for our own needs, Mr. Middleton decided to look up our old neighbors, and leaving me in charge of the house, he departed, making use of my horse, and agreeing to pay me a dollar a day for the services of the animal.

In order that the reasons which led us soon after to abandon Fountain City may be made plain, I must go ahead somewhat in my story, and repeat what Mr. Middleton told his wife and me when he came back from the journey to the new town of St. Charles.

It appears that when he arrived at Cherry Creek he found that our people from Lawrence, having grown homesick, or having again been attacked by the gold fever, had deserted their claims, some of them making for the mountains, and others returning to Lawrence with the intention of coming back in the spring.

At about this time, or it may have been before the people abandoned St. Charles, a company of men from Iowa came into the Colorado country, and decided to settle on the west bank of Cherry Creek. When Mr. Middleton arrived there and found that his old neighbors were no longer in the vicinity, the new settlement, Auraria, had already taken on the appearance of a real town, and it was such a likely place for a city that emigrants were gathering there rapidly.