These phenomena are seen for a stretch of about fifteen miles, up and down the middle of the valley principally, and they have been viewed by a great many people. They can not understand why the forms of the mirage, if such it may be called, are so much more strange there than on the Mojave Desert. Everybody is in awe of the valley, and there are mighty few men, however nervy they may be ordinarily, who care to go there a second time. CHAPTER XIX. THE FIRST STAGE INTO DENVER. In the winter of 1858, while my partner, Mr. W. H. Russell, John S. Jones, a citizen of Pettis County, Mo., and myself were all in Washington, D. C., which was about the time that the Pike's Peak excitement was at its highest pitch, Messrs. Jones and Russell conceived the idea (I do not know from which one it emanated), and concluded to put a line of daily coaches in operation between the Missouri River and Denver City, when Denver was but a few months old. They came to me with the proposition to take hold of the enterprise with them. I told them I could not consent to do so, for it would be impossible to make such a venture, at such an early period of development of this country, a paying institution, and urgently advised them to let the enterprise alone, for the above stated reasons. They, however, paid no attention to my protest, and went forward with their plans, bought 1,000 fine Kentucky mules and a sufficient number of Concord coaches to supply a daily coach each way between the Missouri River and Denver. At that time Leavenworth was the starting point on the Missouri. A few months later, however, they made Atchison the eastern terminus of the line and Denver the western. They bought their mules and coaches on credit, giving their notes, payable in ninety days; sent men out to establish a station every ten to fifteen miles from Leavenworth due west, going up the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas River, through the Territory of Kansas, and direct to Denver. The line was organized, stations built and put in running shape in remarkably quick time. They made their daily trips in six days, traveling about one hundred miles every twenty-four hours. The first stage ran into Denver on May 17, 1859. It was looked upon as a great success, so far as putting the enterprise in good shape was concerned, but when the ninety days expired and the notes fell due they were unable to meet them. And in spite of my protests in the commencement of the organization as against having anything to do with it, it became necessary for Russell, Majors & Waddell to meet the obligation that Jones & Russell had entered into in organizing and putting the stock on the line. To save our partner we had to pay the debts of the concern and take the mules and coaches, or, in other words, all the paraphernalia of the line, to secure us for the money we had advanced.