diminished; but as the country becomes settled, it may be
expected to increase in wealth and population, and it will probably, ere a great many years, be one of the finest cities in the whole West.
Among the new towns which have recently sprung up in Colorado is Pueblo, nearly two hundred miles south of Denver, and the terminus of the narrow gauge railroad which taps the Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne. This town takes its name from the Pueblo Indians, who are much farther advanced in civilization than most of the aborigines, and who deserve much credit for their industrious habits and their efforts to prosper.
Trinidad, still farther to the south, is an old Mexican town, and is the centre of an extensive cattle and sheep raising country. There is a constant war going on in this region on the subject of stock between Americans, Mexicans, and Indians. Cattle thieves, who steal stock from Texas and Mexico, rendezvous near Trinidad, and, as they are not particular whom they plunder, so long as they are able to do it with impunity, their presence is anything but agreeable to people who desire to live reasonably peaceable lives, and to get along by minding their own business.
A Colorado Rancher.
Some distance from Trinidad is Stockton's Ranche, in the midst of a wild, unsettled country, and the only house within a circuit of many miles' ride. This is a noted headquarters of the desperadoes who infest New Mexico and Lower Colorado. The building is two stories in height, is quite large, and contains a store and drinking-saloon. On a mound above the house is a graveyard, in which twenty-one people have been buried. Only three out of this number had died natural deaths, the others having been shot down like dogs, for some real or fancied offences. Stockton has killed several men himself, while many more have fallen by the hands of his confederates.
Stockton was a small man, restless in his movements, and with a fierce black eye. He had a wife and a very interesting family, for whom I felt much sympathy when I learned what a desperate character he was. His wife, who seemed to be a very nice, clever woman, was much troubled with regard to him. She told me that she was always uneasy about him when he was away from home, and that, at times, even when he was
