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




A War of Words

As the first broad shafts of light were striking across the fields, the Missourians came on in warlike array, every man of them with a loaded rifle in his hands. Our people, meanwhile, had taken station midway between the cornfield and the pasture where there were trees in sufficient number to afford shelter, in case it should be necessary to fight.

Mr. Middleton checked the advance of the Missourians by stepping out from behind his covert and demanding by what right they were attacking us.

Then began a battle of words, for the prospectors attempted to carry matters with a high hand, and threatened that if their cattle were not allowed to go back into our cornfields without delay, they would open fire upon us, shooting down every man as if he were a dangerous beast.

Mr. Middleton unquestionably gave them as good as they sent, for in reply to this unreasonable and unjust demand he repeated his declaration of the night before, that the cattle would be held until we received fair payment for such of our crops as had been destroyed, and wound up with the bold statement that every one of us was determined to stand to his gun while life remained.