"Polar Bear comes. He runs like the deer of the plains, when we lived in sight of the great mountains, the home of the Utes."
The council suspended all manifestations. The executioner examined his rifle. Polar Bear entered and bowed his head, then looked aloft and pointed to the sky.
"I am ready," was all he said.
The hour lacked ten minutes of the expired time. The executioner motioned and Polar Bear followed. Under a large oak he took his stand, stripped to the waist, a scarlet heart painted over his own. The executioner took his place, a few steps away, sighted his rifle at the painted heart, a puff of smoke, a sharp report, a gush of blood, and Polar Bear had atoned for his crime. Chiquita turned to Jack and asked:
"Is there another nation in the world where their criminals return of their own accord to suffer the death penalty?"
Most of the summer vacations of her college life Chiquita spent among the forests, crags and parks on the Ute reservation or in her mountain home near Middle Park. Hundreds of student friends visited her at the latter place and were entertained for weeks in a royal manner, to their great pleasure, a result which does not always follow the lavish expenditure of money. Tents, tepees, lodges, log cabins and quaint cottages were set apart for the use of the guests. A beautiful rustic chapel improvised for religious services and a hall for indoor entertainment were erected near the small hotel at the source of Rock Creek, where a famous iron and soda spring bubbles forth its sparkling waters of more than ordinary quality. The adjacent hills furnished abundance of deer, and even bear, and the famous catches of trout perpetuated the glory of a summer on Rock Creek as a lifelong realistic dream. The most elaborate of Indian trappings adorned the various abodes. Canoes silently sped along the surface of an artificial lake made by repairing an old beaver dam, and in the corral Ute ponies, Mexican burros or American-bred saddle horses, besides traps, brakes and coaches presented a never-tiring array from which to select in order to make pilgrimages into more distant territory.
A little garden furnished fresh vegetables, while the "ranch hack" made trips to the nearest railway station for other provisions once a week. Chiquita arranged for the pre-emption of this ranch on one of Jack's early visits, but by reason of mineral springs being reserved by the Government from operation of the land law, the property was abandoned in later years.
In making her trips back and forth from the ranch on Rock Creek to the college, Chiquita watched the marvelous growth of that great stretch of country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains with sinking heart.
To Jack she confided her worst fears. "The Great Manitou of the Utes has been conquered by the Great Spirit of the white man," she was wont to remark as her knowledge of the Christian religion advanced.
In truth, Chiquita had ground for her fears. Leadville, with its never ceasing output of silver which rolled in a continuous stream toward the great manufacturing centers of the East, was welcomed by the idle, labor seeking armies as the Mecca of the world. The prominent transportation companies sent emissaries to all the great farming regions of Europe, colonizing emigrants to enter the immense uncultivated sections traversed by their respective charters in the attempt to make their railways profitable. Train load after train load of hardy, well-to-do Russians, Norwegians, Swedes and Germans rolled into the fertile valleys, peopling the arid wastes and starting the building of villages, towns and cities along the railway like unto tales of mythology. The impetus of this gigantic, overwhelming land-grabbing aroused the speculative world and money came forth from its hiding place to seek investment. Mills began to work overtime. Products of all kinds were in demand, for the comers to the new land had to be fed, clothed and entertained. Prosperity ruled.