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 Enemy Surrenders

We waited until half an hour or more after sunset, when once again the Missourians came toward us; but this time they were without weapons and tried to make it appear as if their intentions were friendly.

They no longer refused to pay for the damage which had been done. Although outnumbering us three to one, they had come to realize that we might be able to carry out our threat of holding their cattle in payment for the injury to our crops, and it was absolutely necessary they should recover the beasts in order to return to their homes.

[Illustration] from Seth of Colorado by James Otis

They seemed to have only one desire, which was to make the best bargain possible, and until far into the night they haggled over the price to be paid, at first claiming that they were penniless and without sufficient provisions for the homeward journey; but, later on, finding that our people held out stoutly, they admitted having considerable money with them.

Whether Mr. Middleton held out for as much as we had counted as our due, I cannot rightly say, but on the following morning the men paid over for damage to the growing crops five times as much as we could have gained from a bountiful harvest in Lawrence, giving the greater part of the amount in money and the remainder in goods.