Tales of the Colorado Pioneers. Alice Polk Hill
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have caught some contagious disease, and so made a burnt offering of his suit; while the laundry was converted for a time into an undertaking establishment and had a burying in the back yard.
“Next morning when the earnest workers came poking around, he assumed an air of offended dignity and said he had been made a victim of a base conspiracy. He folded his arms on the back of a chair and rested his chin on them after the style of Raphael’s cherubs, and asked—
“ ‘ Where do you fellows expect to go when you die ? ’
“Now,” said Mr. Clark, “that will break the monotony of your book and make it vastly more entertaining.”
“For freshest wits I know will soon be wearie
Of any book, how grave so e’er it be,
Except it have odd matter, strange and merrie,
Well sauc’d with lies and glared all with glee.’ ’’
40 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
A FOOT RACE.
“That brings to my mind a foot race,” said Mr. Rich¬ ardson, “that came off between Kendrick and Adams in the early days of Denver, though I don’t know that it will bear comparison, for it’s all truth and no poetry; but at any rate you shall have it. I was ranching at that time on Bear creek, and had a neighbor who claimed to be an M. D. He was the dude of those days and took to himself the airs and privileges of the species. His favorite apparel was a black cloth suit, white vest, in the buttonhole of which was looped a massive gold chain; his shirt front was always immaculate, and his cravat as white as a clergyman’s. His boots reflected like a mirror, and he wore his plug hat tipped to one side like the leaning tower of Pisa.
“One of his peculiarities was the Partihgtonian use of big words. He was standing one day quietly contemplating his cabin, and said it looked well enough on the exterior but he was not at all pleased with the intestinal arrangements.
“The Doctor became deeply interested in the aforesaid foot race. He claimed that Adams was his intimate friend; he had known him before coming West, and whispered to me as a profound secret that they were going to throw the race in Adams’ favor—‘it was a dead open and shut, Adams himself was the informer.’
“The Doctor immediately set about betting his effects —even his watch and chain, finger rings and stove-pipe hat, and seemed to look forward with contented ecstacy to an opulent pile ready for use.
“When the competitors went upon the ground, the gamblers had gotton wind that Kendricks intended to
A TALE OF HORROR. 41
allow Adams to win the race. They surrounded Kendricks with drawn revolvers and told him to win or die. It was a race for life then, and he moved his legs with a concentrated and desperate energy. The result was, all who bet on Adams lost.
“ The next time I saw the Doctor he w T as sitting on a bench in front of his cabin, spoiled of his jewels, stirring butter in a tin cup with a spoon. He said, ‘ I’ll be tetotally cosmographied if that foot-race wasn’t a hyperbolical swindle.’”
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CHAPTER VIII.
A TALE OF HORROR.
“I was in the first coach of the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express Company,” said Mr. Barney. “It arrived in Denver on the 7th of May, 1859. The supply wagons were sent on ahead, locating the stations, and every twenty-five miles they would drop a tent, a stove, and a cook. At that season of the year the twilight is short, so when we drew up at this station for supper it was quite dark. When I entered the tent I saw the most soul-sickening sight that my eyes ever rested upon, and the flickering light of the candle added intensity to the horror. At first I thought it was a ‘spirit from the vasty deep’—a ghost or hobgoblin from the great unknown. I felt sick—it is real weakening to feel one’s self in the presence of the—departed—no, the returned dead.
“The poor man, from starvation, was reduced to a living skeleton. Rip Van Winkle himself could not have looked more ghastly.
“ He was in the last stages of exhaustion when an In¬ dian found him and brought him to the tent. After he
42 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
was refreshed with food and stimulants he told his sick¬ ening story.
“ Three brothers set out from Illinois in a one-horse cart for the gold region. From Leavenworth they took the Smoky Hill route. Guided by incorrect ideas of the distance, they were poorly prepared for the hardships of the journey, and their provisions gave out before they were half way. They killed their horse for food and loaded their cart with it, taking time about in the harness of the slaughtered animal. It was tedious, and their strength was rapidly going. When the last piece of flesh was gone they sat down in despair to die, for they had wandered away from the trail in search of water, and had no hope of being found by a human being. One sank faster than the other, and when dying requested the surviving brothers to live upon his flesh and try to get through. He died, and they commenced their cannibalistic feast—ate the body, and again saw starvation staring them in the face. Another died, which furnished food to the remaining brother. He said he had even crushed the skull and eaten the brains.
“Mr. Williams, conductor of the Express, after hearing the story, had the Indian pilot him to the spot, where he found the bones of the one who died last, and buried them.
“ We took the miserable famished creature in the coach to Denver. His body regained health and strength, but his mind was gone. He remained always an imbecile. The citizens of Denver made up a purse and sent him to his friends in ‘the States.’”
“FIRED OUT.”
“ Speaking of coach rides,” said another pioneer, “prob¬ ably the most exciting, for those engaged in it, occurred
“FIRED OUT.” 43
in one of the ‘down’ coaches between Denver and Leav¬ enworth early in ’60.
“Among the passengers were the late Louis F. Bartels, of Denver, two brothers by the name of Boyd, and a German.
“ We were camped at Alkali station with our freight outfit. The coach drove in about 4 a. m., and stopped for breakfast. We saw, from our camp, the passengers alight, go in to their meal, and afterwards take their seats in the coach and start off. When opposite our camp a firing commenced in the coach. The passengers bounded out and prepared apparently for action against a foe who was inside. The driver dismounted, opened the coach door (which had been closed by the party inside) and instantly received a slash in the face from a huge knife. The passengers who had been ‘fired out’ returned the compliment with ‘overpowering politeness,’ and in a few minutes all was over.
“They drew their victim from the coach, with sixteen bullet holes in him, but yet alive. They then strapped the body of their dead friend on the top of the coach, and after dressing the wounds that had been inflicted by the desperate murderer, as best they could, the coach rolled on for the East.
“ The body of the dead man on top of the coach as it pulled into Cottonwood Springs, caused the arrest of the whole party, and developed the facts that after leaving Alkali station the strange passenger suddenly drew a revolver and shot the man Boyd immediately in front of him in the face, killing him instantly. He then wounded another before being seized by Mr. Bartels, who turned the muzzle downwards, and the remaining shots went
44 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
through the bottom of the coach. When released, he drew a large knife, and the frightened passengers got out in tumultuous haste. Upon this statement they were allowed to proceed. The strange passenger died soon after being thrown from the coach, and was buried by the