most of the insurrectionary movements then contemplated by the Governors of those States. About that time they began to form secret conclaves, variously termed "Blue Lodges," "Golden Circles," and "Rangers," and to collect together the arms which their loyal neighbors as well as themselves brought to this country. By that early, stealthy movement they obtained possession of nearly all the arms and ammunition in the Territory.

Upon the 1st of August, while I was at Canon City, upon the sources of the Arkansas River, to open a district court there in the place and stead of my associate, Judge Armour, who had not arrived at his post of duty, I obtained the first tangible evidence of treasonable movements. I then and there came to my knowledge that emissaries of McCulloch were gathering arms in that vicinity for him, and that parties connected with the Overland Express Company, whose teams traverse the Arkansas route, were implicated in the transaction. Being at the time without any prosecuting officer I was obliged to leave those offenders uninterrupted, except by such admonition in court as I delivered at the time. Upon my return to Denver about the 12th of August, I was apprised of similar military preparations going on here under the auspices of one A. B. Miller, who about that time confessed to the meader of a brigade of 1,400 enlisted secessionists, but denied all intention to make any demonstrations until they should have aid from below. Miller's movements were somewhat mystified by the conflicting statements of his confederates, yet his and their violent opposition to the effort the Governor was then making to raise two companies of volunteers disclosed a state of feeling which could not be mistaken. The volunteers were attacked at night with fire-arms, and upon several occasions several of them wounded, and upon the 17th of that month one of them was killed. Those assaults disclosed the fact that one Harrison, a brother-in law of Left Hand, and Arapahoe chief, was involved in the conspiracy, and that Left Hand was himself here declaring vengeance upon the government of the Territory, if Harrison, who had been arrested, was not discharged. The arrest of the mustered of the soldier and a dozen or more persons for other kindred offenses reminded us of our utter destitution here of anything like a prison or building of sufficient strength to be used for a jail, and it was in vain that I appealed to the loyal portion of the people here to construct one for us. Some of them were without the means, and more were without the courage to undertake to erect a building in which their disloyal neighbors should be incarcerated.

During all this time the Governor was steadily employed in his department, under similar embarrassments, in endeavoring to raise and arm a regiment of volunteers and in keeping the Indians under his official care at bay. The election, which occurred upon the 19th of August, although it revealed some gratifying information of the probable loyalty of a majority of our population residing in the mountains, added fuel to the flames then burning in the secret conclaves of the secessionists. Perceiving, as the returns came in, that they had not secured the election of their Delegate to Congress, they became more violent than before, and openly threatened to burn the city and exterminate the government by arms. At that point Governor Gilpin and myself held a consultation for the purpose of comparing the information of which we, in our separate departments, were possessed, and of determining what it became us to do under these extraordinary circumstances. The Governor informed me that his communication of June 19 to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in which he had apprised