Colorado—The Bright Romance of American HistoryGrable, F. C.
History
Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History
Grable, F. C.
Colorado -- History
About the year 1800 some French trappers and hunters were passing out
of Colorado, into New Mexico, in quest of new streams in which to ply
their avocation. The pack ponies which they were driving on ahead
suddenly stopped and centered about an object at which they sniffed
intelligently. The trappers coming forward to investigate looked at
each other in amazement as they gathered around a deserted child lying
on the bosom of the unfeeling earth, hungry and helpless. These
bronzed and bearded men were heavy handed, but not stony hearted; and
they met the responsibility as best they could. Moses had been left in
the bullrushes of a stream for his preservation. This child had been
left in the tangled weeds on the bank of a stream for its destruction.
Moses lived to become the leader of a nation. This child was
saved--but let us see. It was taken by the trappers, named Friday for
the day upon which it was found, as in the tale of Robinson Crusoe, an
Indian youth was named Friday for the day of his discovery. Friday
grew and thrived, was adopted by one of the party, and at the age of
fourteen was taken along to St. Louis, where he was sent to school,
and shared in the joys and griefs of other boys of his age. When he
was twenty-one, the cry that had long been suppressed gave utterance.
He wanted to see his people. Leaving home, he came to Colorado, and to
the tribe of the Arapahoes, who had crossed the path of the trappers
twenty-one years before. It was a new life to which he was admitted.
During his visit a buffalo hunt was organized in his behalf. He
watched the preparations, saw the gathering of the ponies from off the
prairies, the testing of the bows and arrows, the night of feasting
and dancing before the start at earliest dawn. Wending their way over
the plains, they finally spied the herd. At once the dullness of the
hunters gave place to trained alertness; absolute quiet reigned; the
ponies crept forward slowly and softly, step by step, with their
riders clinging to their sides to give the appearance of a band of
grazing horses. At last they were near enough, and then the signal.
Away went the horses and riders in a whirlwind of excitement, the eyes
of the riders blazing, the nostrils of the horses dilating. Away went
the herd, shaking the earth with the thunders of their flight; away
flew the arrows to the twang of the bows, as they sped straight and
true into the heaving sides of the struggling animals. Down went the
buffalo, down on their trembling knees, down on their quivering sides,
as they stretched themselves out for their final death struggle. Down
went the Indians to dance in glee around the prostrate bodies of their
trophies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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