At Pueblo

When we arrived at Pueblo, the first settlement of any size we had come to since leaving Lawrence, I supposed that we had reached our journey's end, and a feeling of disappointment swept over me as I gazed about me, for it was by no means the kind of a country I had expected to find.

Although I could not call myself an expert farmer, I knew that the soil which we had left behind us in Lawrence was much more fertile than the sandy bottom lands about Pueblo, and I began anxiously to debate the question as to how any one could earn a living in such a forlorn place.

As Mrs. Middleton told me, shortly after we came to a halt, this settlement had been established by the Mexicans, who later had practically abandoned it, although there were still four or five families living in the less ruinous of the houses.

The buildings were all made of sun dried brick which the Mexicans call adobe, but the greater number of them had fallen into a state of decay. Some of the houses were roofless; the side walls or chimneys of, others had tumbled in, and only now and then might one find a dwelling that would come somewhere near to being weather tight.

It was a scene of ruin and desolation, and in despair I asked myself whether, after struggling so hard to reach this wretched spot, I could do better than to find some means of retracing my steps, long and wearisome though the journey had been.

It was foolish of me to borrow trouble concerning this place, as I soon came to know. The leaders of our company had stopped there only to decide upon some definite course, for, as I learned then, they had left their homes without any clear plan of action, save that they were all of one mind as to their intention of reaching the gold country.

When we turned our backs on Lawrence I had understood that nearly all the people with whom I journeyed were looking forward to tilling the land, believing that the soil of Colorado would be found to be more generous than that of Kansas; but now that we had actually come into the land of treasure I soon gathered that there had been aroused in the minds of many of the men a keen desire to try gold digging, while but few, and among them Mr. Middleton, still held firm to the resolution they had made before setting out.