Still the wonder grew
    That two small feet could carry all he knew.

The judge’s mind is of the encyclopaedical type, and facts and dates are his especial “strong holt.”  But his countenance fails to ratify the inward structure when, pausing from a recital, he gazes upon your reception of the knowledge conveyed with a kindly smile—­a most innocent smile that acts as a strong disposer to belief.  Whether it has been a simple tale of the early days enlivened with recollections of pitch-trump and other social joys, or whether the performances of savage Indians and treacherous half-breeds send a chill through the listener, it is all the same:  at its close the judge’s amiable features wear the same belief-compelling smile.  Under its influence we sit for hours while our entertainer ranges through the stores of his memory, pulling out much that is dust-covered and ancient, but quickly renovated for our use by his ready imagination and occasional wit.  With a feeling akin to reverence we listen—­a reverence due to one who had turned his face toward the Rocky Mountains before Colorado had a name, who had made the perilous journey across the great Plains behind a bull-team, and who has since been associated with everything concerned in the welfare and progress of what has now become this great Centennial State, toward which all eyes are turning.  Not without its dark days to him has passed this pioneer life, and none were more filled with discouragement than those during which he represented the Territory in Congress.  He describes the position as one of peculiar difficulty—­on one hand the clamors of a people for aid and recognition in their rapid development of the country, while on the other, to meet them, he found himself a mere beggar at the doors of Congressional mercy and grace, voteless and hence powerless.  Truly, in the light of his experience, the office of Territorial delegate is no sinecure.

No one has more closely observed the course of events in the Far West than Judge Bradford, and his opinions on some disputed points are very decided and equally clear.  Many have wondered that Pueblo, which had the advantage of first settlement, had long been a rendezvous of trappers and frontier traders, and lay upon the only road to the then so-called Pike’s Peak mines, that via the Arkansas Canon—­that this outpost, situated thus at the very gateway of the Far West, should have remained comparatively unimportant, while Denver grew with such astonishing rapidity.  But, in the judge’s opinion, it was the war of the rebellion that turned the scale in favor of the Queen City.  The first emigrants had come through Missouri and up the Arkansas, their natural route, and as naturally conducting to Pueblo.  But when Missouri and South-eastern Kansas became the scenes of guerrilla warfare the emigrant who would safely convey himself and family across the prairies must seek a more northern parallel.  Hence, Pueblo received a check from which it is only now recovering, and Denver an impetus whose ultimate limits no man can foresee.