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Show 18 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS. thing to have in the house. It's the fulcrum that moves the world; it buys everything, even a husband or wife. When Green Russell exhibited his buckskin bag of shining dust to the men who had lost their all, it caused a wild, indiscriminate rush to the new Eldorado, embracing good, bad and indifferent; the educated and illiterate; the merchant, the speculator, the mechanic, the farmer, the gambler, some of every kind-a sort of human mosaic, marshalled under a banner which bore the forceful if inelegant legend, " Pike's Peak or Bust." A journej' from the Missouri river in those days occupied from six to seven weeks. Wagons christened "prairie schooners," drawn by the contemplative ox and the patient mule, supplemented by the " foot and walker line," were the only means of transportation. Pullman sleepers were unknown. There were no settlements on the way, no opportunity to procure supplies for man or beast, save at the occasional stations of Ben Holladay's overland stage line to California. It was genuine courage that prompted the pioneers to such a journey in the face of approaching winter, for the plains, covered with snow and infested with hostile Indians and wild beasts, like the Clashing Islands that closed after the Argo and her crew of heroes, would cut them off from any communication with home or friends for months-years, perhaps; they knew not how long. It was by the help of Medea, who was found at the end of the road, that Jason captured the golden fleece. A few of the Argonauts of '59, thinking "a bird in the hand worth two in the bush," took their helpmeets with them. They were not painted society belles or light-brained coquettes, but women of good practical sense and moral and physical strength. They had |