Armed with these, I shall plunge boldly into Colorado. I am
suffering from giddiness and nausea produced by the bad smells.
A "help" here says that there have been fifty-six deaths from
cholera during the last twenty days. Is common humanity lacking,
I wonder, in this region of hard greed? Can it not be bought by
dollars here, like every other commodity, votes included? Last
night I made the acquaintance of a shadowy gentleman from
Wisconsin, far gone in consumption, with a spirited wife and
young baby. He had been ordered to the Plains as a last
resource, but was much worse. Early this morning he crawled to
my door, scarcely able to speak from debility and bleeding from
the lungs, begging me to go to his wife, who, the doctor said was
ill of cholera. The child had been ill all night, and not for
love or money could he get any one to do anything for them, not
even to go for the medicine. The lady was blue, and in great
pain from cramp, and the poor unweaned infant was roaring for the
nourishment which had failed. I vainly tried to get hot water
and mustard for a poultice, and though I offered a Negro a dollar
to go for the medicine, he looked at it superciliously, hummed a
tune, and said he must wait for the Pacific train, which was not
due for an hour. Equally in vain I hunted through Cheyenne for a
feeding bottle. Not a maternal heart softened to the helpless
mother and starving child, and my last resource was to dip a
piece of sponge in some milk and water, and try to pacify the
creature. I applied Rigollot's leaves, went for the medicine,
saw the popular host--a bachelor--who mentioned a girl who, after
much difficulty, consented to take charge of the baby for two
dollars a day and attend to the mother, and having remained till
she began to amend, I took the cars for Greeley, a settlement on
the Plains, which I had been recommended to make my starting