known
in Chicago, was doing a banking business here in a tent. The town
seemed to be full of wagons and merchandise, consisting of food,
clothing and all kinds of tools and articles used in mining. Many people
were preparing to leave for the States, some to spend the winter and to
return, others, more discouraged or tired of gold hunting, to stay for
good.

When I went to the camp in the afternoon Sollitt and all the drivers
wanted to go back to the town to look it over and make a few purchases.
I told them I would look after the oxen till evening, when the herders
for that night would come and relieve me. The afternoon was clear and
warm, though the mountains to the west were carpeted with new-fallen
snow. I went out in my shirt sleeves, without a thought of needing a
coat. The oxen wandered off quite a distance from camp in search of the
best grass, and I leisurely followed them. Late in the afternoon, and
quite suddenly, the wind sprang up and came directly from the mountains,
damp and cold. Soon I was enveloped in a dense fog, and could see but a
few yards away. I lost all sense of the direction of the camp or town,
and the men at camp did not know where or how to find me. When night
came it grew so dark that I could not see my hand a foot from my eyes,
and could only keep with the cattle by the noise they made in walking
and grazing. Later the fog turned into a cold rain, with considerable
wind, and was chilling to the bone, so I was booked for the night in a
cold storm without supper or coat. To keep the blood in circulation I
would jump and run around in a circle for half an hour at a time.
Sometimes I would lean up against one of the quiet old oxen on his
leeward side, and thus get some warmth from his body and shelter from
the wind. When the oxen had finished grazing and had lain down for the
night, I tried to lie down beside one of them to get out of the wind,
but the experiment was so novel to the ox that he would get up at once
and walk off. During the night the oxen strolled off more than a mile
from camp. When morning came I was relieved by the men and was ready for
breakfast, and especially for the strong coffee. In times of exposure
and extra effort, coffee was the greatest solace we found.

When on a visit to Denver, twenty-three years afterwards, I tried to
find out just where I spent that night. An old settler of the place
decided with me that it was on the elevated ground now known as Capitol
Hill.