You Cannot Imagine
What It Is To Be Locked In By These Mountain Walls, And Not To
Know Where Your Letters Are Lying.
Later on, Mr. Buchan, one of
our usual inmates, returned from Denver with papers, letters for
every one but me, and much exciting news.
The financial panic
has spread out West, gathering strength on its way. The Denver
banks have all suspended business. They refuse to cash their own
checks, or to allow their customers to draw a dollar, and would
not even give green-backs for my English gold! Neither Mr.
Buchan nor Evans could get a cent. Business is suspended, and
everybody, however rich, is for the time being poor. The Indians
have taken to the "war path," and are burning ranches and killing
cattle. There is a regular "scare" among the settlers, and wagon
loads of fugitives are arriving in Colorado Springs. The Indians
say, "The white man has killed the buffalo and left them to rot
on the plains. We will be revenged." Evans had reached
Longmount, and will be here tonight.
October 10.
"Wait for the wagon" still! We had a hurricane of wind and hail
last night; it was eleven before I could go to my cabin, and I
only reached it with the help of two men. The moon was not up,
and the sky overhead was black with clouds, when suddenly Long's
Peak, which had been invisible, gleamed above the dark mountains,
all glistening with new-fallen snow, on which the moon, as yet
uprisen here, was shining.
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