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




Disappointed Prospectors

When the corn was in tassel, the ditches dug and filled, and a breathing space had come when we might wait more at our ease for the returns from our venture, there appeared at the bank of the river a company of nineteen gold seekers from Missouri, who, having failed in their quest, were now bound homeward, worn out and disheartened.

Their cattle were lean almost to the verge of starvation from having hauled the heavy wagons so many miles over rocky hills and sandy plains, and the men themselves looked as if they had been on the tramp half a dozen years.

News of their coming to camp on our side of the river spread quickly, and all our company, including Mrs. Middleton and the children, went out to welcome them, taking bread and bacon, for we had had experience before of the appetites of disappointed miners.

Hungry? They were near to famishing, and although it appeared to me as if we carried them plenty of food, every crumb disappeared so suddenly that it seemed as if magic were at work. Even then the travel-worn prospectors looked at us wistfully, their tired eyes asking dumbly for more.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

We ministered to their wants that night to the best of our ability, giving them food which should have been kept for ourselves, and never thinking of asking a penny in return.