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




My Opportunity

I replied that such a plan was impossible, because even if I gave up all the money I had, it would not be sufficient to pay my share of the cost of the journey; but at once she went on, showing how long and how carefully she had been thinking out this plan to help me:—

"I am certain that if you will agree to aid Mrs. Holmes and me in caring for the children, and will do your share of driving the cattle, you can go with us, if you wish, free of expense."

Again the Colorado fever seized me; but this time there came with it no vision of sudden riches. The suggestion appealed to me strongly, boy though I was, that in a wild country like that I might be able to buy a fair-sized claim of land with perhaps no more than half my savings, and have the remainder to spend for tools and stock.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

Or I might, thought I, venturing far away from the others, at the risk, to be sure, of being wiped out by the Indians, enter a claim of my own at no larger cost of purchase than the government demanded, and thus be forehanded at the start.