die, and rode away in the darkness, leaving my
money on the table! It was a short eighteen miles' ride to Denver down
the Turkey Creek Canyon, which contains some magnificent scenery, and
then the road ascends and hangs on the ledge of a precipice 600 feet in
depth, such a narrow road that on meeting a wagon I had to dismount for
fear of hurting my feet with the wheels. From thence there was a
wonderful view through the rolling Foot Hills and over the gray-brown
plains to Denver. Not a tree or shrub was to be seen, everything was
rioting in summer heat and drought, while behind lay the last grand
canyon of the mountains, dark with pines and cool with snow. I left
the track and took a short cut over the prairie to Denver, passing
through an encampment of the Ute Indians about 500 strong, a disorderly
and dirty huddle of lodges, ponies, men, squaws, children, skins,
bones, and raw meat.

The Americans will never solve the Indian problem till the Indian is
extinct. They have treated them after a fashion which has intensified
their treachery and "devilry" as enemies, and as friends reduces them
to a degraded pauperism, devoid of the very first elements of
civilization. The only difference between the savage and the civilized
Indian is that the latter carries firearms and gets drunk on whisky.
The Indian Agency has been a sink of fraud and corruption; it is said
that barely thirty per cent of the allowance ever reaches those for
whom it is voted; and the complaints of shoddy blankets, damaged flour,
and worthless firearms are universal. "To get rid of the Injuns" is
the phrase used everywhere. Even their "reservations" do not escape
seizure practically; for if gold "breaks out" on them they are
"rushed," and their possessors are either compelled to accept land
farther west or are shot off and driven off. One of the surest agents
in their destruction is vitriolized whisky. An attempt has recently
been made to cleanse the Augean stable of the Indian Department, but it
has met with signal failure, the usual result in America of every
effort to purify the official atmosphere. Americans specially love
superlatives. The phrases "biggest in the world," "finest in the
world," are on all lips. Unless President Hayes is a strong man they
will soon come to boast that their government is composed of the
"biggest scoundrels" in the world.

As I rode into Denver and away from the mountains the view became
glorious, as range