alt="Image"/>no time or worsted to waste in
making deformed cats and dogs;
but their husbands’ garments were
models of “crazy patchwork,” and
they practiced “wood carving”
twice a day, at the morning and
evening camp-fires.
There were no “Mother Hub¬
bard ” gowns in those days.
“Picture,” said Judge Stone, in
his address to the Barnacles, “a
pioneer woman in a ‘ Mother Hub¬
bard’ gown, sailing around a win¬
dy camp-fire, or climbing in and out of the hind end of a
prairie schooner! No; our pioneer women had no such
‘loose habits.’”
Unfeigned joy filled the hearts of the weary and travel-
worn pilgrims when, with eager, wistful gaze they des¬
cried in the distance the everlasting watch-towers of the
continent, that marked the gold fields the} 7 were seeking.
They pitched their tents under the cottonwood trees on
the west side of Cherry creek, near its junction with the
Platte, about twelve miles from the base of the Rocky
mountains, and called the settlement Auraria—after an
unimportant mining town in Georgia—with the belief,
that in the mountains they would soon make their “pile”
and return to their homes to live forever afterwards in
affluence. For not one of the many thousands who came
cherished a thought of building a permanent home here.
Apropos is the story of the Dutchman who was hanged
for stealing. (Hanging was the punishment for all dev¬
iltry in those days.) Before adjusting the noose he was
20 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
asked what he had to say for himself. With a quavering voice he said, “I come out mit de spring to stay mit de summer and go back mit de fall, but now I tink I vill stay all de vile.” He was duly planted, and warranted to remain as a “permanent settler.”
The same winter the town of St. Charles was located on the east bank of Cherry creek. It was afterwards called Denver, in honor of Governor Denver, of Kansas, this part of the Territory being at that time within the boundaries of Kansas.
Those cottonwood trees became a focus for the converg¬
ing rays of immigration, and the foundation for the “ Queen City of the Plains” was laid without knowing it. Therefore it may be said, Denver was not premeditated— it just happened. And now that it is “ flourishing like a green bay tree,” the pioneers love to sit under its wide-spreading branches and tell how it was planted and grew —talk over the days that “tried men’s souls,” and laugh over the customs that were new.
Many of the tales told are more like the “Arabian Nights” stories than matter-of-fact history, as will appear in the course of our narratives.
________
CHAPTER II.
A RETROSPECT.
Colorado had no distinctive position on the maps at that time, although the country had been explored as early as 1540 by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico to glean information respecting the northern possessions claimed
A RETROSPECT. 21
by that sovereign. Tradition tells us that he went in search of the seven cities of Cibolla, that were supposed to be situated in a peaceful, luxurious sort of “Happy Valley of Rassalas,” enclosed by huge mountains of solid gold. History, however, gives no record of his having discovered the key to the suspected treasure vaults.
The name Colorado has been by some mistakenly sup¬ posed to be a corruption of Coronado; but, on the con¬ trary, it is a common Spanish word, from the verb colorar, to color, usually to color red, and means colored red, ruddy. It is a name frequently applied to rivers, mountains and localities in Spanish America, where the prevalence of red rocks and soil constitutes a characteristic physical feature of many portions of the country.
This portion of our continent was a sealed book for nearly three centuries after Coronado; and was generally designated the Great American Desert. In 1803 the United States purchased from France the immense territory known as Louisiana, the price being fifteen millions of dollars—one of the largest real estate transactions on record.
In 1806, Captain Zebulon Pike was sent with a party of Government explorers to ascertain the resources of this new acquisition. They camped where Pueblo now stands. On the day of their arrival the Captain and a few of his company started out with the idea of scaling the Big Mountain, as they called it, and returning the same evening. When night closed around them they found themselves at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, and the next day toiled to the top of it. On reaching the summit, the Big Mountain appeared to be as far away as when they first began. The enterprise resulted in igno-
22 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
minious defeat. They returned to their camp almost famished, and with their feet frozen; thereby, possibly, adding to the vernacular of the West the term “ tender¬ foot.”
Their mistake in the distance, caused by the rarified atmosphere, probably originated the story of the two men who started to walk to the mountains from Denver before breakfast. After tramping what seemed to them an unconscionable distance, one suggested to the other to proceed slowly, while he returned to Denver for a carriage. When overtaken by the friend, in the carriage, the pedes¬ trian was sitting on the bank of a clear running brook, scarcely more than a step in breadth, deliberately taking off his clothes. On being asked why he did not step across, he replied: “I’ve got the dead-wood on this thing now; you don’t catch me making a fool of myself by trying to straddle this stream. It looks but a step, but it may be a mile for all I know; so I shall just take off my clothes and prepare for swimming.”
Every one who has ever heard of Colorado or set foot in it tells that story.
But to return to Pike. He did not take to himself the credit of being the first explorer of Western Louisiana, but accords the honor to one James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky. Pursley, with amazing generosity, credits it to Pike. The politeness of these gentlemen is without a parallel in history. Had they known the importance
