The Prospector and the Silver Queen

By Cy Warman and Fitz Mac

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Title: The Prospector and the Silver Queen

Author: Cy Warman
        Fitz Mac

Illustrator: Zella Neill

Release date: October 6, 2024 [eBook #74521]

Language: English

Original publication: Denver: The Great Divide Publishing Company

Credits: D A Alexander, Charlene Taylor, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROSPECTOR AND THE SILVER QUEEN ***



The Prospector and The Silver Queen


  [Illustration:

  N. C. CREEDE.      D. H. MOFFAT.      CAPT. L. E. CAMPBELL.
  S. T. SMITH.                            WALTER S. CHEESMAN.]




  THE
  PROSPECTOR.

  STORY OF THE LIFE OF
  NICHOLAS C. CREEDE.

  BY
  CY WARMAN.

  DENVER
  THE GREAT DIVIDE PUBLISHING COMPANY
  1894.


  COPYRIGHTED 1894, BY CY WARMAN,
  DENVER, COLORADO.




PREFACE.


The purpose of these pages is to tell the simple story of the life of
an unpretentious man, and to show what the Prospector has endured and
accomplished for the West.

                                                             THE AUTHOR.




INTRODUCTORY.


The convulsion was over. An ocean had been displaced. Out of its depths
had risen a hemisphere; not a land finished for the foot of man, but
a seething, waving mass of matter, surging with the mighty forces and
energies of deep-down, eternal fires. The winds touched the angry
billows and leveled out the plains. One last, mighty throe, and up rose
the mountains of stone and silver and gold that stand to tell of that
awful hour when a continent was born. The rain and gentle dew kissed
the newborn world, and it was arrayed in a mantle of green. Forests
grew, and the Father of Waters, with all his tributaries, began his
journey in search of the Lost Sea.

That miniature race, the Cliff Dwellers, ruled the land, and in
the process of evolution, the Red Man, followed by our hero, the
Prospector, who brushed away the mysteries and disclosed the wonders,
the grandeur, the riches of the infant world. Before him the
greatest of the earth may well bow their heads in recognition of his
achievements. His monument has not been reared by the hands of those
who build to commemorate heroic deeds, but in thriving villages and
splendid cities you may read the history of his privation and hardship
and valor. He it was who first laid down his rifle to lift from
secretive sands the shining flakes of gold that planted in the hearts
of men the desire to clasp and possess the West.

It was the Prospector who, with a courage sublime, attacked the granite
forehead of the world, and proclaimed that, locked in the bosom of
the Rocky Mountains, were silver and gold, for which men strive and
die. He strode into the dark cañon where the sword of the Almighty had
cleft the mountain chain, and climbed the rugged steeps where man had
never trod before, and there, above and beyond the line that marked
the farthest reach of the Bluebell and the Pine, he slept with the
whisperings of God. His praises are unsung, but his deeds are recorded
on every page that tells of the progress and glory of the West. He has
for his home the grand mountains and verdant vales, whose wondrous
beauty is beyond compare.

From the day the earth feels the first touch of spring, when the
first flower blooms in the valley, all through the sunny summer time,
when the hills hide behind a veil of heliotrope and a world of
wild flowers; all through the hazy, dreamy autumn, this land of the
Prospector is marvelously beautiful.

When the flowers fade, and all the land begins to lose its lustre; when
the tall grass goes to seed and the winds blow brisker and colder from
the west, there comes a change to the Alpine fields, bringing with it
all the bright and beautiful colors of the butterfly, all the rays of
the rainbow, all the burning brilliancy and golden glory of a Salt Lake
sunset. Now, like a thief at night, the first frost steals from the
high hills, touching and tinting the trees, biting and blighting the
flowers and foliage. The helpless columbine and the blushing rose bend
to the passionless kisses of the cold frost, and in the ashes of other
roses their graves are made.

When the God of Day comes back, he sees upon the silent, saddened face
of Nature the ruin wrought by the touch of Time. The leaves, by his
light kept alive so long, are blushing and burning, and all the fields
are aflame, fired by the fever of death. Even the winged camp robber
screams and flies from the blasted fields where bloom has changed to
blight, and the willows weep by the icy rills. All these wondrous
changes are seen by the Prospector as he sits on a lofty mountain,
where the autumn winds sigh softly in the golden aspen, shaking the
dead leaves down among the withered grasses, gathering the perfume of
the pines, the faint odor of the dying columbine and wafting them away
to the lowlands and out o’er the waste of a sun-parched plain.




THE PROSPECTOR.




CHAPTER I.

BIRTHPLACE--SCHOOL DAYS--BOY LIFE ON THE FRONTIER--FAVORITE SPORTS.


Fifty years and one ago, near Fort Wayne, Indiana, Nicholas C. Creede,
the story of whose eventful life I shall attempt to tell you, first saw
the light of day. When but four years old his parents removed to the
Territory of Iowa, a country but thinly settled and still in the grasp
of hostile tribes whose crimes, and the crimes of their enemies, have
reddened every river from the Hudson to the Yosemite.

In those broad prairies, abounding with buffalo and wild game of every
kind, began a career which, followed for a half century, written down
in a modest way, will read like a romance.

When but a mere lad, young Creede became proficient in the use of
the rifle and made for himself a lasting reputation as a successful
hunter. He was known in the remote settlements as the crack shot of the
Territory, and being of a daring, fearless nature, spent much of his
time in the trackless forest and on the treeless plain.

As the years went by, a ceaseless tide of immigration flowed in upon
the beautiful Territory until the locality where the Creedes had their
home was thickly dotted with cabins and tents, and fields of golden
grain supplanted the verdure of the virgin sod. As the population
increased, game became scarce, and then, as the recognized leader,
young Creede, at the head of a band of boyish associates, penetrated
the wilds far to the northward in pursuit of their favorite sport.
On some of these hunting expeditions they pushed as far north as the
British line, camping where game was abundant, until they had secured
as much as their horses could carry back to the settlements.

This life in the western wilds awoke in the soul of the young hunter
a love for adventure, and his whole career since that time has been
characterized by a strong preference for the danger and excitement of
frontier life.

The facilities for acquiring an education during young Creede’s boyhood
were extremely limited. A small school-house was erected about three
miles from his home, and there the boys and girls of the settlement
flocked to study the simplest branches under a male teacher, who,
the boys said, was “too handy with the gad.” The boy scout might have
acquired more learning than he did, but he had heart trouble. A little
prairie flower bloomed in life’s way, and the young knight of the plain
paused to taste its perfume. He had no fear of man or beast, but when
he looked into the liquid, love-lit eyes of this prairie princess he
was always embarrassed. He had walked and tried to talk with her, but
the words would stick in his throat and choke him. At last he learned
to write and thought to woo her in an easier way. One day she entered
the school-room, fresh and ruddy as the rosy morn; her cherried lips
made redder by the biting breeze; and when the eyes of the lass and the
lover met, all the pent-up passion and fettered affection flashed
aflame from her heart to his, and he wrote upon her slate:

  “The honey bee for honey tips
    The rose upon the lea;
  Then how would be your honeyed lips
    If I could be the bee?”

[Illustration: N. C. CREEDE.]

The cold, calculating teacher saw the fire that flashed from her heart
to her cheek, and he stepped to her desk. She saw him coming and she
spat upon the slate and smote the sentiment at one swift sweep. Then
the teacher stormed. He said the very fact that she rubbed it out was
equal to a confession of guilt, and he “reckoned he’d haf to flog her.”
A school-mate of Creede’s told this story to me, and he said all the
big boys held their breath when the teacher went for his whip, and
young Creede sat pale and impatient. “He’ll never dare to strike that
pretty creature,” they thought; “she is so sweet, so gentle, and so
good.”

The trembling maiden was not so sure about that as she stepped to the
whipping corner, shaking like an aspen. “Swish” went the switch, the
pretty shoulders shrugged, and the young gallant saw two tears in his
sweetheart’s eyes, and in a flash he stood between her and the teacher
and said: “Strike me, you Ingin, and I’ll strike you.” “So’ll I, so’ll
I,” said a dozen voices, and the teacher laid down his hand.




CHAPTER II.

HIS FATHER’S DEATH--DRIFTING WESTWARD--ADVENTURES ON THE MISSOURI.


Death came to the Creede family when young Creede was but eight years
old. A few years later the youth found a step-father in the family, and
they were never very good friends. The boy’s home-life was not what he
thought it should be, and he bade his mother good-by and started forth
to face the world. In that thinly settled country, the young man found
it very difficult to secure work of any kind, and more than once he
was forced to fancy himself the “merry monarch of the hay-mow,” or a
shepherd guarding his father’s flocks, as he lay down to sleep in the
cornfield and covered with the stars. The men, for the most part, he
said, were gruff and harsh, but the women everywhere were his friends,
and many a season of fasting was shortened by reason of a gentle
woman’s sympathy and kindness of heart. The brave boy battled with
life’s storms alone; and when but eighteen years old he set his face to
the West.

Omaha was the one bright star in the western horizon toward which the
eyes of restless humanity were turned, and on the breast of the tide
of immigration our young man reached the uncouth capital of Nebraska.
Perhaps he had not read these unkind remarks by the poet Saxe:

  “Hast ever been to Omaha, where rolls the dark Missouri down,
  And forty horses scarce can draw an empty wagon through the town?
  If not, then list to what I say: You’ll find it just as I have found it,
  And if it lie upon your way, take my advice, and you’ll go round it.”

Omaha was then the great outfitting point for the country to the
westward,

  Where everything was open wide,
  And men drank absinthe on the side.

In the language of Field, “money flowed like liquor,” and a man who
was willing to work could find plenty to do; but the rush and bustle
of the busy, frontier town was not in keeping with the taste of our
hero, and he began to pine for the broad fields and the open prairie.
At first it was all new and strangely interesting to him; and often,
after his day’s work was done, he would wander about the town, looking
on at the gaming tables and viewing the festivities in the concert
halls; and when weary of the sights and scenes, he would go forth into
the stilly night and walk the broad, smooth streets till the moon went
down. At last he resolved to leave its busy throng, and joining a party
of wood-choppers, he went away up the river where the willows grew tall
and slim. He was busy on the banks of the sullen stream; he felt the
breath of Spring and the sunshine, and while the wild birds sang in
the willows, he wielded the ax and was happy.

[Illustration]

The wood was easily worked and commanded a good price at Omaha, and
the young chopper soon found that he was quite prosperous; was his own
master, and he whistled and chopped while the she-deer fondled her fawn
and the pheasant fluttered near him, friendly and unafraid. Once a week
the wood was loaded on a “mackinaw” and floated down to the city, where
barges were always waiting, and where sharp competition often sent
prices way above the expectation of the settlers.

One day, while making one of these innocent and profitable trips down
the river, young Creede nearly lost his life. For some reason, they
were trying to make a landing above the city, and Creede was in the bow
of the boat, pulling a long sweep oar fixed there on a wooden pin.
While exercising all his strength to turn the boat shoreward in the
stiff current, the pin broke, he was thrown headlong into the water
and the boat drifted above him. As often as he rose to the surface,
his head would strike the bottom of the boat and he would be forced
down again. It seemed to him, he said, that the boat was a mile long
and moving with snail-like speed. He was finally rescued more dead
than alive, so full of muddy water that they had to roll him over a
water-keg a long time before he could be bailed out and brought back to
life.

When he reached Omaha and received his share of the cash from the
sale of the wood, he abandoned that line of labor, and with the
restlessness of spirit and love for adventure which has characterized
his whole life, again started westward.




  [Illustration]

  The sturdy bull, with stately tread,
  Submissive, silent, bows his head
  And feels the yoke. The creaking wain
  Rolls leisurely across the plain:
  Across the trackless, treeless land,
  An undulating sea of sand,
  Where mocking, sapless rivers run;
  With swollen tongue and bloodshot eye,
  Still on to where the shadows lie,
  And onward toward the setting sun.

  With weeping eyes he looks away
  To where his free-born brothers play
  Upon the plain, so wild and wide;
  He turns his head from side to side,
  He feels the bull-whip’s cruel stroke;
  Again he leans against the yoke.
  At last his weary walk is done.
  He pauses at the river’s brink
  And drinks the while his drivers drink.
  Almost beside the setting sun.




CHAPTER III.

INDIAN FIGHTING--THE UNION PACIFIC--BUFFALO HUNTING.


Creede’s arrival at the Pawnee Indian Reservations on the Loop fork of
the Platte River marked an era in his eventful life. He began at this
place a period of seven years’ Indian fighting and scouting, which made
him known in the valley of the Platte, and gave him a fame which would
have been world-wide had he, like later border celebrities, sought for
notoriety in print and courted the favor of writers of yellow covered
literature.

Being naturally of a retiring, uncommunicative nature, he shrank
from public attention; and no writer of fiction, or even a newspaper
correspondent could wrest from him a single point on which to hang a
sensational story. While genial and sociable among his associates on
the trail, his lips were locked when a correspondent was in camp.

At that time the Union Pacific railway was in course of construction,
and hostile Indians continually harassed the workers and did all in
their power to retard the progress of the work. United States Cavalry
troops were put into the field to protect the working corps, and
workmen themselves were provided with arms for their own defense. The
Pawnee Indians were lying quietly on their reservation, at peace with
the whites, never going forth except on periodical buffalo hunts, or on
the war-path against their hereditary enemies, the Sioux.

Under these circumstances was begun the building of a line across
the plains. It was here that the now famous “Buffalo Bill” made his
reputation as a buffalo killer, which has enabled him to travel around
the world, giving exhibitions of life on the western wilds of America.

[Illustration]

Mr. Frank North, then a resident of the Pawnee country, and thoroughly
familiar with their language and customs, conceived the idea that the
Pawnees would prove valuable allies to the regular troops in battling
with the hostile Sioux, and with but little difficulty secured
governmental authority to enlist two or three companies and officer
them with whites of his own choosing. One of the very first men he
hit upon was Creede, whom he made a first lieutenant of one of the
companies, a relative of the organizer being placed in command with a
captain’s rank. This man was a corpulent, easy-going fellow, who sought
the place for the pay. There was nothing in his nature that seemed to
say to him that he should go forth and do battle with the fearless
hair-lifters of the plain. Even at his worst, two men could hold him
when the fight was on. He was a very sensible man, who preferred the
quiet of the camp and the government barber to the prairie wilds and
the irate red man.

With Creede it was different. He was young and ambitious, and having
been brought up by the firm hand of a step-father, peace troubled
his mind. Nothing pleased him more than to have the captain herd the
horses while he went out with his hand-painted Pawnees to chase the
frescoed Sioux. He set to work assiduously to learn the language of
the Pawnees and soon mastered it. By his recklessness in battle and
remarkable bravery in every time of danger, he gained the admiration
and confidence of the savage men, who followed fearlessly where their
leader led. They looked upon Creede as their commander, regarding the
Captain as a sort of camp fixture, not made for field work, and many
of their achievements under their favorite leader awoke amazement in
their own breasts and made them a terror to their Indian foes. If there
are those who think these pages are printed to please rather than from
a desire to tell the truth and do justice to a name long neglected, I
need but state that it stands to-day as a prominent page of the history
of Indian warfare in the West, that during their several years of
service, the Pawnee scouts were never defeated in battle. The intrepid,
dashing spirit of their white leaders inspired their savage natures
with a confidence in their own powers which seemed to render them
invincible.

[Illustration: E. DICKINSON.]

Major North was himself a brave, energetic officer, fearless in battle
and skilled in Indian craft, and not a few of his appointments proved
to be valuable ones from a fighting standpoint. Because he was always
with them, sharing their danger and leading fearlessly when the fight
was fierce, the red scouts came to regard Lieutenant Creede as the
great “war chief”; and never did they falter a moment when they were
needed most by the Government. Every perilous expedition was intrusted
to Creede and his invincibles. A favoritism was shown which permitted
certain officers to remain in camp away from danger. They never knew
how proud the Lieutenant was to lead his gallant scouts. It was a
comparatively easy road to fame with so brave a band of warriors, and
the attendant danger only served to appease the leader’s appetite for
adventures.

The notable incidents which marked Lieutenant Creede’s career during
his seven years’ service as a scout would fill many volumes such
as this. But a few can be touched upon; just enough to exhibit his
fearless nature and his often reckless daring in the face of danger.




CHAPTER IV.

  Hard down the plain the Red Man rode
    Against the Red Man; Pawnee slew
    His hated enemy, the Sioux,
  And bathed him in his brother’s blood.

  For they were wily, wild and strong,
    Revengeful, fearless, fierce and fleet.
    They murmured: Oh, revenge is sweet
  When Red Men ride to right a wrong.

  LIEUTENANT MURIE--“GOOD INDIANS”--“DON’T LET HER KNOW.”


“Read to me, Jim,” said the sweet girl-wife of Lieutenant Murie.

“I can’t read long, my love,” said the gallant scout. “I have just
learned that there is trouble out West and I must away to the front.
That beardless telegrapher, Dick, has been here with an order from
Major North and they will run us out special at 11:30 to-night.”

The Lieutenant picked up a collection of poems and read where he opened
the book:

  “Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
    That from the nunnery
  Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
    To war and arms I flee.”

“Oh, Jim,” she broke in, “why don’t they try to civilize these poor,
hunted Indians? Are they all so very bad? Are there no good ones among
them?”

“Yes,” said the soldier, with a half smile. “They are all good except
those that escape in battle.”

“But tell me, love, how long will this Indian war last?”

“As long as the Sioux hold out,” said the soldier.

At eleven o’clock the young Lieutenant said good-by to his girl-wife
and went away.

This was in the ’60’s. The scouts were stationed near Julesburg, which
was then the terminus of the Union Pacific track. The special engine
and car that brought Lieutenant Murie from Omaha, arrived at noon, the
next day after its departure from the banks of the muddy Missouri.

Murie had been married less than six months. For many moons the
love-letters that came to camp from his sweetheart’s hand had been the
sunshine of his life, and now they were married and all the days of
doubt and danger were passed.

An hour after the arrival of the special, a scout came into camp to say
that a large band of hostile Sioux had come down from the foot-hills
and were at that moment standing, as if waiting--even inviting an
attack, and not a thousand yards away. If we except the officers, the
scouts were nearly all Pawnee Indians, who, at the sight or scent of
a Sioux, were as restless as caged tigers. They had made a treaty with
this hostile tribe once, and were cruelly murdered by the Sioux. This
crime was never forgotten, and when the Government asked the Pawnees to
join the scouts they did so.

The scouts did not keep the warriors waiting long. In less than an
hour, Lieutenant Murie was riding in the direction of the Sioux, with
Lieutenant Creede second in command, followed by two hundred Pawnee
scouts, who were spoiling for trouble. The Sioux, as usual, outnumbered
the Government forces, but, as usual, the dash of the daring scouts was
too much for the hostiles and they were forced from the field.

[Illustration]

Early in the exercises, Murie and Creede were surrounded by a party
of Sioux and completely cut off from the rest of the command. From
these embarrassing environments they escaped almost miraculously. All
through the fight, which lasted twenty minutes or more, Creede noticed
that Murie acted very strangely. He would yell and rave like a mad
man--dashing here and there, in the face of the greatest danger. At
times he would battle single-handed, with a half dozen of the fiercest
of the foe, and his very frenzy seemed to fill them with fear.

When the fight was over, Lieutenant Murie called Creede to him and
said he had been shot in the leg. Hastily dismounting, the anxious
scout pulled off the officer’s boot, but could see no wound nor sign of
blood. Others came up and told the Lieutenant that his leg was as good
as new; but he insisted that he was wounded and silently and sullenly
pulled his boot on, mounted, and the little band of invincibles started
for camp. The Pawnees began to sing their wild, weird songs of victory
as they went along; but they had proceeded only a short distance when
Murie began to complain again, and again his boot was removed to show
him that he was not hurt. Some of the party chaffed him for getting
rattled over a little brush like that, and again in silence he pulled
on his boot and they continued on to camp.

Dismounting, Murie limped to the surgeon’s tent, and some of his
companions followed him, thinking to have a good laugh when the doctor
should say it was all the result of imagination, and that there was no
wound at all.

When the surgeon had examined the limb, he looked up at the face of
the soldier, which was a picture of pain, and the bystanders could not
account for the look of tender sympathy and pity in the doctor’s eyes.

Can it be, thought Creede, that he is really hurt and that I have
failed to find the wound? “Forgive me, Jim,” he said, holding out his
hand to the sufferer, but the surgeon waved him away.

“Why, you--you couldn’t help it, Nick,” said Murie. “You couldn’t kill
all of them; but we made it warm for them till I was shot. You won’t
let _her_ know, will you?” he said, turning his eyes toward the medical
man. “It would break her heart. Poor dear, how she cried and clung to
me last night and begged me to stay with her and let the country die
for itself awhile. Most wish I had now. Is it very bad, Doctor? Is the
bone broken?”

“Oh no,” said the surgeon. “It’s only painful; you’ll be better soon.”

“Good! Don’t let _her_ know, will you?”

They laid him on a cot and he closed his eyes, whispering as he did so:
“Don’t let _her_ know.”

“Where is the hurt, Doctor?” Creede whispered.

“Here,” said the surgeon, touching his own forehead with his finger.
“He is crazy--hopelessly insane.”

All night they watched by his bed, and every few moments he would
raise up suddenly, look anxiously around the tent, and say in a stage
whisper: “Don’t let _her_ know.”

A few days later they took him away. He was not to lead his brave
scouts again. His reason failed to return. I never knew what became
of his wife, but I have been told that she is still watching for the
window of his brain to open up, when his absent soul will look out and
see her waiting with the old-time love for him.

One of his old comrades called to see him at the asylum, a few years
ago, and was recognized by the demented man. To him his wound was as
painful as ever, and as he limped to his old friend, his face wore a
look of intense agony, while he repeated, just as his comrades had
heard him repeat an hundred times, this from Swinburne:

  “Oh, bitterness of things too sweet,
    Oh, broken singing of the dove.
  Love’s wings are over-fleet,
  And like the panther’s feet
    The feet of Love.”

“Good-by, Jim,” said the visitor, with tears in his voice.

“Good-by,” said Jim. Then glancing about, he came closer and whispered:
“Don’t let _her_ know.”

It is a quarter of a century since Murie lost his reason and was locked
up in a mad-house, and these years have wrought wondrous changes. The
little projected line across the plain has become one of the great
railway systems of the earth. “Dick,” the beardless operator who gave
Murie his orders at Omaha, is now General Manager Dickinson. The
delicate and spare youth, who wore a Winchester and red light at the
rear end of the special, is now General Superintendent Deuel, and
Creede, poor fellow, he would give half of his millions to be able to
brush the mysteries from Murie’s mind.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

TURNING PROSPECTOR--TRADING HORSES.


Had N. C. Creede remained a poor prospector all his days, these pages
would never have been printed. That is a cold, hard statement; but
it is true. Shortly after the fickle Goddess of Fortune sat up a
flirtation with the patient prospector, the writer met with a gentleman
who had served on the plains with the man of whom you are reading, and
he told some interesting stories. We became very well acquainted and
my interest in the hunter, scout, prospector and miner increased with
every new tale told by his companion on the plains. Those who know this
silent man of the mountains are well aware of his inborn modesty and
of the reticence he manifests when questioned about his own personal
experiences. Hence, the writer as well as the reader must rely largely
upon the stories told by his old comrade, the first of which was this:

A large body of Sioux Indians were camped near North Platte, Nebraska,
having come there to meet some peace commissioners sent out from
Washington. We were camped about eight miles below them, quietly
resting during the cessation of hostilities, yet constantly on the
alert to guard against a foray from our foes above. The Sioux and the
Pawnees were bitter enemies, constantly at war with each other, and as
we knew they were aware of the existence of our camp, we feared some of
them might run down and endeavor to capture our stock. Our best scouts
were sent out every evening in the direction of North Platte to note
any evidences of a night raid that might appear, and our Indians were
instructed to have their arms in perfect order and in easy reach when
they rolled up in their blankets for sleep.

Creede’s horse had become lame and was next to useless for field work.
We did not have an extra animal in camp, and for three or four days he
tried hard to trade the crippled horse to an Indian scout for a good
one. He offered extravagant odds for a trade, but the Indians knew too
well the near proximity of a natural enemy and would take no risks on
being without a mount should trouble come.

We were sitting in the tent one evening, taking a good-night smoke,
when some one began to chaff Creede about his “three-legged horse.”
Nick took it all good-naturedly, smiling in his own quiet way at our
remarks, and soon he sat with his eyes bent on the ground, as if in
deep reflection. Suddenly he arose, buckled on his pistols, picked up
his rifle and started from the tent without a word.

“Where are you going, Nick?” some one asked.

“Going to see that the pickets are out all right,” he replied, as the
tent flap closed behind him.

[Illustration]

This seemed natural enough, and we soon turned into our blankets and
thought no more of the matter. When we rolled out at daybreak next
morning, it was noticed that Creede’s blankets had not been used and
that he was not in the tent. One of the boys remarked that he had
lain down out in the grass to sleep and would put in an appearance at
breakfast time, and we all accepted this as the true explanation of
his absence. Half an hour later, when we were about to eat breakfast,
one of the pickets came in and reported something coming from up the
river. Our field-glasses soon demonstrated the fact that it was a
man riding one horse and leading four others. As he came closer, we
recognized Creede, and he soon rode in, dismounted and began to uncinch
his saddle, with the quiet remark:

“Guess I ought to get one good mount out of this bunch.”

“Where did you get them?” Major North asked.

“Up the river a little ways.”

“How did you get up there? Walk?”

“Not much I didn’t. I rode my lame horse.”

“What did you do with your own horse?”

“Traded him for these even up.”

He had gone alone in the night, stolen into the herd of the Sioux near
North Platte, unsaddled his lame horse and placed the saddle on an
Indian’s, and, leading four others, got away unobserved and reached
camp safely. It was a bold and desperate undertaking, but one entirely
in keeping with his adventurous spirit.




CHAPTER VI.

INDIANS OFF THE RESERVATION--ALONE IN CAMP--PROMPT ACTION.


During the summer of ’68, a large party of Pawnee Indians, men and
squaws, left the reservation on the Loop fork for a buffalo hunt in
the country lying between the Platte and Republican Rivers. These
semi-annual hunts were events of great interest to the tribe, for by
them they not only secured supplies of meat, but also large numbers of
robes, which were tanned by the squaws and disposed of to traders for
flour and groceries, and for any other goods which might strike the
Indian fancy.

At this time the Pawnee scouts were lying in camp on Wood River, about
a mile from the Union Pacific Railroad station of that name. The
hostile Indians had for some weeks made no aggressive demonstration,
and our duties were scarcely sufficient to edge up the dull monotony
of camp life. Once a week about half of the company would be sent on a
scout to the west along the railway, two days’ march, four days of the
week being consumed by these expeditions.

Half of the company had gone on this weekly scout, leaving but one
white officer in camp, Lieutenant Creede. He had, if I recollect
aright, but eighteen men fit for duty, a number of others being
disabled by wounds received in recent battles. The second day after the
hunting party left, the section men from the west came into Wood River
Station on their hand-car, and excitedly reported that a band of about
fifty Sioux had crossed the track near them, headed south. Joe Adams
was the agent at Wood River, and he at once sent a messenger to the
Pawnee camp to tell Lieutenant Creede of the presence of the hostiles.
Creede hastily mounted his handful of warriors, and in less than
twenty minutes was dashing forward on the trail of the Sioux. The time
consumed by the section men in running into the station, a distance of
about four miles, and the consequent delay caused by sending the news
to Creede, and the catching up and saddling of the ponies had given
the Sioux a good start, and when the scouts had reached the Platte
the hostiles had crossed over and were concealed from view in the
sand-hills beyond.

Crossing the wide stream with all possible haste, the game little
ponies, struggling with the treacherous quicksand for which that
historic river is noted, the scouts struck the trail on the opposite
bank and pushed rapidly forward. Although they knew that the Sioux
outnumbered them three to one, the Pawnees were eager for the fray--an
eagerness shared in by their intrepid commander. Chanting their
war-songs, their keen eyes scanning the country ahead from the summit
of each sand-hill, they pushed onward with the remorseless persistence
of blood-hounds up the trail of fleeing fugitives.

About three miles from the river, on reaching the top of a sand-hill,
the enemy was discovered a mile ahead, moving carelessly along,
oblivious of the fact that they were being pursued. Concealed by
the crest of the hill, the Pawnees halted to view the situation,
and Lieutenant Creede covered the hostiles with his field-glass. An
imprecation came from his lips as he studied the scene in front,
and crying out a sentence in the Pawnee tongue, his warriors crowded
about him. His experienced eye had shown him that they were Yankton
Indians, then at peace with the whites. He took in the situation in a
moment. They had learned of the departure of the Pawnee village on a
buffalo hunt, and were after them to stampede and capture their horses,
kill all of their hated enemy they could and escape back to their
reservation.

All this he told to his warriors, and the field-glass in the hands of
various members of the party corroborated the fact that, as United
States scouts, they had no right to molest the Yankton bands. The
impetuous warriors chafed like caged lions, and demanded in vigorous
terms that the chase should be resumed. One cool-headed old man, a
chief of some importance in the tribe, addressed Lieutenant Creede
substantially as follows:

“Father; you are a white man, an officer under the great war chief at
Washington, and you would rouse his anger by battling with Indians
not at war with him and his soldiers. We are Pawnee Indians, and the
men yonder are our hated foes. They go to attack our people, to kill
our fathers, sons, brothers, the squaws and children, and steal their
horses. It is our duty to protect our people. It is not your duty to
help us. Go back, father, to our camp, and we, not as soldiers, but as
Indians, will push on to the defense of our people. Listen to the words
of wisdom and go back.”

The situation was a trying one. The Lieutenant well knew that if he led
his scouts against the Yanktons he would have to face serious trouble
at Washington and meet with severe censure from General Augur, then
commanding the Department of the Platte. He realized that his official
position would be endangered, and that he might even subject himself to
arrest and trial in the United States Courts for his action. For some
moments he stood with his eyes bent upon the ground in deep reflection,
the Indians eying him keenly and almost breathlessly awaiting his
reply. It was a tableau, thrilling, well worthy the brush of a painter.
The hideously painted faces of the Indians scowling with rage; their
blazing, eager eyes reflecting the spirit of impatience which swayed
their savage souls; the hardy, faithful ponies cropping at the scant
grass which had pierced the sand; the Lieutenant standing as immovable
as a rock, his face betraying no trace of excitement, calmly, silently
gazing at the ground, carefully weighing the responsibilities resting
upon him,--all went to make up a picture so intensely thrilling that
the mind can scarcely grasp its wild features.

When the Lieutenant spoke, he did so quietly and calmly. There was a
light in his eyes which boded no good to the pursued, but his voice
betrayed not the least excitement. He said:

“For several years I have been with you--have been one of you. We
have often met the enemy in unequal numbers, but we have never been
defeated. In all the battles in which I have led you, you never
deserted me. Should I desert you now? I know that I will be censured,
perhaps punished, but those Yanktons shall never harm your people. I
will lead you against them as I would against a hostile band, and on me
will rest all the responsibility. We go now as Pawnee Indians, not as
United States scouts, and go to fight for our people. Mount!”

Grunts of satisfaction greeted his words. They would have been followed
by wild yells of savage delight had there been no fear of such a
demonstration disclosing their presence to the Yanktons. Horses were
quickly mounted, and the band again took the trail with an impatience
which could scarcely be curbed.

The Yanktons were soon again sighted, and the scouts adopted the Indian
tactics of stealing upon their foes. Skirting the bases of sand-hills,
keeping from sight in low grounds and following the bed of gulches,
they pressed on, until the enemy was discovered less than three-fourths
of a mile ahead, and yet unconscious of the presence of a foe.

Halting in a low spot in the hills, the Pawnees hastily unsaddled their
ponies and stripped for the fight. Indians invariably go into a battle
on bareback horses, as saddles impede the speed of the animals in quick
movements. When again mounted, the Lieutenant gave the command to
advance. On reaching the crest of a sand-hill, the Pawnees discovered
their enemy just gaining the summit of the next, about five hundred
yards distant. The Yanktons discovered their pursuers at the same
moment, and great commotion was observed in their ranks. They hastily
formed themselves for battle, and then one of them who could speak
English, cried out:

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

“We are Pawnee Indians, and we want to know where you are going,”
Creede shouted in reply.

“You are Pawnee scouts, and are soldiers of the United States. We are
Yankton Sioux at peace with the Government, and you cannot molest us.”

“You are moving against the Pawnee village, now on a buffalo hunt,”
Creede replied. “You want to kill our people and steal their horses. We
are Pawnee Indians, and are here to fight for our people. If you take
the trail back across the Platte, we will not disturb you, but if you
attempt to move forward, we will fight you. Decide quick!”

The leaders of the Yankton band gathered about the interpreter in
council, while Creede interpreted what had been said to his warriors.
It was with difficulty he could restrain them from dashing forward to
the attack. In a few moments the Yankton interpreter shouted:

“If you attack us, the Government will punish you and reward us for
our loss. We do not fear you as Pawnees, but we are at peace and do
not want to fight you because you are soldiers of the great father at
Washington. We are many and you are few, and we could soon kill you
all, or drive you back to your camp. Go away and let us alone.”

“You are the enemy of our people, and you go to kill them,” the
Lieutenant replied. “We will fight for them, not as soldiers, but
as Pawnees. You must make a move now, instantly. We will wait but
a minute. If you take the back trail, it will be good. If you move
forward, we will make you halt and go back.”

The only reply was a command from the Yankton leader to his followers,
in obedience to which they started forward in their original direction.
Creede shouted a command to his men, and with wild yells they dashed
down the slope and up the side of the hill on which their enemy had
last been seen. On a level flat beyond the hill, the Yanktons were
found hastily forming for battle, and with tiger-like impetuosity, the
scouts dashed forward, firing as they advanced.

The wild dash of the Pawnees seemed to bewilder the Yanktons, and
they were thrown into confusion. They quickly rallied, however, and
for fully an half-hour they fought desperately. The mad impetuosity
of the Pawnee again threw them into confusion, and scattering like
frightened sheep, they fled from the field. The Pawnees pursued them,
and a running fight was maintained over several miles of country. The
Yanktons were at last so scattered that they could make no show of
resistance, and with all possible speed sought the river crossing and
fled toward their agency. It was afterwards learned that they sustained
a loss of eight killed and quite a large number wounded. The Pawnees
lost but one man killed, but many were wounded on the field. Several
horses were killed. Creede’s army blouse was riddled with bullets and
arrows.

[Illustration: AMETHYST MINE.]

Returning from the field, “Bob White,” a Pawnee, reached Wood River in
advance of the scouts, and by making motions as of a man falling from
a horse, and, repeating the word, “Lieutenant,” created the impression
that Creede had been killed, and the agent telegraphed the news to
Omaha, where it was published in the daily papers. When the scouts
reached the station, however, the gallant Lieutenant was at their head.
When he dismounted, it was observed that he limped painfully, and in
explanation said, that in one of the charges his horse had fallen upon
him, severely bruising and spraining one of his legs. This was what
“Bob” had tried to tell, but the agent interpreted his signs to mean
that the intrepid leader had been killed in battle.

When the Yanktons reached their agency, they reported that while
quietly moving across the country, the Pawnee scouts, being in the
service of the United States, had attacked them in overwhelming numbers
and driven them back to their reservation. The matter was laid before
the authorities at Washington, referred to General Augur, and by him
to Major North, who was already in possession of Creede’s explanation
of the affair. Considerable red-tape correspondence followed, and as
the Yanktons were off their reservation without permission, and in
direct violation of orders, the matter was allowed to drop. Creede was
doubly a hero in the eyes of his scouts after this episode, and when
the Pawnee village returned, and it was learned how the Lieutenant
had battled in their behalf, they bestowed upon him the most marked
expressions of gratitude and adoration.




CHAPTER VII.

  TRAIL OF INDIAN PONY TRACKS--DESPERATE ENCOUNTER--HARD TO MAKE THE
    SCOUTS BELIEVE HIS STORY.


One of the most daring acts in the history of this daring man was
committed in Western Nebraska in 1866. From boyhood days, he had been
noted as a hunter, and during the years which he spent in the scouting
service, his splendid marksmanship and extraordinary achievements
in the pursuit of game earned for him the reputation of being the
best hunter west of the Missouri River. His success in that line was
phenomenal and elicited expressions of surprise from all who had a
knowledge of his work, and from those who were told of it.

Killing buffalo was not regarded by Creede, or by any of the hunters,
as the best evidence of skill in marksmanship or in hunting. Any one
who could ride a horse and fire a rifle or revolver could kill those
clumsy, shaggy animals much easier than they could pursue and kill the
ordinary steers on the western ranges to-day. In fact, the range steer
is a far more dangerous animal when enraged than was the buffalo, for
it possesses greater activity, and is more fleet of foot. The men who
have gained notoriety on account of the number of buffalo they have
killed are looked upon with quiet contempt by the true hunters of the
plains and mountains, who justly claim that hunting excellence can
only be shown in the still hunt, where tact and skill are required to
approach within shooting distance of the elk, deer or antelope, and
proficient marksmanship is necessary to kill it. When buffalo were
plenty on the western plains, it was not at all unusual for women to
ride after and kill them, and incur little, if any, risk of personal
danger. Miss Emma Woodruff, a school teacher on Wood River in the
sixties, and who afterwards married a telegraph operator at Wood River
Station, became quite noted as a buffalo hunter, and regarded it but as
an ordinary achievement to mount her pony and kill one of the shaggy
monsters. The long-haired showmen who infest the country and tell
thrilling stories of their desperate adventures and narrow escapes
while hunting the buffalo, draw largely upon their imagination for bait
to throw out to the gullible. No one in a dozen of them ever reached
the west bank of the Missouri River. Every frontier man will agree that
the so-called scouts, cowboys and Indian fighters who pose in dime
museums, dime novels or behind theatrical foot-lights, are in nearly
every instance the most shameless frauds, whose long hair and unlimited
“gall” make them heroes in unexperienced eyes. Since the death of Kit
Carson, but one long-haired man has earned a reputation as a scout,
and while he was once, for a brief season, allured into the dramatic
business, and now gives platform entertainments when his duties will
permit him to do so, he is not a showman, but is yet in Government
employ. He is a trusted secret agent of the Department of Justice,
and is engaged in a calling almost as dangerous as was his scouting
service--that of running down the desperate men who are engaged in
selling liquor to Indians. Long hair is the exception and not the rule
among scouts, and a cowboy who permits his locks to cluster over his
shoulders is laughed at by his fellow knights of the saddle and classed
as a crank.

You shall read this story as it fell from Creede’s own lips when I
pressed him to tell it to me. It was this incident which first gained
from him the full confidence and unstinted admiration of the Indian
scouts:

“Game, through some cause, was very scarce near our camp, and one day I
saddled my favorite horse and rode southward, determined to get meat of
some kind before returning. I went about fifteen miles from camp, and
after hunting some four or five hours without success, made up my mind
the game had all left the country. I started to return by a circuitous
route, desiring to cover as large a scope of country as possible, and
get some meat if it was at all to be found. After traveling perhaps
an hour through the sand-hills, I came upon a fresh trail of pony
tracks, and I knew the tracks were made by Indian ponies, and hostile
Indians, too, for none of our scouts were away from camp. I determined
to follow the trail and ascertain if the ponies all bore riders, and,
if possible, to get close enough unobserved to see from the appearance
of the Indians who they were, and if it was a hunting or war party.
They were headed in the direction in which I desired to go, and after
tightening up my saddle cinches and looking to see if my pistols were
in order, I took the trail. I judged from the trail that there were
about twenty-five or thirty Indians in the party, and I soon learned
that my estimate was a nearly correct one.

[Illustration]

“When I reached the top of the first little hill ahead of me, I came
in full view of the party not more than a quarter of a mile distant.
They saw me at the same time, as I knew from the confusion in their
ranks. I tell you, in a case of that kind, one wants to do some quick
thinking, and if ever a man jogged his brain for a scheme to get out
of an ugly scrape, I did right then and there. If I tried to run, I
knew they would scatter and get me, and in less time than it takes me
to tell it, I had made my plan and started to put it into execution.
I saw that my only chance, though a desperate one, would be to make
them believe I was ahead of a party in their pursuit, and taking off my
hat, I made frantic motions to the rear, as if hurrying up a body of
troops, and then, putting spurs to my horse, dashed right toward them,
and when close enough, began firing at them with my rifle. The scheme
worked beautifully, for without firing a shot, they seemed to become
terror-stricken and fled on through the hills. The course lay through
low sand-hills which often concealed them from view, but I pressed on,
firing at every chance. I chased them for fully three miles; two of
them died and I captured three ponies which fell behind, and then left
the trail and made for camp. I found it hard to make the scouts believe
my story, and some of them quite plainly hinted that I had found the
ponies in the hills and had seen no Indians. I saw at once that they
doubted me, and determined to convince them of the truth of what I had
told them. The next morning I took a dozen or more of them and went
back to the scene of the chase, and we were not long in finding all the
coyotes had left of the two bodies.

“That affair firmly established my reputation with the scouts, and ever
after they fully relied on my judgment as a war chief. Through all our
future operations, they trusted me implicitly, and would follow me any
place I chose to lead them.”




CHAPTER VIII.

  WHEN NEW FLOWERS BLOOM ON THE GRAVES OF OTHER ROSES--PLUNKETY PLUNK
    OF UNSHOD FEET--HE HAD RECKONED WELL.


In the early springtime, at that time of the year when all the world
grows glad; when the green grass springs from the cold, brown earth;
when new flowers bloom on the graves of other roses; when every animal,
man, bird and beast, each to his own kind turns with a look of love
and tender sympathy, we find the restless Red Men of the Plains on the
war-path.

One day at sunset, Lieutenant Creede rode out from Ogallala, where
the scouts were stationed, guarding the railway builders. It was
customary for some one to take a look about at the close of day, to
see if any stray Sioux were prowling around. About six miles from
camp, he came to a clump of trees covering a half dozen acres of
ground. Through this grove the scout rode, thinking perhaps an elk
or deer might be seen; but nothing worth shooting was sighted, till
suddenly he found himself at the farther edge of the wood and on the
banks of the Platte. Looking across the stream, he saw a small band of
hostile Sioux riding in the direction of the river, and not more than
a mile away. His field-glasses showed him that there were seven of the
Sioux, and without the aid of that instrument, he could see that they
had a majority of six over his party. They were riding slowly in the
direction of the camp. Creede concluded that they intended to cross
over, kill the guards, and capture the Government horses. His first
thought was to ride back to camp, keeping the clump of trees between
him and the Indians, and arrange a reception for the Sioux.

The river was half a mile wide and three feet deep. Horses can’t travel
very rapidly in three feet of water.

In a short time they had reached the water’s edge and the scout could
hardly resist the temptation to await their approach, dash out, take a
shot at them, and then return to camp. That was dangerous, he thought;
for, if he got one, there would still be a half a dozen bullets to
dodge. A better plan would be to leave his horse in the grove, crawl
out to the bank, lie concealed in the grass until the enemy was within
sixty yards of him, then stand up and work his Winchester. The first
shot would surprise them. They would all look at their falling friend;
the second would show them where he was, and the third shot would leave
but four Indians. By the time they swung their rifles up another would
have passed to the Happy Land, and one man on shore, with his rifle
working, was as good as three frightened Indians in the middle of the
river.

Thus reasoned the scout, and he crept to the shore of the stream. He
had no time to lose, as the Indian ponies had finished drinking and
were already on the move.

As the sound of the sinking feet of the horses grew louder, the hunter
was obliged to own a feeling of regret. If he could have gotten back
to his horse without them seeing him, he thought it would be as well
to return to camp and receive the visitors there. Just once he lifted
his head above the grass, and then he saw how useless it would be to
attempt to fly, for the Indians were but a little more than a hundred
yards away. Realizing that he was in for it, he made up his mind to
remain in the grass until the Sioux were so near that it would be
impossible to miss them. Nearer and nearer sounded the plunkety-plunk
of the unshod feet of the little horses in the shallow stream, till at
last they seemed to be in short-rifle range, and the trained hunter
sprang to his feet. He had reckoned well, for the Indians were not over
sixty yards away, riding tandem. Creede’s rifle echoed in the little
grove; the lead leaped out and the head Indian pitched forward into the
river. The riderless horse stopped short. The rifle cracked again, and
the second Red Man rolled slowly from the saddle; so slowly that he
barely got out of the way in time to permit the next brave, who was
almost directly behind him, to get killed when it was his turn. The
remaining four Indians, instead of returning the fire, sat still and
stone-like, so terrified were they that they never raised a hand. Two
more seconds; two more shots from the trusty rifle of the scout and two
more Indians went down, head first, into the stream. Panic-stricken,
the other two dropped into the river and began to swim down stream with
all their might. They kept an eye on the scout and at the flash of his
gun they ducked their heads and the ball bounded away over the still
water. Soon they were beyond the reach of the rifle. Returning to their
own side of the river, they crept away in the twilight, and the ever
sad and thoughtful scout stood still by the silent stream, watching
the little red pools of blood on the broad bosom of the slowly running
river.

Three of the abandoned bronchos turned back. Four crossed over to
Creede and were taken to camp.

The two sad and lonely Sioux had gone but a short distance from the
river, when one of them fell fainting and soon bled to death. He had
been wounded by a bullet which had passed through one of his companions
who was killed in the stream. The remaining Indian was afterwards
captured in battle and he told this story to his captors, just as it
was told to the writer by the man who risked his life so fearlessly in
the service of Uncle Sam.




CHAPTER IX.

  SIT-TA-RE-KIT SCALPED ALIVE--AN INDIAN NEVER CARES TO LIVE AFTER HE
    HAS LOST HIS SCALP.


During the month of May, 1865, the scouts were given permission to go
with the Pawnees on their annual buffalo hunt. The Pawnees were greatly
pleased, for where there are buffaloes there are Indians; and the Sioux
were ever on the lookout for an opportunity to drop in on the Pawnees
when they were least expected. Late one afternoon a party, eight in
number, of the scouts became separated from the main force during the
excitement incident to a chase after buffaloes; and, before they had
the slightest hint of danger, were completely surrounded by a band of
at least two hundred Sioux. The hunters were in a small basin in the
sand-hills while the low bluffs fairly bristled with feathers. The
Sioux would dash forward, shoot, and then retreat. Lieutenant Creede,
two other white men and five Pawnees composed the party of scouts. This
little band formed a circle of their horses, but at the first charge
of the savage Sioux, the poor animals sank to the sand and died. The
scouts now crouched by the dead horses, and half a dozen Sioux fell
during the next charge. One savage who appeared to be more fearless
than the rest, dashed forward, evidently intending to ride over the
little band of scouts. Alas for him! there were besides the Lieutenant,
three sure shots in that little circle, and before this daring brave
had gotten within fifty yards of the horse-works, a bullet pierced his
brain. Instead of dropping to the ground and dying as most men do,
this Indian began to leap and bound about, exactly like a chicken with
its head cut off, never stopping until he rolled down within fifteen
feet of the scouts.

There was a boy in Creede’s party, Sit-ta-re-kit by name, a very
intelligent Pawnee, eighteen years old, who had gone with the
Lieutenant to Washington to see the President of the United States.
There seemed to be no shadow of hope for the scouts; and this young
man started to run. Inasmuch as he started in the direction of the
camp, which was but a mile away, it is but fair to suggest that he may
have taken this fatal step with the hope of notifying the Pawnees of
the state of affairs. This was the opinion of Lieutenant Creede; while
others thought he was driven wild by the desperate surroundings. He
had gone less than a hundred yards when a Sioux rode up beside him and
felled him to the ground with a war club. The young scout started to
rise, was on his knees, when the Sioux, having dismounted, reached for
the scout’s hair with his left hand. All this was seen by the boy’s
companions.

[Illustration]

“Oh, it was awful!” said Creede, relating this story to the writer. “We
had been together so much. He was so brave, so honest and so good. Of
course, he was only an Indian; but I had learned to love him, and when
I saw the steel blade glistening in the setting sun--saw the savage
at one swift stroke sever the scalp from that brave boy’s head, I was
sick at heart.” After he had been scalped, the boy got up and walked
on, right by the savage Sioux. He was safe enough now. Nothing on earth
would tempt an Indian to touch a man who had been scalped, not even to
kill him.

A Pawnee squaw was working in the field one day when a Sioux came down
and scalped her. She knew if she returned to her people she would be
killed. It was not fashionable to keep short-haired women about; and,
in her desperate condition, she wandered back to the agency. The agent
was sorry for her and he took her in and cured her head and sent her
back to her people. But they killed her; she had been scalped.

But let us return to the little band in the basin surrounded by the
Sioux. It is indeed a small band now. Four of them are dead, one
scalped and gone; but as often as their Winchesters bark, a Sioux
drops. There was nothing left for them now but to fight on to the end.

Death in this way was better than being burned alive. There was no
hope--not a shadow; for, how were they to know that one of their
companions had seen the Sioux surround them and that the whole force
of Pawnee scouts were riding to the relief of this handful of men, who
were amusing themselves at rifle practice while they waited for death.

With a wild yell, they dashed down upon the murderous Sioux, and,
without firing a shot, they fled from the field, leaving thirteen
unlucky Indians upon the battle ground.

The brave boy never returned. He took his own life, perhaps; for an
Indian never cares to live after he has lost his scalp, knowing that
his companions look upon him as they look upon the dead.




CHAPTER X.

  LOYAL IN FRIENDSHIP, TRUE TO A TRUST--A CRUEL CAPTAIN.


N. C. Creede, the Prince of Prospectors and new-made millionaire,
is one of the gentlest men I have ever met, notwithstanding most of
his life has been spent in scenes not conducive to gentleness. His
friendship is loyal and lasting; and he is as true to a trust as the
sunflower is to the sun. Although a daring scout and fearless Indian
fighter, he is as tender and sympathetic as the hero of the “_Light of
Asia_.”

Creede and I were traveling by the same train one day, when he asked me
if I knew a certain soldier-man--a Captain Somebody; and I said, “No.”

“I raised my rifle to kill him one day and an Indian saved his life,”
said he, musingly.

I looked at the sad face of my companion in great surprise. I could
hardly believe him capable of taking a human life, and I asked him to
tell me the story.

“It was in ’65, I believe,” he began. “We had just captured a village
on a tributary of the Yellowstone, and were returning to our quarters
on Pole Creek. Just before going into camp, we came upon five stray
Sioux, who had been hunting and were returning to their camp on foot.
Two of the Sioux were killed and three captured. On the following
morning, General Augur, who was in command, gave orders to my Captain
to take thirty picked scouts and go on an exploring trip, and to take
the three captives with us, giving special orders to see that none of
the prisoners escaped.

“When everything was in readiness, the three Sioux were brought out
and placed on unsaddled ponies, with their hands tied behind them.
Not a word could they utter that we could understand; but O, the mute
pleading and silent prayers of those poor captives! It was a dreary
April morning; the clouds hung low and the very heavens seemed ready to
weep for the poor, helpless Indians.

“I don’t know why they did, but every few moments, as we rode slowly
and silently across the dank plain, they would turn their sad eyes to
me, so full of voiceless pleading that I found it was impossible to
hold my peace longer. Riding up to the side of the Captain, I asked him
what he intended to do with the captives. ‘Wait and you will see,’ was
his answer. ‘What,’ said I, ‘you don’t mean to kill them? That would
be cold-blooded murder.’ ‘I’ll see that they don’t get away,’ said
the cruel Captain. I thought if he would only give them a show, and
suggested that we let them go two hundred yards, untie their hands and
tell them to fly; but to this proposition he made no reply. Then we
went on silently, the poor captives riding with bowed heads, dreaming
day-dreams, no doubt, of leafy arboles and running streams; of the
herds of buffalo that were bounding away o’er the distant plain.

“The scouts were all Pawnees, and their hatred for the Sioux dated from
the breaking of a treaty by the latter, some time previous. After the
treaty had been completed, the two tribes started on a buffalo hunt.
When they arrived at the Republican River, and the Pawnees had partly
crossed, and the rest were in the stream, the Sioux opened fire upon
them and slew them without mercy. The Pawnee were divided into three
bands by this treacherous slaughter and never got together afterward.
The bitterest hatred existed between the two tribes, and the Government
was using one to suppress the other.

“The three captives would never have surrendered to the Pawnees had
they not seen the white men, to whom they looked for mercy. How
unworthy they were of this confidence, we shall soon see.

“The Pawnees were by no means merciful. I have heard them tell often,
how they skinned a man alive at Rawhide, a little stream in Nebraska,
with all the gruesome and blood-curdling gestures. The white man, the
victim of the skinners, had made a threat that he would kill the first
Indian he saw. It happened to be a squaw; but the man kept his word.
His rifle cracked and the squaw dropped dead. The train had gone but
a few miles when the Indians overtook the wagons and forced them to
return to the scene of the shooting, where they formed a circle, led
the victim to the center, and actually skinned him alive, while his
companions were compelled to look on.”

I agreed that all this was interesting; but insisted upon hearing the
story of the cruel Captain and the captives.

[Illustration]

“Oh, yes,” said the prospector. “Well, I had dropped back a few feet,
two of the naked Indians were riding in front of the Captain, when
he lifted his pistol; it cracked and I saw a little red spot in the
bare back of one of the bound captives. His fettered arms raised
slightly; his head went back, and he dropped from the horse, dead. The
pistol cracked again: Another little red spot showed up between the
shoulders of the other Indian. I felt the hot blood rush to my face,
and impulsively raised my rifle--mechanically, as the natural helper of
the oppressed--when a Pawnee, who was riding at my side, reached out,
grasped my gun, and said, ‘No shoot ’im.’

“The third captive, who was riding behind with the Indian scouts,
attempted to escape, seeing how his companions were being murdered, but
was killed by the guard.

“The Captain dismounted and scalped the two victims with a dull
pocket-knife, and afterward told how they rolled up their eyes and
looked at him like a dying calf.

“I could tell you more; but when I think of that murder, it makes me
sick at heart, and I can see that awful scene enacted again.”




CHAPTER XI.

  A GLIMPSE OF THE ROCKIES--THE PATH OF THE PROSPECTOR, LIKE THAT OF
    THE POET, LIES IN A STONY WAY.


Mr. Creede’s success is due largely to his lasting love for the
mountains, which was love at first sight. It was in 1862 that the
scouts were ordered to Dakota; and it was then he saw for the first
time the grand old Rockies. They were nearing the Big Horn Range, and
the sight of snow in August was something the Indians of the plains
could not understand. In fact, they insisted that it was not snow, but
white earth, and offered to stake their savings on the proposition.
Some of them were foolish enough to bet their ponies that there was
no snow on the ground in summer time. Late that evening they camped
at the foot of the range, and on the following morning, four men were
sent up to investigate and decide the bets. The result was a change of
horses, in which the Indians got the worst of the bargain. For nearly
a week they lingered in the shadows of the cooling mountains and were
loth to leave them.

[Illustration]

When, some years later, the scouts were mustered out of service, Creede
returned to his old home in Iowa. But he soon tired of the dull, prosy
life they led there; and, remembering the scent of wild flowers and the
balmy breeze that blew down the cool cañons of the Big Horn Mountains,
he determined to return to the region of the Rockies. Already he had
seen his share of service, it would seem. For more than a dozen years
he had slept where night had found him, with no place he could call his
home; and yet there are still a dozen years of doubt and danger through
which he must pass. For him the trail that leads to fortune and fame,
is a long one; and many camps must be made between his pallet on the
plains and his mansion by the sea. The path of the prospector, like
that of the poet, lies in a stony way, and nothing is truer than the
declaration that:

  The road is rough and rocky,--
    The road that leads to fame;
  The way is strewn with skeletons
    Of those who have grown lame
  And have fallen by the wayside.
    The world will pass you by,
  Nor pause to read your manuscript
    Till you go off and die.




CHAPTER XII.

  IN COLORADO--THE PROSPECTOR LABORED AND LOOKED AWAY TO THE MOUNTAINS.


The life of a prospector is one fraught with hardships and privations
and, in locations infested by Indians, often one of peril. But in his
search for the precious metals, the hardy prospector gives but little
thought to personal danger. With his bedding, tools and provisions,
packed upon the backs of trusty little burros, he turns from the haunts
of men and plunges into the trackless wilds of the mountains. Guided
by the star of hope, he pursues his ceaseless explorations in the face
of hardships which would appall any heart not buoyed up by a keen
expectation of “striking it rich” in the near future, and springing at
one bound from poverty to wealth.

Of the great army of prospectors constantly seeking to unearth the
vast treasure hidden in the rocky breast of the mountain ranges of the
West, few attain a realization of the hopes which lead them onward, and
secure the wealth for which they so persistently toil. The instances
are very rare in which the prospector has reaped an adequate reward
for his discoveries. In the great majority of cases where really
valuable leads have been located, the discoverers, not possessing the
capital necessary to develop them, have accepted the first offer for
their purchase, and have sold for a mere song properties which have
brought millions to those who secured them. The most notable instance
in the annals of mining in the West, where fortune has rewarded the
prospector for his labors, is that in which figures Mr. N. C. Creede.
His is a life tinged with romance from boyhood to the present time.
This story may serve as an incentive to less fortunate prospectors to
push onward with renewed hopes; for in the great mountain ranges of the
West, untold riches yet lie hidden from the eye of man.

The register at the Drover’s Hotel, Pueblo, if it had a register, held
the name of N. C. Creede, some time in the fall of 1870. He marveled
much at the Mexicans. For years he had lived among the Indians and was
well acquainted with many tribes; but this dark, sad-faced man, was a
new sort of Red Skin.

Pueblo in ’70, was not the city we see there to-day. It was a dreary
cluster of adobe houses, built about a big cotton-wood tree on the
banks of a poor little river that went creeping away toward the plain,
pausing in every pool to rest, having run all the way from Tennessee
Pass over a rocky road through the Royal Gorge.

Less than thirty summers had brought their bloom to him, but he felt
old. Life was long and the seven years of hard service on the plains
had made him a sad and silent man. So much of sorrow, so much of
suffering had he seen that he seldom smiled and was much alone. Away
from his old companions, a stranger in a strange land, he looked away
to the snow-capped crest of the Sangre de Christo and said: “There will
I go and find my fortune.” Then he remembered he was poor. But he was
young, strong and willing to work, and he soon found employment with
Mr. Robert Grant, who was very kind to this lone man in many ways. For
six months he labored and looked away to the mountains, whose stony
vaults held a fortune and fame for him. In the spring of 1871, the
amateur prospector went away to the hills and spent the summer hunting,
fishing and looking for quartz. After this, life away from the grand
old mountains was not the life for him. Here was his habitation. This
should be his home.




CHAPTER XIII.

  FRUITLESS SEARCHES--MET A STREAK OF HARD LUCK--BUT LATER HE STOOD ON
    THE SUN-KISSED SUMMIT.


The winter of 1871-2 was spent at Del Norte, and in the following
spring Creede, with a party of prospectors, went to Elizabethtown,
New Mexico. This town was a new one, but was attracting considerable
attention as a placer field. Like a great many other mining camps, the
place was overdone, and unless a man had money to live on, the outlook
was not very cheerful. Finding no work to do the young prospector
staked a placer claim and commenced operations single-handed and
alone, and the end of the third day, cleaned up and found himself
in possession of nine dollars’ worth of gold dust. This gave him
new courage. He worked all the summer; but when winter came on, he
discovered that after paying his living expenses which are always lofty
in a new camp, he had only made fair wages; the most he had made in a
single day was nine dollars.

The winter following found the prospector in Pueblo again, working for
another stake, this time in the employ of Mr. George Gilbert. Early in
the spring of 1873, he took the trail. Upon this occasion, he found
his way to Rosita in Custer County where the famous Bassick Mine was
afterward discovered, and within a few miles of Silver Cliff, which was
destined to attract the attention of so many prospectors, bringing into
the mining world so much shadow and so little shine.

From Rosita he went to the San Juan district and prospected for several
months, returned to the east side of the range, and finally made a
second trip to the San Juan, but found nothing worth the assessment
work.

About this time the Gunnison country began to attract attention and
with other fortune-seekers Creede went there. This trip, like all his
prospecting tours west of the “Great Divide” panned poorly. Never did
he make a discovery of importance on the western slope, and now he made
a trip to Leadville. Here he met with a well-defined streak of hard
luck. After hunting in vain for a fortune, he was taken with pneumonia,
lingered for a long time between life and death, but finally recovered.
If Creede had died then, he would have received, probably, four lines
in the _Herald_, which would have been to the effect that a prospector
had died of pneumonia in his cabin at the head of California Gulch, and
had been dead some time when discovered, as the corpse was cold and the
fire out. He was of no great importance at that time, but since then
he has marched from Monarch to the banks of the Rio Grande, leaving
a silver trail behind him, until at last, standing on the sun-kissed
summit of Bachelor mountain, he can look back along the trail and see
the camp-fires that he lighted with tired hands, trembling in the cold,
burning brightly where the waste places have been made glad by the
building of hundreds of happy homes.

  [Illustration: DEATH OF “BOB” FORD
  REMOVING THE BODY]

Creede has labored long and faithfully for what he has, never shrinking
from the task the gods seem to have set before him. Almost from his
infancy he has been compelled to do battle with the world alone, and
the writer is proud of the privilege of telling the story of his life,
giving credit where credit is due, and putting the stamp of perfidity
upon the band of stool-pigeons who have camped on his trail for the
purpose of claiming credit for what he did.




CHAPTER XIV.

  THE MONARCH CAMP--JEALOUS MINERS WANTED THE NAME CHANGED.


Forest fires started by the Indians, carelessly or out of pure
deviltry, had swept the hills to the east of the divide in Chaffee
County, and sufficient time had elapsed to allow a pompadour of
pine to grow in the crest of the continent, so thick that it was
almost impenetrable. In July, 1878, having chopped a trail through
this forest, Creede came to the head of the little stream where the
prosperous town of Monarch now stands. For thirteen days the prospector
was there alone, not a soul nearer than Poncha Springs, fifteen or
twenty miles away.

Elk, deer and bear were there in abundance, and the prospector had
little difficulty in supplying himself with fresh meat. In fact, the
bear were most too convenient,--they insisted upon coming in and dining
with the silver-seeker.

Creede located a claim, called it the Monarch, and gave the same name
to the camp. Among the first claims located was one called the “Little
Charm.” It proved to be a good property--but not till it had passed
into other hands. The formation in the Monarch district was limestone,
and in limestone the prospector never knows what he has. To-day he may
be in pay ore and to-morrow pick it all out. Creede had picked out
some promising prospects in the same formation. He had discovered the
Madonna, but had more than he could handle. He took Smith and Gray
up there and told them where to dig; they dug and located the Madonna
claim. They kept it and worked the assessments for five years and then
sold it to Eylers of Pueblo for sixty thousand dollars.

[Illustration: AMETHYST TRAMWAY.]

The ore is very low grade, but was of great value to these men, who
were smelters, for the lead it carried.

By the time the snow began to fall there were a number of prospectors
in the new camp, and having tired of the place, which was one of the
hardest, roughest regions in the state, Creede sold what claims he had
for one thousand seven hundred dollars, but returned every summer for
five years, cleaning up in all about three thousand dollars.

In Monarch, as in his last success, there were a number of jealous
miners who wanted the name of the camp changed.

They were, or most of them, at least, light-weight politicians, who
didn’t care a cent what the town was called so long as they had the
honor of naming it, but the name was never changed.




CHAPTER XV.

  BONANZA CAMP--THE PONCHA BANK--CREEDE DETERMINES TO SEE OTHER
    SECTIONS.


Leaving Monarch, the prospector journeyed through Poncha Pass, over
into the San Luis Valley, and began to climb the hills behind the
Sangre de Christo range. On a little stream called Silver Creek he made
a number of locations, among them the Bonanza, and he called the new
camp by that name, just as he named Monarch after what he considered
his best claim. The country here was more accessible and consequently a
more desirable field for prospecting. South of Bonanza, Creede located
the “Twin Mines,” which proved to be good property. The ore in the
twin claims carried two ounces of gold to the ton.

A year later when the pioneer prospector decided to pull out and seek
new fields, he was able to realize fifteen thousand dollars in good,
hard-earned money. One claim was sold for two thousand dollars, the
money to be deposited in Raynolds’ bank at Salida; but the purchasers
for some reason insisted that the money be deposited in a Poncha bank,
very little known at that time, but whose president shortly afterward
killed his man and became well, but not favorably, known. Creede’s two
thousand dollars went to the banker’s lawyers. The bank closed, and now
you may see the ex-president in a little mountain town pleading at the
bar--not the bar of justice.

The camp has never astonished the mining world, but it has furnished
employment for a number of people, and that is good and shows that
the West and the whole world is richer and better because of the
discoveries of Creede.

Creede now determined to see a little, and learn something of mining in
other sections of the West. Leaving Colorado, he traveled through Utah,
Nevada, Arizona and California, prospecting and studying the formation
of the country in the different mining camps. The knowledge gained on
this trip proved valuable to the prospector in after years. This was
his school. The wide West was his school-house, and Nature was his
teacher.




CHAPTER XVI.

  A BEAR STORY--THE BEAST INFURIATED--A NEW DANGER CONFRONTS HIM.


An old prospecting partner of Mr. Creede’s told the following story
to the writer, after the discovery of the Amethyst, which lifted the
discoverer into prominence, gave him fame and a bank account--and gave
every adventuress who heard of his fortune, a new field:

A man by the name of Chester, Creede and I were prospecting in San
Miguel County, Colorado, in the 80’s. We had our camp in a narrow cañon
by a little mountain stream. It was summer time; the berries were
ripe, and bear were as thick as sheep in New Mexico. About sunset one
evening I called Creede out to show him a cow which I had discovered
on a steep hillside near our cabin.

The moment the Captain saw the animal he said in a stage whisper:
“Bear!” I thought he was endeavoring to frighten me; but he soon
convinced me that he was in earnest.

Without taking his eyes from the animal, he spoke again in the same
stage whisper, instructing me to hasten and bring Chester with a couple
of rifles. When I returned with the shooting irons I gave the one I
carried to Creede, who instructed me to climb upon a sharp rock that
stood up like a church spire in the bottom of the cañon. From my high
place I was to signal the sharp-shooters, keeping them posted as to the
movements of the bear.

“You come with me,” said Creede to the man who stood at his side.
It occurred to me now for the first time that there was some danger
attached to this sport. I couldn’t help wondering what would become of
me in case the bear got the best of my two partners.

If the bear captured them and got possession of the only two guns in
the camp, my position on that rock would become embarrassing, if not
actually dangerous. I turned to look at Chester, who did not seem to
start when Creede did. Poor fellow, he was as pale as a ghost. “See
here,” he said, addressing the man who was looking back, smiling and
beckoning him on as he led the way down toward the noisy little creek
which they must cross to get in rifle range of the bear, “I’m a man of
a family, an’ don’t see why I should run headlong into a fight with a
grizzly bear. I suppose if I was a single man, I would do as you do;
but when I think of my poor wife and dear little children, it makes
me homesick.” Creede kept smiling and beckoning with his forefinger.
I laughed at Chester for being so scared. He finally followed, after
asking me to look after his family in case he failed to return. Just as
a man would who was on his way to the Tower.

Having reached the summit of the rock, I was surprised to see the big
bear coming down the hill, headed for the spot where the hunters stood
counseling as to how they should proceed. I tried to shout a warning to
them, but the creek made such a fuss falling over the rocks that they
were unable to hear me.

A moment more and she hove in sight, coming down the slope on a long
gallop. Probably no man living ever had such an entertainment as I
was about to witness. In New York ten thousand people would pay a
hundred dollars a seat to see it; but there was no time to bill the
country--the curtain was up and the show was on. Creede, who was the
first to see the animal, shot one swift glance at his companion, raised
his rifle, a Marlin repeater, and fired. The great beast shook her
head, snorted, increased her pace and bore down upon her assailants.
Again and again Creede’s rifle rang out upon the evening air, and
hearing no report from Chester’s gun, he turned, and to his horror, saw
his companion, rifle in hand, running for camp. Many a man would have
wasted a shot on the deserter, but Creede was too busy with the bear,
even if he had been so inclined. Less than forty feet separated the
combatants when Creede turned, and at the next shot I was pleased to
see the infuriated animal drop and roll upon the ground. In another
second she was up again, and she looked more like a ball of blood than
an animal. Now she stood up for the final struggle. I saw Creede take
deliberate aim at her breast. He fired and she fell. I shouted with joy
as I thought she must be dead now, but was surprised to see that Creede
was still shooting. As rapidly as I clapped my hands his rifle shouted,
and he put four more great leaden missiles into the body of the bear.

With that unaccountable strength that comes to man and beast in the
last great struggle, the mad monster stood up again. Nothing on earth
or under the earth could be more awful in appearance than was this
animal. One eye had been forced from the socket, and stood out like a
great ball of fire. Blood fairly gushed from her open mouth, and the
coarse, gurgling, strangling sound that came from the flooded throat,
was so awful that it fairly chilled the blood in my veins. For a second
she stood still and glared at her adversary as if she would rest or get
a breath before springing upon him.

Again I saw the hunter take deliberate aim. This time he aimed at the
open mouth, the ball crashed up through the brain and the bear dropped
dead.

I did not shout now. This was the third time I had seen him kill that
same bear, and I expected her to get up again. Creede was not quite
satisfied, for I saw him hastily filling his magazine; and it was well.

The hunter stepped up to the great dead animal and placed his feet upon
her, as hunters are wont to do, when another danger confronted him.

Attracted by the shooting and the coarse cries of the wounded bear, her
mate came bounding down the slope to her rescue.

[Illustration]

The first act had been interesting, but I confess that I was glad when
the curtain dropped. Creede was tired. Even an experienced hunter
could hardly be expected to go through such a performance without
experiencing some anxiety. I almost held my breath as the big animal
bore down upon the tired hunter. Nearer and nearer he came, and Creede
had not even raised his rifle to his shoulder. Now the bear was less
than twenty feet away and Creede stood still as a statue with one foot
resting on the body of the dead.

I was so excited that I shouted to him to shoot, but he never knew it;
and if he had, it would have made no difference.

At last the bear stopped within eight feet of the hunter, and
bear-like, stood up. Now the rifle was leveled and it seemed to me it
would never go, but it did. The big bullet broke the bear’s neck, and
he fell down dead at the hunter’s feet.




CHAPTER XVII.

  SMITH, ABBOTT AND CREEDE--AGREED THEY ABANDON THE HOLE.


In 1886 at Monarch, George L. Smith, Charles H. Abbott and N. C. Creede
formed a company for prospecting purposes. Smith and Abbott were to
furnish the funds, while Creede did the searching. This company lasted
for nearly four years, during which time a number of locations were
made, some of which they could have sold at a good profit; but they
held on for more money, always spending liberally for the development
of their property.

[Illustration:

  NO. 378      INTERIOR OF LAST CHANCE MINE BOARDING HOUSE
  CREEDE COLO. MAR. 24, 1893]

Just before the little company went to pieces, Smith and Abbott went
over in the mountains to where Creede with two miners had worked all
winter, on Spring Creek. After making a thorough examination of the
prospects, it was agreed that they should abandon the hole and break up
the partnership. This action was not taken because of any disagreement;
but the men who were putting up the money were discouraged.

Just before visiting the property, Smith and Abbott received a letter
from Creede, in which he said:

“I notice by the general tone of your letters lately, that you are both
becoming discouraged with my hard luck. I assure you that I am doing
the best I can. Take new courage, stay with me a little longer, and I
shall find the greatest silver mine in America. I feel it in my bones.”

But they had tried so long and spent so much money, that they had
become discouraged.

Smith, since that time has made a small fortune out of mines. Senator
Abbott, who is well known and universally respected, is the manager of
a Monarch property in which he is largely interested. He has a home
in Denver where his family live; but spends most of his time in the
mountains, still toiling, and hoping that he, too, may find a fortune
in the hoary hills.




CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE HOLY MOSES--ELIJAH WAS AWKWARD AND HARD TO SPELL--WAGON WHEEL GAP.


Shortly after the abandonment of the claim on Spring Creek, and the
withdrawal of Senator Abbott from the company, Smith and Creede went
over to the head of West Willow. They believed that at that point
they could find an extension of the vein they had been working, and
Creede believes to this day that they did. Here they located a claim.
They were not working together that day and Creede was alone when the
location was made. Many are the stories that have been told as to how
the first mine in the now famous camp of Creede got its name, none of
which are within a mile of the truth.

[Illustration]

Having driven a stake, Creede sat down to think of a name. There was
little or nothing in a name, he thought, but he wanted to please his
partner. He remembered that Smith had named three claims in Monarch,
the “Madonna,” the “Cherubim,” and the “Seraphim,” and he would follow
in that line. Creede was not well versed in Biblical history, so knew
very little of the saints and angels. He looked above where the eagle
flew by the ragged rocks and thought of Elijah; how he hid away in
the hills, and how the ravens came down and fed him. He looked at his
torn and tattered trousers, and thought of Lazarus. Neither of these
names pleased him. Lazarus suggested poverty and Elijah was awkward and
hard to spell. He looked away to the stream below, where the willows
were, and thought of the babe in the bulrushes. He looked at the thick
forest of pine that shaded the gentle slopes, and thought of the man
who walked in the wilderness. And he called the mine the Moses; then
fearing that his partner might object even to that, rubbed it out, and
wrote “Holy Moses.”

The story of the new strike spread like a prairie fire, and soon found
its way to the ears of Mr. D. H. Moffat, then president of the Denver
& Rio Grande Railroad Company, who was always on the lookout for a good
mine. One day in the early autumn of 1890, Mr. Moffat, with a party of
friends, including Mr. Eb Smith, his mining expert, and Capt. L. E.
Campbell, then quartermaster at Fort Logan, set out in the president’s
private car for Wagon Wheel Gap, which was at that time the terminus of
the track. Captain Campbell had turned the traffic of the post to the
“Scenic Line” and in a little while a warm friendship sprang up between
him and the railway management, the result of which has proved very
beneficial to all concerned.

Arriving at Wagon Wheel Gap, the party set out in stages for the Holy
Moses, a distance of ten miles. The road lay along the grassy banks
of the Rio Grande, one of the prettiest streams in the West. A ride
through such a beautiful country could not be tiresome, and before they
began to feel the fatigue of the journey, they reached the claim.

It took but a short time to convince the speculators that the Moses
was good property, and before leaving, a bond was secured at seventy
thousand dollars. Returning to Denver, the property was divided. Mr.
Moffat took one half, the other half being divided between Captain
Campbell, Mr. Eb Smith, Mr. S. T. Smith, who was then general manager
of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company, and Mr. Walter S.
Cheesman, at that time a director, each paying in proportion to what he
got. Most of the men interested in this new venture were very busy, and
they were at a loss to know what to do for a reliable man to manage
the property. About that time Captain Campbell secured a year’s leave
of absence from the army and took up his residence at the new camp. A
comfortable cottage was built in the beautiful valley, just where the
West Willow pours her crystal flood into the Rio Grande, and here the
Campbells had their home. Mrs. Campbell, who is a niece of Mrs. General
Grant, had lived many years in Washington, but she appeared as much at
home in Creede camp as she did in the Capital.




CHAPTER XIX.

  Here’s a land where all are equal,
  Of high and lowly birth;
  A land where men make millions
  Dug from the dreary earth.
  Here the meek and mild-eyed burros
  On mineral mountains feed,
  It’s day all day in the day-time,
  And there is no night in Creede.

  The cliffs are solid silver,
  With wondrous wealth untold;
  And the beds of the running rivers
  Are lined with purest gold.
  While the world is filled with sorrow
  And hearts must break and bleed,
  It’s day all day in the day-time,
  And there is no night in Creede.

  CREEDE CAMP--THE NEW FIELD--INCORPORATION OF THE AMETHYST.


As manager of the Holy Moses, Captain Campbell employed Mr. Creede, in
whom he had implicit confidence, to prospect, on a salary, with the
understanding that the prospector should have one third of what was
found. Creede had a world of faith in the country, and had imparted
this confidence to the Captain.

An ordinary mortal would have been satisfied with thirty-five thousand
dollars, but Creede’s dream had not yet been realized. The prophecy
made in his last letter to his old partners had not been fulfilled.
He had now enough to keep him when old age should come upon him, and
laying his little fortune aside for a rainy day, he started out with
the intention of wasting his grub-stake, his salary and his time.

As if he would lose all trace of the Moses vein, he passed over a low
divide and began to toil up the steep, densely-wooded side of Bachelor
Mountain. How many miles this man had walked in the wilds of the
mountains, alone with Nature and Nature’s God! The frosts of fifty
winters have touched his face and there are streaks of gray in his
soft, thin hair. At his heels is the faithful dog. He, too, has seen
his share of service, and is as gray as his master.

The mountain gets its name from the Bachelor mine which was one of
the first discoveries. This claim was located by a Mr. Bennett in the
year, 1885. Mr. John Herrick, a jolly bachelor of Denver, formerly of
New York, had been pounding away in this claim for several years; but
not until the mountain had given up millions to others, did he wrest a
fortune from her rugged breast.

Slowly up the mountain-side the lone prospector worked his way. Some
float was found and traced along through the heavy forest. Now and
then the great roots of the pine trees forced some rich-looking rock
to the surface, and the prospector was tempted to stop and dig, but
the float kept cropping out. There was mineral in that mountain and he
would follow the outcropping until it disappeared.

Already the prospector began to dream day-dreams of fortune and fame.
Slowly up the mountain he toiled, finding fresh signs of wealth at
every step. Once in a while the temptation to stop was so great, that
it was almost irresistible; but still he went on. When half-way up
the long slope, the outcroppings disappeared and he turned back. His
trained eye soon led them to the proper place and before the sun went
down that day, Creede had laid the foundation for the fortune of not
less than a half dozen people.

  [Illustration: MR. ALLENBY,
  Foreman of the Amethyst.]

The new find was called the Amethyst, and upon this vein are located
now the Last Chance, New York Chance, the Bachelor and a number of
other valuable claims that are worth, or will be when silver is
remonetized, from one to five million dollars apiece.

In May, 1892, the Amethyst Mining Company was incorporated.

Mr. D. H. Moffat was elected president; N. C. Creede, vice-president;
Walter S. Cheesman, secretary and treasurer, and Captain L. E.
Campbell, general manager. A tramway was built to carry the ore from
the mine to the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company’s track, which
cost the Amethyst company many thousands of dollars. Splendid shaft
and ore houses were built at the mine, making almost a little city
where Creede had walked through a wilderness of pines. The Last Chance,
adjoining the Amethyst, owned by Senator E. O. Wolcott, and others,
spent a fortune in development work; but the mine has yielded millions
to its owners. To Mr. Jacob Sanders of Leadville is due the credit for
having organized the Last Chance Mining Company, one of the strongest
in the camp.

When the news of the incorporation of the Amethyst Mining Company went
out to the world, many inquiries were made by brokers for stock; but
none was ever offered for sale.

The capital stock, five million dollars, is divided as follows; Mr.
Creede owns one third, Mr. Moffat one third, Captain Campbell one
sixth, Mr. S. T. Smith and Mr. Cheesman, a twelfth each. When the
statement is made that this mine for some time paid a monthly dividend
of ninety thousand dollars, it is easy to figure the daily income of
any or all of the gentlemen interested in the property. What a striking
example for the monometallist who argues that silver can be produced
at a profit at the present prices; but it stands as a well-known fact,
that, taking the whole output of Creede camp from the date of the
discovery of the Amethyst vein to the present time, every ounce of
silver that has gone down the Rio Grande has cost the producers more
than a dollar.

Of the army of prospectors who lose themselves in the hills every
spring, nothing is ever heard, except of the very few who find a
fortune. Among the gambling dens in a mining camp, the scores of men
who lose from one to one thousand dollars every night keep their own
secret; but let one man win a hundred, and you will hear the barber
tell the city marshal that “Redy Quartz broke de bank at Banigan’s las’
night, too easy.” Mining and prospecting are only legitimate gambling,
and it is the tens of thousands of little losers that keep the game
going.

[Illustration: CREEDE’S COTTAGE AT CREEDE.]




CHAPTER XX.

  WANDERING IN THE WILDS--AMONG THE MILES OF MOUNTAINS--BENEATH A
    SUMMER SKY.


Away in the hills, far above the bluebells, where the day dawned early
and the sunlight lingered when the day was done, the lone prospector
had his home. At times he would have a prospecting partner; but often
for months he lived alone in the hills, with no companion save his
faithful dog, who for thirteen years followed silently where his master
led. One day while talking of his past experiences, the prospector
said: “When I try to taste again the joy that was mine when I first
learned that I was a millionaire, I am disappointed. Like Mark Twain’s
dime, it could be enjoyed but once. Great joys, like great sorrows,
are soon forgotten; but there are things that are as fresh in my memory
as if these years had been but moments. I shall never forget the many
beautiful spots where my little dog and I have camped--always on the
sunny south hills where the sun coaxed the grass to grow and the
flowers to blow, often, it seemed, a month ahead of time. When we had
made our camp, sometimes we would go away for a day or two, and upon
our return, we would find the little wild flowers blooming by our door.
Often, now, when we have finished our midday dinner of porterhouse and
pie, I sit on the stoop in the sunlight, my faithful dog at my feet,
and as I smoke a fifty-cent cigar, my mind wanders back over memory’s
trail.”

[Illustration]

  I hear the song of brooklets,
  The murmurings of the winds;
  I smell the smell of summer,
  Hear the whispering of the pines.

  I seem to see the sunset;
  In fancy I behold
  The hoary hills above me,
  Robed in a garb of gold.

  I give an extra cookie
  To this dear old dog of mine;
  As he shared the shadow,
  So shall he share the shine.

  And as I smoke and lose me,
  In the days that have gone by,
  Among the miles of mountains
  Beneath a summer sky,

  The smoke of my Havanna,
  As it slowly floats away,
  Is freighted with the odor
  Of my long-lost pipe of clay.

  And I give an extra cookie
  To this poor old dog of mine;
  For he has shared the shadow,
  And he shall share the shine.




CHAPTER XXI.

  DEVELOPMENT OF CREEDE--SAW A CITY SPRING UP ALMOST IN A DAY--AN
    HUNDRED GAMBLERS CAME THERE, TOO.


Now let the weary prospector sit down and rest. His dream has been
realized; his prophecy fulfilled.

The opening of the Amethyst vein called for the extension of the Denver
& Rio Grande Railway Company’s track from Wagon Wheel Gap, a distance
of ten miles.

About this time, President Moffat and the General Manager got into an
entanglement with the directory and both resigned. Mr. George Coppell,
chairman of the board, came out from New York and took charge of the
property.

Mr. Moffat and others interested, urged the management to extend the
rails to the new camp. Among those interested in the extension was
Senator Wolcott, counsel for the company; but it is as difficult for a
New York capitalist to appreciate the importance of a silver camp as it
is for him to appreciate the value of a silver dollar, so Mr. Coppell
refused to build the line.

Mr. Moffat then put up thirty-six thousand dollars to build the
extension, agreeing to let the railroad company repay him in freight.

Soon after this Mr. E. T. Jeffrey was elected president and general
manager of the road. Probably no man in America could have taken up the
tools laid down by Moffat and Smith and continue the good work begun
by them, with so little friction as did the present president of the
Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company. To fill the places vacated by
these popular officials was no light task. The grand stand was packed
and the voters held the bleachers, when President Jeffrey went to the
bat.

Colorado said “Play ball,” and in the first inning he won the respect
of the other players and the applause of the people. He has been
successful because he deserved success.

Three months after the completion of the line to Creede, each train
brought to the camp from two hundred to three hundred people, all the
side-tracks were blocked with freight and a ceaseless stream of silver
was flowing into the treasury of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad
Company. The lucky prospector built a cozy cabin in the new camp and
saw a city spring up almost in a day. Just where the trains pulled in,
you might see him sitting by the cottage door, smoking a cigar, while
the little old dog who had just finished a remarkably good breakfast,
trotted stiff-legged up and down the porch and wondered why they didn’t
go out any more and hunt in the hills.


THE RISE AND FALL OF CREEDE.

  A thousand burdened burros filled
    The narrow, winding, wriggling trail.
  An hundred settlers came to build
    Each day new houses in the vale.
  An hundred gamblers came to feed
  On these same settlers--this was Creede.

  Slanting Annie, Gambler Joe
    And Robert Ford; Sapolio--
  Or Soapy Smith, as he was known--
    Ran games peculiarly their own;
  And everything was open wide
  And men drank absinth on the side.

  *       *       *       *       *

  And now the Faro bank is closed,
    And Mr. Faro’s gone away
  To seek new fields--it is supposed--
    More verdant fields. The gamblers say
  The man who worked the shell and ball
  Has gone back to the Capital.

  The winter winds blow bleak and chill,
    The quaking, quivering aspen waves
  About the summit of the hill;
    Above the unrecorded graves
  Where halt, abandoned burros feed
  And coyotes call--and this is Creede.

  Lone graves! whose head-boards bear no name,
    Whose silent owners lived like brutes
  And died as doggedly, but game,--
    And most of them died in their boots.
  We mind among the unwrit names
  The man who murdered Jesse James.

  We saw him murdered--saw him fall,
    And saw his mad assassin gloat
  Above him. Heard his moans and all,
    And saw the shot holes in his throat.
  And men moved on and gave no heed
  To life or death--and this is Creede.

  Slanting Annie, Gambler Joe
    And Missouri Bob are sleeping there;
  But slippery, sly Sapolio,
    Who seems to shun the Golden Stair,
  Has turned his time to loftier tricks--
  He’s doing Denver politics.




CHAPTER XXII.

  WEARING HIS WEALTH--ATTRACTS THE ATTENTION OF ADVENTURESSES--LOS
    ANGELES.

To one who has lived almost alone and unknown for a half hundred years,
the change from obscurity to notoriety and fame is swift and novel.
Mr. Creede realized that he was attracting the attention of the world,
especially the fair ones in search of husbands, in a very short time.

In his little den up the Gulch he had a collection of letters that were
interesting reading. They came from the four corners of the earth; from
women of every tongue, and almost every walk of life.

The first one I saw was from a St. Louis play actress, who sent
photos in which her left foot stands at six o’clock, her right five
fifty-five. Her hair was short and cut curly. She said she was “dead
weary of the stage,” and that with the prospector’s money and her
experience, they could double up and do the world in a way that would
make the swells of “Parie” take to the woods, and there was nothing the
matter with his coming on and she would meet him on the Q. T., and if
she failed to stack up, he could cash in and quit.

July 11, 1892. A Rhode Island preacher writes to ask for help.

  “Doubtless,” he began, “you have many letters from people upon whom
  the cares of life press heavily, and it must be a source of great
  annoyance.”

After dwelling at some length upon his deplorable condition, there was
a--

  “P. S.--If you can’t send money, please send me a suit of cast-off
  clothes, and greatly oblige,
                                                    Yours truly,
                                                                 ----.

  “N. B.--I send measure, so that you can get an idea of what size I
  need. Breast 37, waist 32, leg 33.”

May 17, 1893. A woman with a nose for lucre and a cold nerve, writes
from Waxahachie to ask the lucky prospector to “come down and look at
her daughter.”

  “She is a perfect beauty; has a good solo voice, but is a little
  lazy. She has not quite developed, being only thirteen years old; but
  if you will take a look at her you will change your mind. She’s a
  beauty. She wants to go to Italy or France and study music and if you
  will help to educate her you may have her.”

What a cold-blooded proposition is this, soliciting as a horse trader
would for some one who has a fortune to take a look at her child
thirteen years old!

A lady writes from Canada to borrow three thousand dollars to buy a
farm, and adds that one man should not have so much money.

An ambitious young Englishman, who is in love with the “prettiest girl
in Hold Hengland,” writes for a “few ’undred to bring ’er hover with.”

July 8, 1892, at Columbus, Ohio, a widow writes the best letter of them
all.

  “DEAR MR. CREEDE:--Having seen by the papers that y’s hav lots av
  money, an’ a good disposition I write y’s to ask a favor. No it’s not
  money I wants, nor do I want y’s to marry me. I was as far west as
  Colarado wanct, saw the Vergini Mine in Uray County an’ its Terrable
  in 1888. Shure it was terrable, too; for then I lost the best friend
  av me life--the foreman of the Terrable, he died.

  “After that it seemed I had no friends at tall a tall, an’ I came
  back to Columbus. Nearly I forgot to say I wus married wanct--but
  mind, I’m not wan av thim grassy widdies--I’m bonyfied. Shure if I
  was as shure of another as I am that Pat is dead, shure I wo’n’t be
  wastin’ me time writin’ to ye. Nearly I forgot to say that what I
  want av ye is to find me a good thru and ’onest husband. I’ve lost
  all fait in these wishy-washy judes here. Gimme the rough and onest
  hand of the mountain, and take away your long-tinnis judes.

  “Comparatively speakin’, I was born in the North of Ireland an’ am a
  happy disposition.

  “Remembher, the man must be noble, ’onest an’ thru. Please write to
  me soon.
                                        Very respectfully yours,
                                                                 ----.

  “N. B.--After readin’ this I see I was about to leave out the most
  impartent part. Now if you can’t find a man with all these good
  qualities an’ money too, I’ll take the one wid the ’onest, thru and
  noble carocther. Money can niver buy happiness an’ love, an’ that I
  prize above everything else. I want a man not less than forty as he
  should begin to have some since by that time.

  Wanct more I am,
                                                    Yours truly,
                                                                 ----.”

Up to the writing of these pages, the mails continue to bring loads of
letters from all sorts of cranks. Those from women are turned over to
Mrs. Creede; but only a very few, of course, are answered.

In that poet’s Paradise; that dreamy lotus-land, Southern California,
Creede has bought a beautiful home. It stands just at the end of Sixth
street on Pearl, surrounded by tropical trees, vines and flowers. Here
the balmy breezes bring down the scent of cedar from the hills to the
north, and the soft sea-winds creep across the lea from the ocean-edge.
It’s a pretty place--a pleasant place for weary pilgrims to rest,
beyond the waste of a sun-dried sea--

  O’er which he toiled, a sea of sand before him,
  Dead snakes and withered toads lay on his way;
  The desert sun, red, awful, hanging o’er him
    The livelong day.

  And lo, at last there breaks upon his vision
  A paradise with flowers and tropic trees,
  Cool, crystal streams that flow throw fields elysian;
    Los Angeles.

[Illustration: CREEDE’S RESIDENCE, LOS ANGELES, CAL.]





  THE
  SILVER QUEEN

  A ROMANCE OF THE
  EARLY DAYS OF CREEDE CAMP

  BY
  CY WARMAN AND FITZ MAC

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY ZELLA NEILL.

  DENVER
  THE GREAT DIVIDE PUBLISHING COMPANY
  1894




  COPYRIGHTED 1894, BY CY WARMAN,
  DENVER, COLORADO.




THE SILVER QUEEN.




I.


                                                 DENVER, March 15, 1892.

MY DEAR MR. WARMAN:--I notice by the papers that you are getting ready
to start a daily in Creede. Your courage is worthy of all astonishment.
Don’t you know the gamblers there will shoot you full of holes, and
perhaps spoil the only suit you’ve got fit to be buried in, before your
paper reaches the tenth number? Whatever you do, wear your old clothes
and keep your Sunday suit nice for emergencies. The boys will all chip
in and give you a big funeral, but we haven’t any of us got a spare
coat fit to bury you in; so take care of your Prince Albert and wear
your corduroys till the question is settled one way or the other, for
if anything should happen, it would mortify the boys to have to bury
in his shirt-sleeves the only poet Colorado has produced.

[Illustration]

Well, you are in for it, I suppose, and nothing will stop you, and
being in, there is nothing for it now but to “bear thyself so thine
enemy may beware thee,” or in other words, heel yourself and face the
music like a man. Whatever else you do, don’t show the white feather,
for the honor of the press is in your keeping, and if you will immolate
yourself, we expect you to die game and not with a bullet in your back.
Don’t worry one minute about the obituary notices. That will be all
right. The boys will all see you through in good shape and the papers
here will all turn rules and celebrate your virtues in such halting
meter as can be mustered.

[Illustration]

But, seriously, what evil genius tempted you into the project of a
daily in Creede, and whose money are you blowing in?

If your ambition is to establish a reputation for courage--going into
such a lair of hobos, gamblers and all-round toughs--most people will
think it absurdly superfluous in a man--a western man at least--who
makes no concealment of the fact, in this _fin de siecle_ era, that he
perpetrates poetry and is willing to make his living by it--if he can.

I have no wish to discourage you, Cy, in your present heroic
enterprise; but I think, myself, it is wholly unnecessary as an
evidence of pluck, after all the poetry you have perpetrated. Everybody
knows that a poet--a western poet, especially--takes his life in his
hands whenever he approaches a publisher, as recklessly as the man who
runs sheep onto a cow range. Of course, no western man would feel any
compunction in killing a poet, considering that whatever attention
they command in the East makes against our reputation out here for
practical horse-sense and energy, and tends to make the underwriters
and money-lenders suspicious and raise the rates of interest and
insurance.

[Illustration]

I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world, for I confess I like
your poetry myself, but I think you owe the singular immunity you
have enjoyed in Denver above other poets who have bit the dust or
emigrated eastward, to the openly-expressed admiration and affection
of Myron Reed and Jim Belford and a few other reckless cranks who have
intrenched themselves against “the practical horse-sense” which is the
pride of our people. As, instance: I happened into that gun-store in
the Tabor Block yesterday to provide myself with a jointed fishing-rod
against what time I should come down to your funeral--for they tell me
the Upper Rio Grande swarms with trout, and I thought I might like to
cast a fly, even so early, after seeing you planted, and being shown
the spot where you fell. For I fancy some of those toughs whose hearts
your inspired verses had touched, commiserating my tears, would come
to me and take me gently by the hand and lead me down to the coroner’s
office to show me the hole in the breast of your coat--for I never have
done you the wrong to imagine the hole anywhere _but_ in the breast
where the remorseless bullet tore its way to your brave heart. And then
the tender-hearted tough, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, should draw
me away and lead me up the street “to see where it happened,” and that
he should halt at a certain spot in front of a great flourishing saloon
and gambling hall, where I should catch a glimpse through the windows,
of battered and frowzy girls in dirty, trailing calico “tea-gowns”
and thin slippers, drinking at the bar with the cheaper class of the
gamblers or with befuddled miners they were preparing to rob, and he
should say: “’Twas right here--right where I’m standin’--and poor Cy,
he wuz goin’ along and he wuzn’t sayin’ nothin’ to nobody, ’n’ I was
standin’ right across the street there, in the door of Minnie Monroe’s
place, an’ Min she wuz leanin’ over my shoulder and we wuz both lookin’
right across at the saloon where Soapy Smith wuz standin’ in the door,
readin’ a newspaper out loud to Bob Ford an’ a lot o’ them low-down
girls that hangs around there after breakfast till they strike a
treat; an’ at every word Soapy he was rippin’ out oaths an’ shakin’
his fist, an’ Min, she says to me: ‘Bill, there’s a row on, les’ go
over and see what’s up.’ ’N’ jest at that minute along comes poor
Cy--mindin’ his own business ’n’ sayin’ nothin’ to nobody--an’ that’s
what I’ll swear to ’fore the grand jury, mister, if I’m called, an’
Min, she’ll swear to the same thing. Nothin’ wouldn’t a’ happened, fur
everybody’s back wuz turned, only fur one o’ them low-down trollops
stuck her head out o’ the door and s’ys, ‘There’s the ---- ---- ----,
now,’ and Bob Ford he looked over his shoulder ’n’ s’ys, ‘Sure ’nough
Soapy, there goes your man.’

[Illustration]

“Min an’ me heard every word jest as plain as a pin. Cy heard it, too,
and he knowed what it meant. He wuz game--I’ll say that fur him--’n’
faced about ’n’ reached fur his gun quicker ’n the jerk of a lamb’s
tail in fly time, but Soapy got there first, ’cause he’d rushed out
with his gun cocked, and it wuz all day with poor Cy ’fore you could
say Jack Robinson.”

“Reached for his gun?” (in imagination I inquire doubtingly)--“then he
was--”

[Illustration]

“Oh, yes, he was heeled. Cy wuzn’t no chump. He knowed he was takin’
his life in his hands when he jumped that gang an’ began to roast
them in his paper. He knowed they’d lay fur him an’ do him up if they
ever got the drop on him ’fore he could draw. But oh, say, if poor
Cy had just had a show--or even _half_ a show--wouldn’t he shot the
everlastin’ stuffin’ out o’ that crowd quicker ’n a cat could lick
her ear! That’s what he would, mister, fur he was game an’ he could
handle a gun beautiful. But” (in my fancy your worthy tough always
draws his sleeve across his face at this juncture) “I suppose it _had_
to be--prob’ly it was God’l Mighty’s will. There’s the pole over yander
front o’ Min’s place we strung Soapy and Bob to, an’ there wuzn’t no
inquest on _them_--not much there wuzn’t, for the coroner himself
helped at the lynchin’--_everybody_ helped ’ceptin’ that pigeon-livered
cad of a preacher. He wanted to deliver a lecture to the crowd on the
majesty of the law an’ that kind o’ thing, but he got left on his
little game that time. Oh, he’s too slow for _this_ camp, mister. The
preacher that can’t keep up with the band wagon, ain’t got no business
monkeyin’ around a live mining camp like Creede.”

[Illustration]

But bless my stars, how my anxiety for you has drawn me into
digression? I started to tell you what happened at the gun-store. You
know it’s a place where some clever men drop in and lounge a bit and
swap sporting stories and smoke a friendly cigar. I heard some one call
me to the rear, and going back, I found Belford and their reverences,
Tom Uzzell and Myron Reed--God bless their manly souls--and one or two
others I did not know. And your friend, the Reverend Myron, was reading
aloud to the crowd that fanciful little jingle you had in yesterday’s
_Times_ about the beautiful but willful maid who wandered down to the
shore of sin and got snatched back by some compunctious Joseph before
the undertow caught her, or language to that general effect;--forgive
me, I haven’t been able to read it myself and cannot recall a line of
it although I recognized it as a gem.

Well, you could see the little crowd was being affected, for Mr. Reed
was delivering it with exquisite feeling, and when he had finished,
there was a general glance of admiration all round; and Mr. Uzzell
remarked that there was a fine sermon--I think, on reflection, that
he said a fine, _strong_ sermon--in the verses; and your friend Reed
smiled. Then Belford, in a characteristic burst of rhetoric, declared
that “The Muses must have kissed in his cradle, the fellow who wrote
those lines.” And your friend, the Reverend Myron, smiled out loud,
and Belford glanced around the crowd for approval.

I shouldn’t consider that fraternal magnanimity required me to repeat
these flattering expressions to you, Cy, only that I feel your doom
draws nigh. It is borne in upon me with all the psychic force of a
prophecy that you are fated to perish by the ignominious hand of our
own and only Soapy, if you persist in starting that daily. You can’t
run a daily without saying something, and you can’t say anything that
ought to be said without giving mortal offense to the toughs who are
running that camp, and you can’t give offense to them without getting
shot. It is an ancient saying that “a word to the wise is sufficient”;
but it were better to say, as experience proves, that a word to
the wise is generally superfluous. Be wise, Cyrus, in your day and
generation. Seek fame in other fields. Open a boarding-house or an
undertaker’s shop, or both. This will give you a chance to study human
nature in all its phases. It is the school for a poet and philosopher.
Don’t miss the opportunity. Don’t waste your promising young life
writing poetry or running a daily paper to reform the morals of a
mining camp. Either is sure to bring you to an ignominious grave. But
if, in spite of my prayers and tears, you will persist, send me your
paper. I shall have a curiosity to see what sort of a stagger you make
at moulding the protoplasm of public opinion into a cellular structure
of moral impulse. Send me the paper, _sure_. So-long. God protect you.

                                                       Always,
                                                               FITZ-MAC.

_P. S._--Now, may confusion take my muddled brains, but I have
overlooked the very thing I started to write you about.

The inclosed letter of introduction will make you acquainted with Miss
Polly Parsons, a young girl whom I have known from childhood, and in
whose welfare I take a serious interest. She is a bright and beautiful
girl--and a thoroughly good girl, let me remark--and I want her to know
you and feel that she has a friend in you on whom she can call for
counsel and protection if need be.

She is under the necessity, not only of making her own living, but of
contributing to the support of her father’s family. Her mother and
little brother are here, living in two rooms, but her father is in
Chicago. I knew the family there years ago when they were very rich,
and surrounded by every luxury--fine home on Michigan avenue, carriages
and footman and all that. But Parsons went broke a few years ago on
grain speculations, and the worst of it is, he lost his courage with
his money and is now a broken-spirited man, doing the leg work for
brokers and leaving his family to shift for themselves, or pretty
nearly so. I suppose it is really impossible for the poor fellow to
help them very much or he would, for he loved his wife and children.
Polly had every advantage that money could purchase till the old man
failed, and she is finely educated. She is a girl of great courage and
has an ambition to make a business woman of herself and help her father
onto his feet again. She has some of his genius for bold, speculative
action, and has taken up stenography and typewriting--not as an end but
only as a means.

I am very much afraid she has made a serious misstep in going to Creede
and that she will get herself hopelessly compromised before she is done
with it.

She has gone down with that Sure Thing Mining Company outfit and I
suspect they are a bad lot; but some of them knew her father in the
past, and thus gained her confidence. She is too pretty a girl and too
inexperienced to be exposed to the associations of a mining camp like
Creede, where there are so few decent women, without great danger.
She has got courage and an earnest purpose, and those qualities are
a woman’s best safeguard; but still, she is only a girl of nineteen
or twenty and she doesn’t realize what a delicate thing a woman’s
reputation is. It was sheer recklessness for her to go down there; but
I didn’t know it till after she was off. Her mother got anxious after
she had let her go and came to see me about it. I believe--without
positively knowing--that the outfit she has gone to are right-down
scamps. They seem to have plenty of money and they have opened a
grand office here, but they strike me as bad eggs. A very suspicious
circumstance in regard to their motives toward her--to my mind at
least--is that they have promised her a salary of two hundred and fifty
dollars a month. That is simply preposterous. (You know that they can
get an army of competent stenographers and typewriters at one hundred
dollars a month, or even less.) I don’t like the looks of it a bit. I
suspect they--or one of them--have designs against the girl.

[Illustration]

She is honest to the core, and they will never accomplish her ruin--if
that is what they mean. But of course, you must understand, I am only
voicing a suspicion, and a very uncharitable one at that; but the odor
of the outfit is bad, and they may compromise her hopelessly before she
gets her eyes open, and spoil her life.

I want you to hunt her up and keep an eye on her, and put yourself on
a square footing with her, so that she will have confidence in you.
Above all things, see that she has a boarding place where there is some
respectable married woman, and give her a talking to about the camp
that will open her eyes. She will take care of herself all right if she
is once put on her guard.

I want you to understand she is no pick-up for any rake to trifle with;
but a woman is a woman--you know that, Cy, as well as I do--and youth
is youth.

She is a good telegrapher--unusually good, I imagine. I mention this so
that you may get her employment if that job she has gone to looks at
all scaly, and likely to compromise her.

She has great force of character--her father’s temperament before he
broke down--and she has taken up all these things to fit herself for
that business career to which she aspires. Don’t be deceived by her
suave and amiable manner into thinking her a weakling, for she has got
_immense_ force of character, and she perfectly believes she is going
to have a business career.

I have told her in the letter that you are engaged to the nicest girl
in Denver, so as to put you on a confidential footing, and head off
your falling in love with her yourself. Be a brother to her, Cy, and
keep her out of trouble. God knows you are wicked enough yourself
to scent wickedness from afar and see any danger in the path of an
attractive girl without experience. Look her up at once--_at once_,
mind you--and let me have a good account of yourself as soon as
possible.

                                              Affectionately,
                                                               FITZ-MAC.




II.


                                          CREEDE, Colo., March 17, 1892.

TO FITZ-MAC, Denver, Colo.

_My Dear Fitz:_--Your letter came here yesterday along with the
circulars sent by those peddlers of printing presses and printer’s
ink, but I have been so busy getting things in shape to start the
_Chronicle_, that there has been little time to look after the
beautiful creature of whom you write. Thousands of stenographers have
gone from home to take positions where the pay was better, and no great
harm has resulted, and why you have become so thoroughly alarmed over
the young lady, I am unable to understand. If, as your letter would
indicate, she has lived all her life in Chicago, she is perfectly safe
in Creede.

I went to the station, or rather to the place where the train stops,
this morning, but saw no one who would answer the description of your
young lady. Of the three hundred passengers, not more than ten were
women, and very ordinary looking women at that.

I know that I could find your friend if she is in the camp, by turning
your letter over to Hartigan, the city editor, but he is a handsome
young Irishman who quotes poetry by the mile, and the fact that he has
a wife in Denver would not prevent him from opening a flirtation at the
first meeting.

No, she is better off with the smooth young man than with Hartigan.
Tabor, who is to be the local man, is single, but little better than
the city editor. He is very susceptible and would fall in love with the
young woman and, of course, neglect his work. A morning paper whose
editor is threatened with matrimony should keep its working force out
of the breakers.

The worst feature, so far as I can see, is the fact that I am unable
to locate the Sure Thing Mining Company; but I hope when Mr. Wygant,
the advertising man, comes in, he may be able to enlighten me on this
point. It is my purpose, so far as possible, to carry advertisements
in the _Chronicle_ for none but good companies; and to guard against
any impositions, I employed a man who is well known and well acquainted
with all the fake schemes; and further, that he may have no serious
temptations, he will be paid a salary instead of a commission.

However, there may be a Sure Thing Mining Company, and it may be all
right; but I have failed so far to learn anything about it. The camp
continues to boom. One of the fraternity shot a thumb off the hand of a
fellow sport at Banigan’s last night. I have not taken in the town yet,
although the temptation has been very great. Both the rival theaters
have tendered me a box, and assured me that I would not be “worked.”

[Illustration]

Until now, I never knew what an important personage the editor of a
morning paper was. The city marshal called at the office yesterday with
a half dozen bottles of beer, which he gave to Freckled Jimmie, the
devil, with the explanation that he understood that the editor was a
Democrat.

I have made a good impression on society here, I think. The first man I
was introduced to when I stepped from the train, was Bob Ford, who, in
connection with the Governor of Missouri, removed Jesse James some ten
years ago. (He is a pale, sallow fellow with a haunted look, and he is
always nervous when his back is to the door.) Fitz, there is a great
deal of wickedness in this world, and in a mining camp they make no
attempt at hiding it.

If I were not very busy, I should be very unhappy here. From morning
till night and from night until morning, the ceaseless tramp, tramp, on
wooden walks of the comers and goers is painfully monotonous. Once in a
while a pistol-shot echoes in the cañon, and the saddest thing is that
it is so common that the players scarcely turn from the tables to see
who has fallen in the fight.

  And men move on, and give no heed
  To life or death,--and this is Creede.

By-and-by it will be different. When we have a city government, crime
will be punished. The gambling and other disreputable resorts will be
confined to their own quarter, and Creede will become the greatest
silver camp on earth.

After paying one thousand dollars on our building and as much on our
press and outfit, we had one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars to
our credit.

This morning’s mail brought a letter from Mr. Sanders inclosing a Last
Chance check for five hundred dollars. The same mail brought D. H.
M.’s check for two hundred and fifty dollars with the request that I
accept it with his compliments, but he would have no stock. Now these
people are all Republicans, and they know that I will run a Democratic
paper. In the language of the songster, “That is love.”

I want to say that you do my friend Smith a great injustice, when, in
your day-dream, you make him my slayer. He is my personal body-guard.
He is also a bitter enemy of Ford’s. Mark you, these men will meet some
day--I say some _day_, for it’s never night in Creede,--and whether
he do kill Sapolio or Sapolio do kill him, or both,--especially the
latter,--the incident will render my position all the more secure.

When Governor Routt was here working the shells on the Smart Alecks
who came to camp to buy corner lots cheap, I bought a lot on the shores
of the West Willow. The selvage of my property was swept by the rushing
waters of the busy little brook; and I gave it out that I wanted that
particular lot to have water-power for my press. Of course, all were
anxious to aid in the establishment of a morning paper, and the lot
came to me at three hundred dollars, the minimum price, which is just
thirty times its value. The lot next to mine was reserved by the State
for the use of the little brook.

[Illustration]

A speculative pirate, by the name of Streepy, built a house over the
river and turned the stream through my lot, so now all I own is the
river.

In closing, let me assure you that I will do all in my power to locate
the young woman, and advise you.

                                                Yours truly,
                                                              CY WARMAN.




III.



                                                 DENVER, March 20, 1892.

MY DEAR WARMAN:--Yours of the 17th, after some unaccounted-for delay,
has but just reached me. Perhaps your gifted postmistress had not time
to read it at once, and so held it over till leisure should serve her
curiosity; or she may have found unexpected difficulty in deciphering
your ingeniously atrocious writing, which I can imagine would only
increase the curiosity of a gifted woman.

[Illustration]

I once lived where the postmaster, a man of intellectual inclinations,
was very slow at reading manuscript, being obliged to spell out the
words laboriously, and I found the delay occasioned by the interest
he took in studying my epistolary style, to improve his mind, a great
annoyance. But a bright thought struck me one day, and I employed a
typewriter. After that there was but little delay, for he could read
print very well. I offer you the value of this experience, not at
all on my account, for I can generally manage to make out what you
are writing about pretty closely, but to promote expedition in mail
service. It occurs to me to mention, however, _en passant_, that if you
fail in that newspaper enterprise, you still have a bright career for
your pen before you in the Orient, marking tea-chests. Do not imagine
that I am complaining when I say that your friends would find more time
to love you if you would employ a typewriter.

But all this is neither here nor there. I am in despair at the
devil-may-care tone in which you write about Miss Parsons, and I am
really alarmed about her not having arrived. She certainly could not
have had much money by her to make a leisurely trip of it, stopping off
to see the towns and the scenery _en route_.

Her mother was in a few moments ago, and not having heard from her, is
naturally anxious, but I affected to consider it nothing. As a matter
of fact, I regard it as very strange and alarming, considering that she
left Denver with a man I strongly suspect is a scamp, and if the Sure
Thing Mining Company has no office there, the worst is to be feared. It
looks very bad.

My hope is, that in your indifference to my request, not appreciating
the seriousness of the case, you have not looked around. I suppose it
is a matter of no little trouble to find any one, unless you happen
upon him, in such a mad rush as has set in for Creede. I met Whitehead
of the _News_, who is just back from there, and he says that not only
are the platforms even of the cars crowded, but men actually ride on
top from Alamosa over, in the craze to get there. What insanity! How
can such a rush of people be housed and fed in a camp that contained
but five little cabins ninety days ago! But it is all grist for your
mill, of course.

[Illustration]

Now, _can_ I make you understand the seriousness of this case? You
certainly know how easy it is for a villain to compromise a young and
pretty girl like Miss Parsons in a place like Creede, and you know that
a young girl compromised is already half ruined. As I have said, Polly
is a pure-minded, honest girl of great force of character. I consider
her taking up and mastering shorthand and typewriting and telegraphing,
sufficient evidence of that; but she is inexperienced and unsuspicious,
and may find herself undone before she realizes her danger. Besides,
that fellow Ketchum is a handsome, unscrupulous man, with an oily
tongue in his head.

I have to go to Chicago to-night and I shall be absent two or three
weeks, otherwise I would run down to Creede myself--so great is my
anxiety about this girl, whom I have known from her cradle.

I must leave the matter in your hands--if I can only make you look at
it seriously. Her mother’s address is No. 1796 California street--Mrs.
Matilda Parsons. Communicate with her if necessary. I have told her
about writing to you, etc.

Probably, while in Chicago, I shall be able to look up her father and
will talk with him about the matter. Now please take up this matter
seriously and oblige me forever.

_Au revoir_, and good luck to you with the paper.

                                                               FITZ-MAC.




IV.


                                           CREEDE, COLO., March 25, ’92.

MY DEAR FITZ:--Since receiving your second letter, I have left nothing
undone in the way of keeping a constant lookout for Miss Parsons, for
I see how terribly in earnest you are. Yesterday I took dinner at a
little restaurant in Upper Creede, and when the girl came to take my
order she almost took my breath. There was something about her that
told me that she was new at the business; and I began to be hopeful
that she might be the young lady for whom I had been looking for the
past week. When the rest had left the table, I asked for a second cup
of coffee, and when she brought it, I made an attempt to engage the
girl in conversation.

[Illustration]

“You are very busy here,” I said.

“Yes,” she answered, with a slight raise of the eyebrows, and just a
hint of a smile playing round her mouth.

“I presume you get very tired by closing time,” I ventured.

“We never close,” she said; and again I noticed the same movement of
the eyes.

I knew she thought I was endeavoring to build up an acquaintance, and
it annoyed me. If there is one thing I dislike, it is to be taken for a
masher when I am not trying to mash.

“Haven’t I seen you in Denver?”

“Perhaps.”

“Haven’t I seen you with Mr. Ketchum?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you know Mr. Ketchum?” I asked with some embarrassment.

“Do you?”

“Well, not very intimately,” was my somewhat uncertain reply. “Is he
in town?”

The girl laughed in real earnest. When she did compose herself, she
asked, “Are you a reporter for the new paper?”

I told her I was not, and then I asked her if she could tell me where
Mr. Ketchum’s office was.

It was down the street near the Holy Moses saloon, she said; and I
congratulated myself upon having gotten a straight and lucid reply from
her.

“Is he in town?” was my next question.

“He was at this table when you came in. Don’t you know him?”

“Not very well,” said I.

“Then how do you know you saw me with Mr. Ketchum?”

I said he must have changed.

“No,” said the girl, showing some spunk. “You don’t know him. You
never saw him; but you are trying to be funny. Your name is Lon
Hartigan, and I am dead onto you.”

[Illustration]

“O, break!--break away!” said a chemical blonde, as she swept in from
the kitchen, coming to the rescue of her “partner,” as she called her.
“The girls from the Beebee put us onto you and that fellow from New
York. You can’t come none of your monkey doodle business here. Mr.
Ketchum is the nicest man ’at eats here and he always leaves a dollar
under his plate.” And the drug-store blonde snapped her fingers under
my nose, whirled on her heel, and banging a soiled towel into a barrel
that stood by the door leading to the kitchen, she swept from the room.

“Will you bring me some hot coffee?” I said, softly, to the girl with
her own hair.

“You misjudge me,” I began, as she set it down.

“I am sorry,” she replied with a hemi-smile that hinted of sympathy,
but is worse than no sympathy.

“Now, see here,” I began, “I’ll tell you my name if you’ll tell me
yours. My name is Warman.”

“My name is Boyd--Inez Boyd,” said the girl, “and I am sorry to have
talked as I have, to you.”

“Don’t mention it,” said I, as I left the room.

Outside I saw a sign which read: “The Sure Thing Mining and Milling
Company, Capital Stock, $1,000,000.”

The next moment I stood in the outer office, saw a sign on a closed
door: “F. I. Ketchum--Private.”

I opened a little wooden gate, stepped to the private entrance and
knocked. A tall, good-looking man of thirty-five to forty, with soft
gray hair, came out and closed the door quickly.

[Illustration]

“Is this Mr. Ketchum?” I asked.

“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”

Now that was a sticker. It had not occurred to me that to call a man
out of his private office one ought to have some business.

“I’m the editor of the _Chronicle_ and I just dropped in to get
acquainted. I have heard of your company.”

The man looked black. “We are not looking for newspaper notoriety,” he
said, without offering me a seat. In short, he didn’t rave over me, as
some of the real estate men did, and after asking how the property of
the company was looking, I went away. Poor as I am, I would have given
twenty to have seen into the “Private” room.

I write all this in detail, that you may know how hard I have tried
to do my duty to you as a friend, and to the poor unfortunate
girl, as a man. I shall have more time from now on, as I have for
my superintendent and general master mechanic, Mr. J. D. Vaughan,
who can make a newspaper, from the writing of the editorial page,
to the mailing list. In the past, as now, he has always been with
distinguished men. He was with Artemus Ward at Cleveland, Wallace
Gruelle, at Louisville, Bartley Campbell, at New Orleans, Will L.
Visscher when he ran the “Headlight,” on board the steamer Richmond
running between Louisville and New Orleans, and with Field and
Rothaker on the Denver _Tribune_.

We got out our first issue Monday, and I feel a great deal better. It
has been the dream of my life to have a daily paper, and we have got
one now that is all wool and as wide as the press will print. I have
this line under the heading:

“Polities: Free Coinage; Religion: Creede.”

[Illustration]

I think that line will last. It is what we must live for and hope for.
Of course, we expect to lose money for a few months; but if the camp
continues to grow, the Chronicle Publishing Company will be a good
venture. There are many hardships to be endured in a mining camp. The
printers had to stand in an uncovered house and set type while the
snow drifted around their collars. They held a meeting in the rear
office Sunday, organized a printers’ union, fixed a schedule to suit
themselves--fifty cents a thousand; and, in order that I might not feel
lonely, I was made an honorary member of the union.

[Illustration]

Mr. George W. Childs was taken in at the same time. My salary is to be
fifty dollars a week; but I don’t intend to draw my salary until the
paper is on a paying basis.

We have not got our motor in place yet, and I had to pay two Mexicans
twelve dollars for turning the press the first night. Coal is ten
dollars a ton; coal oil sixty cents a gallon. We use a ton of coal
every twenty-four hours and five gallons of oil every night. It was
a novel sight to see the newsboys running here and there through
the willows, climbing up the steep sides of the gulch to the tents
and cabins crying “Morning _Chronicle_!” where the mountain lion and
the grizzly bear had their homes but six months ago. The interesting
feature in the first issue is a three-column account of Gambler Joe
Simmons’ funeral. It tells how the gang stood at the grave and drank
“To Joe’s soul over there--if there is any over there.”

[Illustration]
                                               Yours always,
                                                              CY WARMAN.




IV.


                                          CREEDE, COLO., March 28, 1892.

DEAR FITZ:--Three days ago I wrote you that I had located Mr. Ketchum
but failed to find the girl. Yesterday being Sunday, I went down to
the hot springs at Wagon Wheel Gap to spend the day. At the hotel I
met Mrs. McCleland, of Alamosa, and while we were conversing, a lady
commenced to sing in the parlor. The soft notes that came from the
piano mingled with a voice so full of soulful melody, that I stopped
talking and listened. “Do you like music?” asked the good lady from
the San Luis. “There is but one thing sweeter,” I said, “and that is
poetry--the music of the soul. Take me in, won’t you?”

[Illustration]

We entered so softly that the young woman at the piano failed to notice
our coming, and sang on to the end of the piece.

“La Paloma!” How different from the strains I had heard during the
past week, from the Umpah band in front of the Olympic Theater.

When she had finished, the singer turned, blushed, and rising, advanced
toward my friend, holding out her hand; and I was surprised and pleased
to hear Mrs. Mc. say: “Well, I want to know--are you here?”

[Illustration]

The young lady acknowledged that she was, and went into a long
explanation that she had concluded to stop at the springs until matters
were in a little better shape at Creede.

“Where is Mr. ----, Mr. ----,” stammered Mrs. Mc.

“Oh, he’s in Creede,” said the young lady, as she shot a glance at me
which was followed by a becoming blush. “He is so busy at the mines;
they work a great many men, you know.”

All this time I had been looking over Mrs. McCleland’s shoulder into an
exceedingly bright and interesting face.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the good lady, “this is Mr. Warman, Miss
Parsons.”

[Illustration]

I don’t know for the life of me, whether I said “Howdy,” or “Good-by,”
I was dazed. I had forgotten the while I looked into that beautiful
face, that such a person lived as Polly Parsons, and when it came to
me all at once like the firing of a blast, it took the wind out of my
sails and left me helpless in mid-ocean.

“Where did you meet Miss Parsons?” I asked, when the young lady had
left the room.

“At Alamosa, some two weeks ago, she stopped at our hotel, and I didn’t
like the looks of the man she was with; so I asked her to sleep in a
spare room just off from my own.

“I heard him trying to persuade her to go to Creede with him the next
day, but could not understand what her argument was, except that she
would not go to Creede until there was something for her to do.”

“Who was this man?” I asked.

“His name is Ketchum; he is connected with the Sure Thing Mining
Company.”

“At last!” I said with a sigh that was really a relief to me.

After luncheon, I gave the letter you sent, to Miss Parsons, and I
watched her face while she read it.

Of one of two things I am convinced; either she loves you and was glad
to see that letter, or she hates you and will do as much for me. That
is as near as you can guess a pretty woman.

[Illustration]

“If there’s anything I can do for you, Miss Parsons--” “O, I am quite
capable of getting along alone,” she said. “I thank you, of course, but
there is nothing; I am promised a good position in Mr. Ketchum’s office
as soon as they get things in shape. I have some ready money with me,
enough to pay my expenses at the hotel.”

“You will not find so pleasant a hotel in Creede as this, Miss Parsons.
The Pattons are nice people, and it would be better, I think, for you
to remain here until a position is open for you,” I ventured by way of
advice.

“Mr. Ketchum has engaged a room for me over the Albany Restaurant,” she
said, “and he is to call here for me to-morrow.”

“But, Miss Parsons,” said I, “do you know what sort of a place that is?”

“I know, sir, that Mr. Ketchum would not take me to an improper place,”
and she gave her head a twist that told me that my advice was not
wanted.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Parsons,” said I, by way of explanation; “I
was thinking of the Albany Theater building; the restaurant may be all
right. But I was thinking only of your welfare.”

“Thank you,” she said, but she meant “Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Good-by, Miss Parsons,” I said, extending my hand. “Hope I may have
the pleasure of meeting you in Creede.”

“I go to Creede to-morrow,” she said as she gave me a warm, plump hand
and said “Good-by.”

Fitz, forgive me for being so slow; but you forgot to tell me how
beautiful she was; the Poet of the Kansas City _Star_ would say:
“Her carriage, face and figure are perfection; and her smile is a
shimmer-tangled day-dream, as she drifts adown the aisle.” Such eyes!
like miniature seas, set about with weeping willows, and hair like
ripening grain, with the sunlight sifting through it.

                                                    Good-by,
                                                              CY WARMAN.




V.


                                                  GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL,
                                                       CHICAGO, April 8.

DEAR CY:--Your two letters of the 25th and 28th ult., forwarded
from Denver, were received here only this morning on my return from
Milwaukee, where I have been for the past week negotiating the sale of
that Eagle Gulch mining property, in which I am interested. I think it
will be a go, and if so, I shall be heeled--otherwise busted.

It was very good of you, old boy, to take so much trouble to look Miss
Parsons up and to “locate” that scamp Ketchum. I shall not be anxious,
now that I know you will keep an eye on her. But you are clear off, Cy,
as to her loving or hating me.

No doubt she likes me a little bit, for I have long been a friend of
the family; and they were always kind to me when they were rich, and I
have carried pretty Polly around in my arms when she was a baby. I knew
her father back in Virginia before they were married.

Pretty? I should think she is pretty. That is why I felt so
particularly anxious about her going to Creede. If she had been a
ewe-necked old scrub of a typewriter, with a peaked nose and a pair of
gooseberry eyes in her head, do you fancy I could have been solicitous
about her not being able to take care of herself or have dreamt of
interesting you in her?

[Illustration]

Cyrus, my princely buck, if there was any “peculiar light” in pretty
Polly’s eyes, it was admiration for your manly figure. You are too
modest to ever do yourself justice.

I am glad you found Ketchum and the Sure Thing Mining Company. I had
to laugh at the mystery you make of that back room into which you were
not permitted to peep. No doubt he was working some pilgrim in there to
whom he expected to sell stock, and did not want to be interrupted.

I met a broker the other day who knew him well here. He is a scamp,
as I thought; but not exactly the kind of scamp I thought. He has had
a career on the Exchange here and was once a heavy operator and made
big money, but his reputation was never first-class and it has become
decidedly odorous of late years through his connection with snide stock
schemes of one kind and another. But he has kept out of jail and isn’t
a person a man can exactly refuse to speak to.

He worked a Napoleonic confidence deal in grain here, some five or six
years back, and came within an ace of cleaning up a million or more
on it; but the fraud was discovered and the bubble exploded, leaving
him beggared both in fortune and reputation. He had tangled a lot of
respectable operators up in the scheme, so that it did not look so very
bad for him personally, and he escaped prosecution. Since then he has
figured as a promoter, keeping himself in the shade.

Parsons, Polly’s father, was the man who discovered and defeated his
fraud; and the story goes here, that in revenge, he set the trap into
which Parsons fell and lost all except his honor. Parsons has a good
name here still, I find, among the brokers, because he made an honest
settlement, although it left him penniless and broken-spirited. It is
strange that he hasn’t come to see me. I tried to find him when I first
came; but he was always somewhere else, and when I went to Milwaukee,
I left a note for him, but have heard nothing. I shall try to see him
before I leave.

I find Ketchum has a wife and some children here, and that he doesn’t
figure as a Lothario at all as I suspected. On the contrary, he is
quite a model in his domestic relations--takes his family to church and
all that, and is a shining light in the Sunday-school and the Y. M. C.
A. So I fancy our pretty Polly is in no great danger from him. It is
singular though, why he should have engaged the daughter of a man whom
he must hate, as his confidential clerk--and at such a preposterous
salary, too. It is suspicious; but after all, it may be a freak of
kindness, finding the man whose ruin he has planned so destitute. It is
just as safe to take the charitable view as any, even of a scamp. Human
motives are always mixed.

I cannot say when I will be at home; but write often, directing to
Denver, and keep a brotherly eye on our pretty Polly.

                                                        Yours,
                                                               FITZ-MAC.




VI.


                                                  GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL,
                                       CHICAGO, April 9, 9 o’clock P. M.

DEAR WARMAN:--I must write in great haste, for in an hour I leave for
New York. It is quite unexpected. I expect the Milwaukee party here in
a quarter of an hour to go with me.

In all probability I shall not be back to Denver before the first of
May, if then,--for, being in New York, I shall probably stop and attend
to some other matters.

I wrote you last night, and now I want to correct the impressions of
that letter.

When does one ever hear the last word of a bad story. That fellow
Ketchum is even more of an all-round scoundrel than I thought. I
have heard a lot about him to-day; ran upon a man who was his head
book-keeper and confidential man here in his heyday, and whom he
robbed, as he has everybody else who has had anything to do with him.
I was out looking up Parsons among the brokers’ offices. He has been a
sort of fly-about these last years, into this, that, and every little
pitiful scheme, to turn a dollar, and having a desk always in the
office of the latest man he could interest in his projects, so he is
about as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the hay-mow.

Nobody is specially interested in keeping track of him, now that he is
down.

[Illustration]

Well, in my hunt, I ran upon a Mr. Filmore who told me where he
boards--a cheap and shabby place, poor fellow. He was not there;
hasn’t been for two weeks or more. Landlady surmised he had gone to
join his family somewhere out West--in California, she guessed--didn’t
know when he would be back; didn’t know that he would ever be back. Oh,
yes, she supposed he _would_ be back _some time_,--no, he hadn’t left
any address to have his mail forwarded. The purveyor of hash supposed
Mr. Parsons received his mail at his office--he certainly did not
receive any there. Was I a detective? Had Mr. Parsons been getting into
trouble? Oh, Cy, the misery of being very poor after having been very
rich! The Lord deliver me from it! Poor Parsons, one of the finest and
proudest of gentlemen, to be spoken of in such a tenor at the street
door of a cheap boarding-house!

Is it any wonder his brave, good little girl is frantic to do something
to help him onto his feet again and out of such an atmosphere?

He may be in Colorado; and if he is, you may be called upon to record
the sudden death of that scamp Ketchum, any day.

[Illustration]

I returned to Mr. Filmore’s office to leave a note with him for
Parsons, and he told me all about K. The fellow is a thorough scamp
and all his faults are aggravated by his smooth and oily hypocrisy.
It is true he has a family here, as I mentioned yesterday, and that he
maintains them in a show of comfort and respectability; but his wife is
a broken-hearted, dispirited creature, whom he married at the muzzle of
a frantic father’s gun. He drags her to church to keep up appearances;
but that is all the respect or civility he shows her. When he was rich
here, he kept a blonde angel of the demi-monde in swell style, with her
carriage and all that, while his wife was left to stump around on foot,
with an occasional excursion in company with the hired girl and the
baby on the street-cars of a Sunday afternoon. Filmore says the wretch
has ruined four or five poor girls in succession, who came to work in
his office, and started them out on a sea of sin.

I hope Parsons has gone to Colorado, so that he may know just where
his daughter is. I intended to give him my opinion of the matter very
plainly, if I had found him.

You must keep a kindly eye on the poor child, Cy, and help her if
you can. Roast that scoundrel and show up his rotten record and his
swindling scheme, if he gives you half a chance to open on him. Jump
him anyway, and don’t wait for a special provocation.

Filmore’s address--Stanley R. Filmore--is room 199 Marine Building,
Chicago, and he will willingly supply you with facts enough from the
man’s nefarious record to drive him out of Colorado with his swindling
mining schemes. It ought to be done--of course only if the mine is
a fake--for that sort of scamps and swindlers are the ones who are
bringing mining propositions into disrepute in the East and making it
almost impossible to raise money for legitimate enterprises. But I must
close. Can you read this wild scrawl?

                                                       Yours,
                                                               FITZ-MAC.




VII.


                                           CREEDE, COLO., April 13, ’93.

DEAR FITZ:--Your letter of the 9th, in which you hasten to undo what
you did for Ketchum in the preceding letter, if it had no other
purpose, was unnecessary. You can never make me believe that a man
who eats mashed potatoes with a knife, dips his soup toward him and
lets his trousers trail in the mud, has been brought up in respectable
society. If anything more was needed to convince me that Ketchum was
a shark, it was supplied by him when he told Wygant that he regarded
“advertising as unprofessional and unnecessary.” The newspapers, he
said, did more harm than good. Now, when you hear a man talk that way,
you can gamble that he is working the shells and that his game won’t
stand airing.

In speaking of the embarrassment of becoming very poor after having
been very rich, you amuse me, by praying to be delivered from that
awful condition. Rest easy, my good fellow. If you follow your chosen
path, that of mixing literature with mining, you will doubtless be
independently poor the balance of your days.

Well, Miss Parsons is here. She is boarding at the Albany. The Albany
is all right. It is the best place in the gulch; but, of course, you
never know who is going to occupy the next seat. Last night, at dinner,
the Rev. Tom Uzzell, the city editor and Soapy sat at one table; a
murderer, a gambler, a hand-painted skirt-dancer and a Catholic priest
held another, while Miss Parsons, Billy Woods, the prize-fighter,
English Harry and I, ate wild duck at a large table near the stove. I
introduced Harry, who is an estimable young man, belonging to one of
the best families in Denver, with the hope that Miss Parsons might have
an opportunity to see the difference between a real gentleman and that
social leper, Ketchum. After dinner I told Harry that I wanted him to
make love to Miss Parsons.

“But, I don’t love her,” says he.

“No matter,” says I.

“It’s wicked,” says he.

“It’s right,” says I. “It will save her from a life of misery.”

“What’s the matter with you?” says he. “If it’s the proper thing to
make love to a sweet young woman whom you don’t love, why don’t you do
it?”

[Illustration]

I told him that I was too busy--that I hadn’t any love that I was not
using--that I had done my share in that line. Still he was serious; but
finally promised to be a near relative, if he could not love her.

I think I shall open an agency for the protection of unprotected girls.
I had luncheon at Upper Creede yesterday, and was shocked when Inez
Boyd came in with fresh drug-store hair. Fitz, she is not so beautiful
as Miss Parsons; but she is in greater danger, because she is not so
strong, and has not had the advantage of early training as Miss Parsons
has.

“Jimmie,” said I to the little devil this morning, “I want you to take
a bundle of papers; go up the gulch until you come to the office of
the Sure Thing Mining Company; go in and try to sell a paper. You may
take an hour each day for this and loaf as long as you care to in the
office, unless they kick you out.”

“Sure thing they’ll do that,” said Jimmie.

“Stop! Keep an eye on Mr. Ketchum, and tell me how many people are
working in the office.”

Two hours later Jimmie came in with his pockets filled with silver.
“Sold all my papers,” said he, as he fell over the coal scuttle.
“Ketchum bought ’em all to get rid of me. Guess he wanted to talk to
that girl he had in the office. Say, she’s a bute. Must got ’er in
Denver; they don’t grow like that in dis gulch. They was a scrappin’
like married people when I went in, and he wanted to throw me out. Not
on your life, I told him; I’m the devil on the _Chronicle_ and dat
gang’ll burn you up if ye monkey wid me.”

[Illustration]

“What were they quarreling about, Jimmie?”

“O, ’bout where she was to room, an’ he told her she could sleep in de
private office; an’ you ort to see her then! Mama! but she did lock
up his forms for him in short order. Then she said she’d go home; but
she’d like to see the mine ’fore she worked fur stock. She’s no chump.
Say, he aint got no mine.”

“You think not, Jimmie?” I said to encourage him.

“Naw. I went over to the Candle office and Lute Johnson’s goin’ to
cremate ’em nex’ issue.”

I learned to-day that Ketchum had been accepting money from tenderfeet,
promising to issue stock, as soon as the stock-books can be printed. I
learn also that the Sure Thing Mining Company has no legal existence;
that the Sure Thing claim belongs to Ketchum personally.

The camp continues to produce sorrow and silver at the regular ratio of
sixteen to one. Old Hank Phelan, of St. Joe, died on the sidewalk in
front of the Orleans Club last night. I showed my ignorance by asking
a gang who stood round the dead man, at the coroner’s inquest, who the
distinguished dead might be.

“Say, pardner,” said one of the sporty boys, “I reckon you don’t ever
look in a paper. Don’t know Hank Phelan, as licked big Ed. Brown,
terror of Oklahoma?” And they all went inside and left me to grope my
way out of the dense ignorance that had settled about me.

[Illustration]

Bob Ford and Joe Palmer, with a pair of forty-five’s, closed all the
business houses and put the camp to bed at 9:30, one night last week.
In an excited effort to escape, the New York _Sun_ man and the city
editor broke into the dormitory of the Hotel Beebee, where the help
slept, and two of the table girls who had been protecting against them,
jumped out of a window into the river.

A man was killed by a woman in Upper Creede the other night.

The City Marshal, Captain Light, concluded that Red McCann was a menace
to good government and so removed him. His funeral, which occurred last
Sunday, was well attended. There was some talk next day by McCann’s
friends. They even went so far as to hold an inquest; but Cap was well
connected, being a brother-in-law to Sapolio, and he was spirited away.

The _Chronicle_ is not on a paying basis yet. The twelve hundred
dollars has disappeared; and I have transferred my personal savings
here to pay the printers. The schedule is the same and I am working for
nothing. We have had a strike. Yesterday was a pay day and Freckled
Jimmie, the devil, went out at 6 P. M. Jimmie had been with us through
all these days of doubt and danger, and when he failed to show up this
morning, I confess to a feeling of loneliness. Another boy dropped
in to take Jimmie’s place; but he was not freckled and I doubted him.
About 10 the new boy went to the post-office. He never came back. I
remarked that it was not becoming in the editor of a great daily to
sit and pine for a boy; and yet, I could not shake off that feeling of
neglect that came to me in the early morning and stayed all day. We
expected the devil to call upon us, looking to a compromise; but he
failed to call. Along in the P. M.-ness, we sent a committee to wait
upon Jimmie and ask him to visit the office. He came in, chewing a
willow bough.

“Well, Jimmie,” I began, “How would it suit you to come back to work at
a raise of a dollar a week?”

“Well,” said the striker, “I don’t kere ef I do or not; but ef you’ll
let it lap back, over last week, I’ll go you. But mind, you don’t
call me ‘Freck’ no more. My name’s Jimmie from now on, see?” Jimmie is
working.

[Illustration]

Hope I may be able to give you some good news in my next.

                                                    So-long,
                                                              CY WARMAN.




VIII.

TELEGRAM.


                                               NEW YORK, April 13, 1892.

The young person’s paternal is here and in great luck again. He will
wire funds to-day in your care, to make sure of not falling into wrong
hands. Deliver message to person yourself, to avoid mistake. Look
sharp. Letter by first mail explains all. Address Hoffman House.

                                                               FITZ-MAC.




IX.


                                                 HOFFMAN HOUSE,
                                                     NEW YORK, April 13.

DEAR WARMAN:--The most surprising thing in life is the number of
surprises one encounters. Whom should I meet at breakfast here this
morning, but Tom Parsons--no longer the broken and rejected man I have
pictured to you, but flushed with success and swimming on top of Hope’s
effulgent tide.

[Illustration]

Some New York brokers who had known him in better days and who had
confidence in his sagacity and nerve desiring to inaugurate a big grain
deal in Chicago, sent for him to come and steer the game. He was as
cool to their propositions as if he had had a million to put in, and
demanded a good percentage of the profits. They agreed to his terms. He
has stood behind the curtain here for three weeks, and in the name of
a dealer here not supposed to be strong, has engineered the corner and
led the Chicago fellows into the net. There was a great deal of money
up, and the weak firm which the Chicago operators expected to cinch
proved to be only a stool-pigeon, for a very strong syndicate.

They settled yesterday, and Tom’s share of the profits is a little over
a hundred thousand. What a freak of fortune! Though outwardly perfectly
cool, I could see that Parsons is deeply affected by this turn of the
tide, which puts him on his feet again. It is nothing but gambling
after all, and his mind is flushed and warped by the sudden success.
He is full of great projects to capture millions again. No doubt the
success of this deal gives him a big pull here, and he is such a bold
and experienced operator that no one can say what may not happen. But
this insatiate passion for high and reckless play has injured him,
mentally and morally. He confessed to me after we went to his room,
that he had not once thought of his family during the three weeks he
has been here,--that is, not of their condition and their needs. Think
of that, in the most tender of husbands, the most careful of fathers!
I put his daughter’s position at him flat-footed; but it didn’t alarm
him a bit. “I’ll trust that girl,” he said, “to take care of herself
anywhere on top of earth or in the mines under the earth.”

[Illustration]

“Would you trust her to work, live and lodge in the slums of Chicago
or down here about Five Points in New York? Would you want to expose
her to such an existence? Especially if she was likely to encounter in
these places a few refined men of reckless habits, who would be sure
to misunderstand her position and whose very sympathy would be her
greatest danger? Well, that’s what Creede is, Tom,” said I, “if you
just add the physical exposure of a mountain climate in a camp where
the best house is no better than a shanty built of wet, unseasoned
lumber.”

He promised me he would telegraph money to her to-day and advise her
to go to her mother. He laughed at my fears about Ketchum’s designs,
and said he would trust his girl against a dozen Ketchums; but he was
not insensible to the danger that the scamp might bring scandal on
her, and I worked him on that line till he promised to go right away
and telegraph money to her. I gave him your address and he will send
in your care, to prevent the possibility of his message falling into
K’s hands. That is why I have just wired you. I can realize that, even
in Creede, it will compromise the girl to have any connection with
that Sure Thing outfit, and expose her character to suspicion. Before
this reaches you, no doubt, she will have gone home, and I shall have
no further occasion to write you about her; but still, if you have an
idle hour, you may write me here and tell me how Ketchum is working his
game. While I have no further anxiety about Miss P., I confess to a
curiosity to know if the anxiety I did have was well grounded.

[Illustration]

How are you getting on with the paper? Every one wants to hear about
Creede here, and I believe you could get up a big subscription list
in Wall street if you had a canvasser in the field. Everybody has
the most exaggerated notions of the extent and richness of the camp,
and the newspaper people are as wild as the rest. They have the most
childish notions--I mean the common run of men only, of course--as to
the condition of silver mining. Their idea of a bonanza is a place
where pure silver is quarried out like building stone. You couldn’t
possibly tell them any fake story of the richness of mines they
wouldn’t believe. In fact, you can make them believe anything else
easier than the truth. This fact hurts our business dreadfully, too, in
the East and creates a prejudice against the use of silver as money.
It also helps the mining sharps who are working frauds. I shall have a
curiosity to see how you roast that snide scheme of Ketchum & Co. Don’t
fail to send me the paper.

You may address me here for two weeks.

                                         Affectionately yours,
                                                               FITZ-MAC.




X.


                                           CREEDE, COLO., April 20, ’92.

DEAR FITZ:--Yes, the surprises in this life are surprising. We opened a
couple of surprise packages here last night.

I was surprised the other day when Miss P. came into the office and
asked my advice. Until lately she has endeavored to avoid me.

I think Harry has been watering my stock with the lady, and I am
pleased to note that these young people occupy a table at the Albany
that seats two. Last Sunday, I drifted into the tent where they
hold sacred services; it is called the Tabernacle. Miss Parsons was
performing on a little cottage organ, while Harry stood near her and
sang, “There’s a Land that is Fairer than Day.”

[Illustration]

Ah, yes, in the sweet by-and-by! Is there anything that holds so much
for the trusting soul? In the sun-kissed over-yonder, there is rest for
the weary. Always full and running over, there is no false bottom in
the sweet by-and-by.

  Hope springs eternal
    In the human breast,
  Faith to push the button--
    God will do the rest.

I have begun to hope that Harry will love Miss Parsons. What he has
done for her already has had a good effect. His society is better for
her, just as the sunshine is better for the flowers than the atmosphere
of a damp, dark cellar, where lizards creep o’er the sweating stones.

Plenty of fellows here would love her, but for their own amusement.
Not so with Harry. He is as serious as though he were in reality an
Englishman. Yesterday the young lady was very much worried over a note
she had received, and she showed it to me. It ended thus:

  Go, leave me in my misery,
    And when thou art alone,
  God grant that thou may’st pine for me,
    As I for thee have pone.

It was signed “Harry,” and that’s what hurt her heart. I told her it
was Tabor’s writing; that his first name was Harry, and she was glad.

[Illustration]

As I write this, I look across the street to the barber-shop where Inez
Boyd is having her hair cut short. Ye Gods! faded and then amputated!
So will be her pure young life. Already the frost of sin has settled
around her soul. Youth’s bloom has been blighted; her cheeks are
hollow; her eyes have a vacant, far-away look. Her mind, mayhap, goes
back to her happy home in Denver, where she used to kneel at night and
say, “Now I lay me.”

She has left her place at the restaurant, and with her partner, that
“break away” creature with the yellow hair, is living in a cottage,
taking their meals at the Albany.

I must tell you now what Miss Parsons wanted advice about. She had very
little to do in the office, and if she would act as cashier in the
restaurant at meal time, two hours morning, noon and night, Mr. Sears
would allow her ten dollars a week, and her board, or twenty dollars
a week, in all. From 9 to 11, and 2 to 4, she could attend to Mr.
Ketchum’s correspondence. There was still another job open. They wanted
an operator across the street at the Western Union from 8 P. M. until
12, when the regular night man came on to take the _Chronicle_ press
report. If she could take that, it would make her cash income twenty
dollars above her board.

I asked her what she intended to do from midnight till morning. She
smiled, good-naturedly, and said she thought she would have to sleep
some, otherwise she would have asked for a job, folding papers.

I told her that it was all very proper if she could stand the long
hours. She said she could always get an hour’s sleep after her midday
meal, and in that way she would be able to hold it down for a while. I
ventured to ask why she failed to reckon her “Sure Thing” salary when
counting her cash income. “Oh,” she had forgotten. “Mr. Ketchum told
her she would have to take her pay in stock.” I did not tell her how
worthless that stock was, but I determined to have Mr. Ketchum attended
to.

Yesterday a quiet caucus was held in the rear of Banigan’s saloon, at
which a committee of seven was appointed to wait upon Mr. Ketchum and
inquire into the affairs of the Sure Thing Mining and Milling Company,
the statement having been made in the morning _Chronicle_ that the
company had no legal existence.

[Illustration]

Here come the surprises. In accordance with the arrangements made by
the caucus at Banigan’s, the committee called last night at the office
of the Sure Thing Mining Company and asked for Mr. Ketchum. That
gentleman showed how little he knew of camp life, by ordering them from
the room. The spokesman told him to sit down and be quiet. He would not
be commanded to sit down in his own house, he said, as he jumped upon
a table and began to orate on the freedom of America. At that moment
one of the party, who is called “Mex” because he came from New Mexico,
shied a rope across the room. It hovered around near the canvas ceiling
for a second, then settled around the neck of the orator. “Come off the
perch,” said Mex, as he gave the rope a pull and yanked the speculator
from the table.

That did the business. After that the operator only begged that his
life be spared.

“Now sir,” said the leader, “you will oblige us by answering every
question put to you. If you tell the truth you may come out all right,
if you lie you will be taking chances.”

“We are the executive committee of the Gamblers’ Protective
Association and we are here to investigate your game. We recognize the
right of the dealer to a liberal percentage, but we are opposed to sure
thing men and sandbaggers.”

“Is the Sure Thing Mining Company incorporated under the laws of
Colorado?”

“Well--it’s--un--”

“Stop sir,” said the leader. “These questions will be put to you so
that you can answer yes or no. I will say further that the committee
will know when you tell the truth, so there’s a hunch for you an’ you
better play it, see?”

“Is the Sure Thing Mining Company incorporated?”

“No.”

“Is it true that you have taken money on account of stock to be
issued?”

“Well,--I have.”

“Stop!”

“Yes sir, it is true.”

“Have you paid your stenographer?”

“Yes sir.”

“What in?”

“Stock.”

“How many claims do you own and what are they called, where located?”

“One--Sure Thing. Bachelor Mountain.”

“Shipped any ore?”

“No.”

“Any in sight?”

“No.”

“Ever have any assay?”

“No.”

“That’ll do.”

“Gentlemen,” said the leader, “You have heard the questions and
answers, all in favor of hangin’ this fellow say ‘aye.’”

“Contrary ‘no.’”

Three to three; the vote is a tie. I will vote with the ‘noes’ we will
not hang him.

“All in favor of turning him loose at the lower end of the Bad Lands
say ‘aye.’”

“Carried, unanimously.”

“Mr. Ketchum, I congratulate you.”

All this took place in Upper Creede, and about the time the committee
were escorting Ketchum down through the gulch, Kadish Bula, the
superintendent of the Bachelor, rushed into the Western Union office
and handed a dispatch to Miss Parsons, asking her to rush it.

After sending the message, Miss Parsons came to my office where Harry
and I were enjoying a quiet chat, in which the two young women in whom
I have become so interested, played an important part.

“I beg your pardon,” she said with a pretty blush when she opened the
door. “I thought you were alone.”

Harry was about to leave when she asked him to remain.

[Illustration]

With a graceful little jump she landed on the desk in front of me, and
looking me straight in the face she said:

“I want to ask you a few questions and I want you to answer me
truthfully.”

“Is the Sure Thing Mining Company any good?”

“No,” said I, and she never flinched.

“Is Ketchum’s location of the Sure Thing claim a valid one?”

“That I cannot answer, for I don’t know,” said I.

“Do you think Mr. Bula of the Bachelor would know?” was her next
question.

We both agreed that he ought to be excellent authority on locations in
general, and especially good in this case, as theirs was an adjoining
property.

“How, and when, can a claim be relocated?” she asked with a steady look
in my face.

I asked her to wait a moment, and I called Mr. Vaughan. I go to him for
everything that I fail to find in the dictionary.

In a very few moments the expert explained to the young lady that a
claim located in ’90 upon which no assessment work was done in ’91, was
open for relocation in ’92.

That was exactly what she wanted to know, she said, as she shot out of
the door and across the street to the telegraph office.

Before we had time to ask each other what she meant, a half dozen
citizens walked through the open door.

“We have just returned from Wason, where we went with Ketchum,” said
the leader.

“His game is dead crooked, and we told him to duck, and we want to ask
about his typewriter, an’ see ’f she’s got any dough.”

I explained that Miss Parsons was across the street, working in the
telegraph office.

“Miss Parsons,” said the leader as he entered the office, “we have just
escorted your employer out of camp, and I reckon we put you out of a
job; we want to square ourselves with you.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, glad to know that they hadn’t hanged
the poor devil. “I am working half time at the restaurant and until
midnight here.”

[Illustration]

Without saying a word, the leader held out his hand to one of the men
who dropped a yellow coin into it, another did the same, and before she
knew what it meant, the spokesman stacked seven tens upon her table,
said good-night, and they left the room.

“Will you work for me for an hour or so,” said the girl as the night
man entered the office. Of course he would, but he was disappointed.
His life in the camp had been a lonely one till this beautiful woman
came to work in the office. He had dropped in two hours ahead of time
just to live in the sunshine of her presence.

“There’s a tip for you,” she said as she flipped the top ten from the
stack of yellows in front of the operator, dropped the other six into
her hand-bag and jumped out into the night.

[Illustration]

“Here I am again,” she laughed as she opened my door. “I want you to
put that in your safe till morning;” and she planked sixty dollars in
gold, down on my desk.

“Bless you, Miss Parsons,” said I, “we don’t keep such a thing. We
always owe the other fellow, but I’ll give it to Vaughan, he doesn’t
drink.”

“I want you and Harry to go with me,” she said, “and ask no questions.
Put on your overcoats, there are three good horses waiting at the door.”

In thirty minutes from that time, our horses were toiling up the Last
Chance trail, and in an hour, we stood on the summit of Bachelor,
eleven thousand feet above the sea.

The scene was wondrously beautiful. Below, adown the steep
mountain-side, lay the long, dark trail leading to the gulch where
the arc lights gleamed on the trachyte cliffs. Around a bend, in the
valley, came a silvery stream--the broad and beautiful Rio Grande, its
crystal ripples gleaming in the soft light of a midnight moon. Away to
the east, above, beyond the smaller mountains, the marble crest of the
Sangre de Christo stood up above the world.

[Illustration]

Turning from this wondrous picture I saw the horses with their riders
just entering a narrow trail that lay through an aspen grove in the
direction of the Bachelor mine. Harry had secured a board from the
Bachelor shaft-house and was driving a stake on the Sure Thing claim
when I arrived.

“So this is what you are up to Miss Parsons,” said I, taking in the
situation at a glance.

“Yes, sir,” she said, “I have written my name on that stake and I
propose to put men to work to-morrow.”

It was just midnight when we reached the telegraph office, and Miss
Parsons showed us the telegram which Mr. Bula had sent: it read:

  “_John Herrick,
      Denver Club, Denver_:

  Got Amethyst vein. Sure Thing can be bought for one thousand, or can
  relocate and fight them; belongs to Ketchum. Answer.”

“Well,” said Harry, “you’re all right.”

“Now,” said Miss Parsons, “I want to find Mr. Ketchum and give him a
check for one thousand and get a bill of sale or something to show.”

We explained that Ketchum was at that time walking in the direction of
Wagon Wheel Gap. Further, that unless she had that amount of money in
the bank, she would be doing a serious thing to give a check.

“Ah, but I have,” she said with a smile, as she pulled a bank-book
from her desk. “My father wired a thousand dollars to the Miners’ and
Merchants’ Bank for me a few days ago; the telegram notifying me it was
there, came in your care, and I must apologize for not having told you
sooner, but I was afraid you might ask me to give up my place, if you
learned how rich I was.”

“You are all right, Miss Parsons,” said I, “and I congratulate you--but
there is no excuse for you wanting to give that scamp a thousand
dollars.”

“Then I must ask another favor of you,” she said. “I want ten men to go
to work on the Sure Thing to-morrow.”

At my request, Harry promised to have the men at work by nine o’clock,
and as I write this I can hear the blasts and see the white smoke
puffing from the Sure Thing claim. Just now I see Harry and the
“Silver Queen” coming down the trail. They are riding this way; Harry
is holding a piece of rock in his left hand; they are talking about
it, and they both look very happy. Aye, verily, the surprises are
surprising; hope springs eternal.

                                                     Good-by,
                                                              CY WARMAN.




XI.


                                                        HOFFMAN HOUSE,
                                                NEW YORK, April 27, ’92.

MY DEAR CY:--Your last letter is a daisy. I read it with all the
interest of a novel.

What a magic camp Creede must be, after all! It was manly in those
vigilantes who hustled Ketchum out of camp so unceremoniously to treat
our little friend, Polly, to so generously and so delicately--but it is
characteristic of the West.

[Illustration]

She is a courageous and capable girl isn’t she?--her quickness of wit
in jumping that Sure Thing claim shows it.

I’m glad you like her, and I knew you would, if you got to know the
quick and courageous spirit that is in her. She didn’t waste a day
crying over spilt milk when her pap busted and all the ease and
luxuries and adulations that surround a rich man’s daughter vanished
from about her like dew before the sun, but just jumped in and went to
learning how to earn her own living and help take care of the family.

Wouldn’t it be romantic, though, if that mine should really prove a
bonanza!--I declare I get excited thinking about it. I suppose there
is actually a chance that it may, since it is on the same vein--or
is supposed to be--as the Amethyst mine. Wouldn’t that be too good!
How lucky that she happened to be in the telegraph office when that
dispatch was sent! And oh, say, you and Harry, ain’t you the dandy
span to have such a pretty girl as Polly in your care--and put there by
yours confidingly, don’t forget. No, don’t you _dare_ forget, for you
would never have known Polly but for me, and Harry wouldn’t have got
acquainted with her probably, but for you. It is lucky I happened to
know your heart was already anchored, or I should never have introduced
you.

So Harry refused to fall in love with her, did he, when you issued your
orders? Well, I’ll bet you a horse and buggy he will fall in love with
her before he is a month older, unless he is in love with some other
girl, for Polly is one of the most interesting girls I have ever seen.

I don’t know Harry very well, but my impressions are, he is an
unusually nice fellow. If he is only half as manly and smart as he
looks, I shall put in the good word for him with Polly.

I can see from what you write, she likes him already--and likes you
also, or she would never treat you both with such confidence. But
she will lead Harry a dance before ever he captures her--you bet she
will--for she has a touch of the coquette in her nature in spite, also,
of the warmest and most loyal of hearts.

I hope he _will_ fall in love with her; it will do him good, even if
nothing comes of it. A fellow whose nature is not morbid, is never any
the worse off for loving a good little girl like Polly, even if she
do not reciprocate. It may cost him some pain, but he will live it
through, and no man’s nature ever expands to its full capacity till the
fever of an honest passion gets into his blood--but you know how that
is yourself, Cy.

I knew about her jumping the mine before your letter came--the bare
fact only--for I have met Parsons here every day and he showed me a
cipher dispatch from her telling him. It seems she knew his old cipher
and used it. He translated it to me in the greatest admiration of her
pluck and quickness. Probably she never would have done it if she
hadn’t had you two fellows to stand by her. Bully boys! I know you are
behaving all right, or she wouldn’t trust you.

You may tell Harry all I have told you about the dreadful straits in
which her family have been, so that he will perfectly understand how
she came to go down to Creede. I wouldn’t have him think cheaply of
her for anything, for I have got it all fixed in my mind that he is
to fall head over heels in love with her. I do not believe she has had
a serious thought of any other fellow, for, though as a young Miss
she was quite a favorite in Chicago, it is not likely she formed any
serious attachments--any attachment that would stand the strain of
poverty such as the Parsons have gone through in the last three years.
Since she and her mother have been in Denver, I know they have refused
to make acquaintances and have kept proudly to themselves. So I venture
to guess the field is clear for Harry if he is lucky enough to interest
her, and you are fairly safe in speaking the encouraging word to him.
As I have said, it will do him good to get the fever in his blood, even
if he should fail.

Like her father, Polly is very swift and decisive in her judgments of
people, and very self-reliant. The girl has always been in love with
her father, and Tom has always treated her more like a lover than a
father. He is awfully proud of her, and he brags about her to me every
time we meet. But he is anxious, nevertheless, about her being in that
camp, and he is leaving to-night to join her, and I fancy he will bring
her away. You may know how anxious he feels in spite of all his brag
about her pluck and smartness and her ability to take care of herself,
when he abandons the irons he has in the fire here, to go out and look
after her. He admires the business spirit in her and upholds it, but
still he is afraid that fighting her own way in such a rough place will
make her coarse and unlovely.

Tell Harry to put his best foot forward and make his best impression
on the old man, if you find him caring seriously for Polly, for she is
likely to go a good deal according to her father’s fancy in the matter
of a sweetheart. If he gets the old man’s heart, the battle for Polly
is more than half won--that is, if she already likes him a little bit,
which I am pretty sure from what you write she does. Of course, you
will manage to let the old man know what a respectful admiration both
you and Harry have had for Polly, and how, being very busy, _you_ have
rather left it to your friend, Mr. English, a young gentleman of good
judgment and responsible character and all that, to keep an eye on her
interests and make himself serviceable in case she needed counsel,
etc., etc.

But above all, make him think--both you and Harry--that his girl hasn’t
really needed the protection of either of you, but has paddled her own
canoe like a veteran. That will please him more than anything else, and
it would irritate his pride a little to think you had been necessary to
her.

You will get this probably before he arrives, for he will stop half a
day in Denver to see his wife and boy; so be on your good behavior,
both of you, and don’t shock him.

What you tell me about that poor girl from Denver--Inez, is that her
name?--is distressing. Her first bleaching her hair and then cutting it
off, shows plainly enough the course her young footsteps are taking.
That sharp-faced, wiry little blonde she chums with has no doubt led
her into evil ways. There is no company so dangerous for a girl as
a bad woman. Couldn’t you take her aside and give her a talking to,
and advise her to go home to her family? Take her up to one of the
dance-halls some night, and show her the beer-soaked, painted hags that
haunt these places to pick up the means of a wretched and precarious
existence, and let her know that is where she will bring up, if she
keeps on. But I suppose she is past talking to--past turning back.

Write me the latest news about Polly’s mine and how it is turning out,
and how Harry and Polly are making it. I am deeply interested.

                                                       Yours,
                                                               FITZ-MAC.




XII.


                                             CREEDE, Colo., May 9, 1892.

DEAR FITZ:--I have to tell you a sad story now.

Last Saturday I went to Denver, and as I entered the train at this
place, I noticed some men bringing an invalid into the car. One of the
men asked the porter to look after the sick girl in “lower two,” and I
gathered from that that she was alone. I had section three, and as soon
as the train pulled out I noticed that the sick person grew restless.
We had been out less than thirty minutes when she began to roll and
toss about, and talk as people do when sick with mountain fever.

When the Durango car, which was a buffet, was switched to our train at
Alamosa, I went to the sick berth and asked the sufferer if she would
like a cup of tea and some toast. She was very ill, but she seemed glad
to have some one talk to her, and as she answered “yes,” almost in a
whisper, she turned her poor, tired, tearful eyes to me, and with a
little show of excitement that started her coughing, spoke my name. It
was Inez Boyd. I should not have known her, but I had seen her after
she had bleached her beautiful hair, and later when she was in the
barber-shop. As the gold of sunset, that marked the end of a beautiful
spring day, shone in through the car window, it fell upon her pale
face, where a faint flush on her thin cheeks spoke of the fever within,
and showed that the end of a life was near.

[Illustration]

She took a swallow or two of the tea, looked at the toast and pushed it
away. She had been ill for a week, she said, and had eaten nothing for
two days. I did what little I could for her comfort, and when I went to
say good-night, she held my hand; the tears, one after another, came
from the deep, dark eyes, fell across the pale cheeks, and were lost
in the ghastly yellow hair.

“Don’t think I weep because I am afraid of death,” she said. “I am so
glad now, that I know that it’s all over, but I am sorry for mamma; it
will kill her.”

I asked, and she gave me her address in Denver, and I promised to call.

When the train stopped at the gate of the beautiful city, she had
called her home, some men came with an invalid chair, and when I saw
them take her to a carriage I hurried on to my hotel.

That afternoon I called to ask after the girl. The windows were open,
and I could see a few people standing about the room with bowed heads.
Dr. O’Connor came down the little walk that lay from the door of a
neat cottage to the street, and without recognizing me, closed the gate
softly, turned his back to me and hurried away.

Inez Boyd was dead. God in His mercy, had called her away to save her
from a life of sorrow, sin and shame, and He called her just in time.

In the “Two Voices,” Tennyson says:

  “Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
  No life that breathes with human breath
  Has ever truly longed for death.”

I don’t believe it. There are times in life--in some lives, at
least--when nothing is more desirable than death.




XIII.


                                            CREEDE, COLO., May 13, 1892.

MY DEAR FITZ:--You ask me how the _Chronicle_ is doing. It is doing
better than the editor. I have been reducing expenses on every hand,
but since the state land sale, the boom has collapsed, so that from one
hundred dollars a week, we have got up to where we lose three hundred
a week, with a good prospect for an increase. The responsibility has
grown so great, that I begin to feel like a Kansas farm, struggling to
bear up under a second mortgage.

I have been elected assistant superintendent of the Sunday-school,
umpired a prize-fight, been time-keeper at a ball game, have been
elected to the common council from the Bad Lands by an overwhelming
vote, but I have received no salary as editor of the _Chronicle_.

Tabor has written another note, and perpetrated some more poetry:

  “Among these rose-bejeweled hills
    Where bloom the fairest flowers
  Where the echo from the mines and mills
  This little vale with music fills,
    We spent life’s gladdest hours.

  “And still within this limpid stream
    Where sports the speckled trout,
  Her mirrored face doth glow and gleam;
  ’Twas here I grappled love’s young dream--
    And here my light went out.”

Isn’t that enough to drive a young woman to cigarettes? Some girls it
might, but it will never disturb Polly Parsons.

[Illustration]

If I did not know Harry as I do, I should say he was learning to love
Miss Parsons very rapidly, now that she is rich, but I will not do him
that injustice. He has loved her all along, but the prospect of losing
her is what makes him restless now. Men who have lived as long as you
and I have, know how hard it is to ride by the side of a beautiful
woman over these grand mountains on a May morning, without making love
to her;

  When the restless hand of Nature
    Reaches out to shift the scene,
  And the brooks begin to warble in the dell;
  When the waking fields are fluffy
    And the meadow-lands are green,
  And the tassels on the trees begin to swell.

Ah, these are times that try men’s hearts; but poor Harry, he is so
timid; why I should have called her down a month ago, if I had his hand.

She is too honest to encourage him if she doesn’t really care for him,
but she must, she can’t help it, he is almost an ideal young man. Maybe
that is where he falls down; I’ve heard it said that a man who is _too_
nice, is never popular with the ladies. Perhaps that is why you and I
are pouring our own coffee to-day. Swinburne says--

  “There is a bitterness in things too sweet.”

Polly’s father is here. He brought a Chicago capitalist with him, and
the Sure Thing has been sold for sixty-one thousand dollars. I was
sorry to learn of the sale, for it will take away from the camp one of
the richest and rarest flowers that has ever adorned these hills.

Since the great fire, we have all moved to the Tortoni, on the border
of the Bad Lands. The parlor is very small, and last night when Harry
and the “Silver Queen,” as we call her now, were talking while I
pretended to be reading a newspaper, I could not help hearing some of
the things they said. Harry wanted her photograph, but she would not
give it. She said she never gave her pictures to young men, under any
circumstances. When she found a young man with whom she could trust her
photo, she said she would give him the original. Harry said something
very softly then; I did not hear what it was, but she said very
plainly, very seriously, that she would let him know before she left.

[Illustration]

“And you go to-morrow?” he asked, and it seemed to me that there were
tears in his voice.

“Yes,” she said, with a sigh that hinted that she was not altogether
glad to go. “Papa has bought the old place back again; we shall stop in
Denver for mamma and my little brother, and then return to the dear old
home where I have spent so many happy days--where I learned to lisp the
prayers that I have never forgotten to say in this wicked camp; and I
feel now that God has heard and answered me. It may seem almost wicked,
but I am half sorry to leave this place; you have all been so kind to
me; but it is best. Father will give you our address, and now, how soon
may we expect you in Chicago?”

“How soon may I come?--next week--next year?”

“Not next year,” she said quickly; and although I was looking at my
paper, I saw him raise her hand to his lips.

“And will you give me your photo then?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, and I wanted to jump and yell, but I was afraid
she might change her mind.

“I wish you would sing one song for me before you go,” said Harry,
after they had been silent for some moments.

“What shall it be?”

“When other lips,” he answered.

“But there should be no other lips,” said the bright and charming woman.

“I know there should not, and I hope there may not, but sing it anyway
and I will try to be strong and unafraid.”

As Miss Parsons went to the piano, I left the room, left them alone,
and as I went out into the twilight, I heard the gentle notes as the
light fingers wandered over the keys.

  “When other lips and other hearts--”
    Came drifting through the trees.
  “In language whose excess imparts,”
    Was borne upon the breeze.
  Ah, hope is sweet and love is strong
    And life’s a summer sea;
  A woman’s soul is in her song;
    “And you’ll remember me.”

  Still rippling from her throbbing throat
    With joy akin to pain,
  There seemed a tear in every note,
    A sob in every strain.
  Soft as the twilight shadows creep
    Across the listless lea,
  The singer sang her love to sleep
    With, “You’ll remember me.”

                                                Truly yours,
                                                              CY WARMAN.

[Illustration]




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  The two chapters labelled IV. in The Silver Queen were published
  in the original publication that way.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.





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