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Show 74 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS. a letter here for me. The stern official looked carelessly through a bundle of letters, and said in the same metallic, harsh voice, ' nothing for you.' "' Oh, sir,' I said, ' there must be a letter for me.' " With corrugated brow, he thundered out, ' I told you once, and I don't propose to look again!' "All that was left to us was to go on; who can imagine our hopes, our fears, our prayers, in the gloom that surrounded us. * "When evening came we were out on the rough green plains that ' no man reaps,' in the midst of an eternal and infinite solitude, with a horrible death at the hands of the ' noble red man,' staring us in the face. Our hearts seemed to be beating funeral marches, and our watches served only to arouse the old superstition of death ticks. Oh, what a procession of phantoms went dashing through my highly excited brain! "We camped one night at Roper's ranch, where we found a number of women and children, who had gathered from the ranches around, and were wringing their hands and crying in great confusion. " They said the Indians had been there dressedHn 'airy nothing,' and gorgeously ornamented with 'war-paint' The men had gone to gather in the stock. " A train of eleven wagons had camped there for supper. They had freight that was due in Denver at a certain time, and it was imperative for them to move on, so they resumed their journey at eleven o'clock that night, and said to me, ' come right along with us, we will protect you.' The woman who had been so kind in her efforts to relieve my sick child, urged me to stay there, but something impelled me to go on. With pallid lips we |
