as animals might burrow in the ground. Part dug-out and part adobe were
those wretched habitations, and the shed-like parts which projected from
the hill were composed of all conceivable and inconceivable kinds of
rubbish. Sticks, stones, bits of old iron, worn-out mattings and
gunny-sacks entered more or less into the construction of these dens,
all stuck together with the inevitable adobe mud. The settlement
extended some distance along the side of the bluff, and the sloping
plain in front was dignified as the _plaza_. Perhaps the dark-hued
immigrants expected a large town to spring from these unpromising
beginnings, and their plaza to take on eventually all the importance
which a place so named ever deserves in the Spanish and Mexican mind.
But the Pike's Peak excitement, originating in 1852 with the finding of
gold by a party of Cherokee Indians, and reaching its culmination in
1859, brought a far different class of people to our Rocky-Mountain
outpost, and a civilization was inaugurated which speedily compelled the
ancient Mexican methods to go by the board. Thus, Fontaine was soon
absorbed by the rising town of Pueblo, though the ancient dug-outs still
picturesquely dot the hillside, inhabited by much the same idle and
vagabond class from which the prosperous ranchman soon learns to guard
his hen-roost.

The growth of any of our Far Western towns presents a curious study. In
these latter days it frequently requires but a few months, or even
weeks, to give some new one a fair start upon its prosperous way.
Sometimes a mineral vein, sometimes the temporary "end of the track" of
a lengthening railway, forms the nucleus, and around it are first seen
the tents of the advance-guard. Before many weeks have elapsed some
enterprising individual has succeeded, in the face of infinite toil and
expense, in bringing a sawmill into camp. Soon it is buzzing away on the
neighboring hillside, and the rough pine boards and slabs are growing