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Show 68 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS. ludicrous. Immediately the guns of the guard were brought to a ' present arms.' With my camp knife I cut the ropes which bound the prisoners, pushed them before me through the crowd, remounted my horse, and, accompanied by a single assistant^-a staunch fellow named Bill Burdett, who is now a faithful guard at the State penitentiary at Conon City-marched back across the mountains in the night, by a lonely trail, and sent the prisoners to Denver, where they were tried, convicted and sentenced to a term of years in the penitentiary at Alton, Illinois. "And so were the foundations of law and order laid by the pioneers. When they were without Territorial organization each separate community was an independent sov-^ ereignty, with a democracy as pure as was that of Greece, and a republic as potent as was that of Rome." Soon after the Governor's arrival in Colorado, he issued a call for a regiment of volunteer troops, with which to hold the Territory for the Union. In a few weeks one thousand men from the mountains and the glens rallied around him, in appearance a motley concourse, clad in all the odd fashions ever seen in a new and mountain district, and armed with such guns as the Governor had been able to purchase from individual owners-old rifles, shot-guns, old muskets, and anything, indeed, that resembled a firearm. But the loyalty and courage of these men saved the Union cause in Colorado and New Mexico, and well earned the uniforms and approved rifles with which they were afterwards supplied at Fort Union. Pressing southward, they met Sibley's force and drove it back into Texas. This is claimed to be the first decisive victory won by the Government in the war for the Union. |
