A JOURNEY WESTWARD

V

I once visited my old haunts in Colorado and Wyoming after about seven
years of absence. I also went to Utah, where spring had come in the rich
valley of the Jordan and the glossy blackbird, with wing of flame,
scooted gaily from bough to bough, deftly declaring his affections right
and left, and acquiring more wives than he could support, then clearing
his record by claiming to have had a revelation which made it all right.

One could not shut his eyes to the fact that there was great real estate
activity in the West that spring. It took the place of mining and stock,
I judge, and everywhere you heard and saw men with their heads together
plotting against the poor rich man. In Salt Lake I saw the sign, "Drugs
and Real Estate."

I presume it meant medicine and a small residence lot in the cemetery.

In early days in Denver, Henry C. Brown, then in the full flush and
vigor of manhood, opened negotiations with the agent of the Atchison
stage line for a ticket back to Atchison, as he was heart-broken and
homesick. He owned a quarter-section of land, with a heavy growth of
prairie dogs on it, and he had almost persuaded the agent to swap him a
ticket for this sage brush conservatory, when the ticket seller backed
gently out of the trade. Mr. Brown then sat him down on the sidewalk and
cried bitterly.

I just tell this to show how easily some men weep. Atchison is at
present so dead that a good cowboy, with an able mule, could tie his
rope to its tail, and, putting his spurs to the mule, jerk loose the
entire pelt at any time, while Brown's addition to Denver is worth
anywhere from one and a half to two millions of dollars. When Mr. Brown
weeps now it is because his food is too rich and gives him the gout. He
sold prairie dogs enough to fence the land in so that it could not blow
into Cherry Creek vale, and then he set to work earnestly to wait for
the property to advance. Finding that he could not sell the property at
any price, he, with great foresight, concluded to retain it. Some men,
with no special ability in other directions, have the greatest genius
for doing such things, while others, with superior talent in other ways,
do not make money in this way.

A report once got around that I had made a misguess on some property.
This is partly true, only it was my wife who speculated. She had never
speculated much before, though she had tried other open air amusements.
So she swapped a cotta