Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Reminiscences of a trip to Pike’s Peak and down the Rio Grande in the year 1859, at the time of the Pikes Peak gold craze (Peter Westerlund)
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close to the road, I walked a little way and soon
got on to the tracks. I ran back to the camp and
gave the alarm, and a couple of us mounted the
mules and were off to fetch the cattle back. We had
six miles to the river crossing. Close by this crossing
there was a camp with a large herd of cattle. We
hailed the watchman to find out if he had seen any
cattle pass on the road. “No sir,” he said. We
went to the river and saw that they had crossed,
and in two miles we overtook them on the other side,
walking full speed toward home. We returned with
them in time for a late breakfast.
By this time we bad made out a plan to move on
again. Our plan was to follow the Platte River
mouth without any roads but Indian trails, and so
we did. These trails were sometimes lost. In such
instances we would eamp and then get on the mules’
back arid hunt for a pass, then move on till we were
blocked again, and so on. Our object was to reach
the mining eamp near Pike’s Peak. We could see
from our guide-book and maps that the head waters
of the Platte were found in North Park, and we
probably could pass through from there to the mines.
If we did not succeed in finding any new mines
which would be our own, we would have good
chances to prospect as we moved on from place to
place. We stopped at every brook coming down
from Ihe mountains and we always found signs of
gold in every pan we washed, but not enough to pay
working it. Thus we kept on picking our way, many
times through quite narrow passes. When we had
gone about 100 miles, we crossed the road leading
to Salt Lake and after traveling a day or two one
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