heart of Old Baldy for a
copper lead that had cropped out and was then lost.

Of course, to keep the knowledge of the discovery of gold from the
world is an impossibility; such was the case in this instance, and soon
commenced that squatter immigration out of which, after the ranch was
sold and Maxwell died, grew that litigation which has resulted in favour
of the company who purchased from or through the first owners after
Maxwell's death.

He was a representative man of the border of the same class as his
compeers--"wild-civilized men," to borrow an expressive term from John
Burroughs--of strong local attachments, and overflowing with the milk of
human kindness. To such as he there was an unconquerable infatuation in
life on the remote plains and in the solitude of the mountains. There
was never anything of the desperado in their character, while the
adventurers who at times have made the far West infamous, since the
advent of the railroad, were bad men originally.

Occasionally such men turn up everywhere, and become a terror to the
community, but they are always wound up sooner or later; they die with
their boots on; Western graveyards are full of them.

Maxwell, under contract with the Interior Department, furnished live
beeves to the Ute nation, the issue of which was made weekly from his
own vast herds. The cattle, as wild as those from the Texas prairies,
were driven by his herders into an immense enclosed field, and there
turned loose to be slaughtered by the savages.

Once when at the ranch I told Maxwell I should like to have a horse
to witness the novel sight. He immediately ordered a Mexican groom to
procure one; but I did not see the peculiar smile that lighted up
his face, as he whispered something to the man which I did not catch.
Presently the groom returned leading a magnificent gray, which I
mounted, Maxwell suggesting that I should ride down to the large field
and wait there until the herd arrived. I entered the great corral,
patting my horse on the neck now and then, to make him familiar with
my touch, and attempted to converse with some of the chiefs, who were
dressed in their best, painted as if for the war-path, gaily bedecked
with feathers and armed with rifles and gaudily appointed bows and
arrows; but I did not succeed very well in drawing them from their
normal reticence. The squaws, a hundred of them, were sitting on the
ground, their knives in hand ready for the labour which is the fa