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Show THE GREAT INDIAN SCARE OF '64. 83 sumed its business-like tranquility, but the great scare furnished a topic for conversation long after. It originated from a train of Mexican freighters, camping for the night some fifteen miles east of Denver. They were throwing their arms high in the air and shouting to their unruly cattle, which caused the headlong arrival of the ranchman into the city, who so admirably succeeded in imparting his fears to the citizens. These panics were not confined to Denver alone. A Mrs. C , who owned a ranch way up the country, had sent her men out to gather in the stock. While sitting alone in the house, cogitating on the various Indian rumors, she began to feel afraid, and looking out of the back door she saw an Indian in the willows. She remembered hearing the boys say something about having seen fresh tracks in that gulch, and now she was satisfied that they were Indian tracks. There were sixty guns in the chamber above, that had been left there by the Government, and quick as thought she rushed up stairs, seized a gun, rested the end on the floor, and while examining to see if it was loaded, it went off, sending the bullet with such force that it tore up the floor, went through and through her new patent churn in the kitchen, and battered up the milk pahs in the cellar most shamefully. Without stopping to meditate upon the danger and power of that weapon, she took another, tore out a port hole, and seeing the black head just above the willows, she took aim and fired. The bark flew in every direction, and lo and behold, in the heat of her imagination, she had shot an old,stump. The ranchmen clubbed together, built forts and block houses, and moved their families to them for safety. |