tal woman."

The legislature of Colorado had submitted the question of woman
suffrage to be voted on October 2, 1877, and notwithstanding the
lucrative business under the lyceum bureau, Miss Anthony could not
resist offering her services to the women of Colorado with their little
money and few speakers. From Dr. Alida C. Avery, president of the State
Suffrage Association, came the quick response: "Your generous proposal
was duly received, and laid before the executive committee, who
resolved that the thanks of the association be tendered you for your
friendly offer, which we gratefully accept."

Although inured to hardship, Miss Anthony found this Colorado campaign
the most trying she ever had experienced, not excepting that of Kansas
ten years before. The country was new, many of the towns were off the
railroad among the mountains and in most of them woman suffrage never
had been heard of; there was no one to advertise the meetings, nobody
to meet her when she reached her destination, hotels were of the most
primitive nature and there were few public halls. There were, of
course, some oases in this desert, and occasionally she found a good
hotel or was hospitably entertained in a comfortable home. At one place
she spoke in the railroad station to about twenty-five men who could
not understand what it was she wanted them to do, though all were
voters. Sometimes a landlord would clear out the hotel dining-room and
she would gather her audience there, but they would have to stand and
soon would grow tired. The mining towns were filled with a densely
ignorant class of foreigners, and some of the southern counties were
almost wholly populated by Mexicans. It was to these men that an
American woman, her grandfather a soldier of the Revolution, appealed
for the right of women to representation in this government.

To reach Del Norte Miss Anthony rode sixty-five miles by stage over a
vast, arid tract evidently once the bed of an inland sea, but the
terrible discomforts of the journey were almost overlooked in the
enjoyment of the magnificent scenery. She travelled all the next night;
at Wagon Wheel Gap the stage stopped for a while and, taking a cup, she
went alone down to the river, drank of its icy waters and stood a long
time absorbed in the glory of the moonlight on the mountain peaks. In
all this weary journey of two days, she was the only woman in a stage
filled with men. When she reached Lake City she was delightfully