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




The Missouri Miners Make Sport of Us

He had hardly finished speaking when the Missouri miners laughed long and loud, behaving as if it were impossible for them to speak for amusement, and all the while Mr. Middleton stood calmly facing them, determined, but unable to enforce his demands by so much as a hair's breadth.

Presently one of those fellows we had fed so generously only the night before, swaggered up to Mr. Middleton like a bully, and shaking his fist savagely, shouted that their cattle must have fodder; that they would take as much of our corn as they wanted; perhaps at the end of three days they would be off and trouble us no more.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

At the end of three days! Long before then every blade of green would have been devoured. He might as well have said plainly that he would go when there was nothing left, and had I been in Mr. Middleton's place I would have told him without mincing words that they were thieves.

"Mind, you shall pay us for our corn," Mr. Middleton repeated calmly. "The price will be less, if you take your cattle away now; but you will certainly have to give us a fair return for what has been eaten."

"And when do you expect to get the money?" the leader of the Missourians asked with a rude laugh which exasperated me more even than the mirth of the others.

"Before you break camp we shall receive our pay, and you are to decide whether the account shall be closed now, or shall run on until we bankrupt you."