e, but I will make the effort with the ten
men that will go, and if this is a success and we make fortunes, we will
come back and surprise the city."

I said, "Alright, Capt., but if the people of Dallas are ever surprised,
it will not be from hearing of the great amount of gold you and your
companions took from Cherry creek."

The Capt. now commenced to get ready for the journey to Colorado, the
land of reported gold. Each of his men had to have two saddle horses,
and one pack horse for every two men, and each man had three months
provisions, consisting of flour, coffee, salt and tobacco.

The question of getting meat was never thought of as one could get a
plenty of that anywhere on the journey, and the streams were teaming
with the most delicious fish.

The evening before we were to set out in the morning the Capt said,
"Which way shall we go?"

I said, "Although it is getting late, and we may have some cold weather
to contend with I think our best and most direct route will be by what
is called the Panhandle route. There will be no rivers to cross, and
there is a plenty of grass for the horses, and also there is nice
drinking water in abundance all the way for ourselves as well as the
hordes, and there will be days when we will be in sight of Deer and
Antelope from morning until night."

There were a few scattering settlements along the trail. The place
which is now the city of Childress being the largest, and also the last
settlement we passed through, and the last sign of civilization we saw
until we struck Bent's Fort which was on the Arkansas river below what
is now the city of Pueblo in the state of Colorado which was at that
time a territory just a little north of what is now the city of
Amarillo.

We killed our first Buffalo on that trip.

It is surprising to the people who saw that country at that early day
when they travel through it now and see what civilization has done.
There is Amarillo, which has several thousand inhabitants today, and
at the time I am speaking of there was not a house or sign of a living
person there, and a number of other places I could mention that are
thriving cities now were at that time inhabited by wild animals alone.

In the year of forty-eight when Kit Carson and I went across the Rocky
mountains with Col. Freemont, we camped three days where the city of
Pueblo, Colorado, now stands.

Our camp was under a very large pine tree, one of the largest in that
country.