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




An Opportunity for Money Getting

I listened with no very keen interest to the tales of disappointment, for I was entirely cured of the gold fever; but when I overheard some of the men complaining that they had been forced to pay ten cents a pound for corn, and from thirty to fifty cents a pound for potatoes, I pricked up my ears.

Eagerly I asked Mr. Holmes how many people he reckoned were roaming about searching for gold, and he answered in all seriousness that they might be numbered by thousands, for he knew of many very large companies which had gone into the diggings. It was undoubtedly true, he said, that a steady stream of men had been flowing into Colorado ever since the first reports had been spread abroad that gold was to be found there.

It would be folly for me, thought I, to dream of turning back simply because the soil around Pueblo was not to my liking. There must be other places where one could count on getting fair crops. If those gold hunters were so numerous, why might it not be possible, I asked myself, for me to turn their madness to good account?

I was burning with eagerness to set out in search of some place where I could plant corn and potatoes, even though I should be no more than a squatter on the land. By this I mean that I should be tilling soil which did not belong to me and without the consent of the rightful owner.