PUBLICITY VIA ELINOR GLYN
At this early stage in Rawhide's history the reigning literary sensation of two continents was "Three Weeks." Nothing, reasoned the correspondents, would attract more attention to the camp than having Mrs. Elinor Glyn at Rawhide, particularly if she would conduct herself while there in a manner that might challenge the criticism of church members.
Sam Newhouse, the multimillionaire mining operator of Utah, famous on two continents as a charming host, especially when celebrities are his guests, was stopping at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Mrs. Glyn was in San Francisco at the same time. Mr. Newhouse and Ray Baker, a Reno Beau Brummel, clubman, chum of M. H. De Young, owner and editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and scion of a house that represents the aristocracy of Nevada, were showing Coast hospitality to the distinguished authoress.
A message was sent to Mr. Baker reading substantially as follows: "Please suggest to Mr. Newhouse and Mrs. Glyn the advisability of visiting Rawhide. The lady can get much local color for a new book. If you bag the game, you will be a hero."
Ray was on to his job. Within three days Mrs. Glyn, under escort of Messrs. Newhouse and Baker, arrived in Rawhide after a thirty-eight-hour journey by railroad and auto from San Francisco.
The party having arrived in camp at dusk, it was suggested that they go to a gambling-house and see a real game of stud poker as played on the desert.
They entered a room. Six players were seated around a table. The men were coatless and grimy. Their unshaven mugs, rough as nutmeg-graters, were twisted into strange grimaces. All of them appeared the worse for liquor. Before each man was piled a mound of ivory chips of various hues, and alongside rested a six-shooter. From the rear trousers' pocket of every player another gun protruded. Each man wore a belt filled with cartridges. Although an impromptu sort of game, it was well staged.
A man with bloodshot eyes shuffled and riffled the cards. Then he dealt a hand to each.
"Bet you $10,000," loudly declared the first player.
"Call that and go you $15,000 better," shouted the second as he pushed a stack of yellows toward the center.
"Raise you!" cried two others, almost in unison.
Before the jack-pot was played out $300,000 (in chips) had found its way to the center of the table and four men were standing up in their seats in a frenzy of bravado with the muzzles of their guns viciously pointed at one another. There was enough of the lurking devil in the eyes of the belligerents to give the onlookers a nervous shiver.
When the gun-play started, Mrs. Glyn and Messrs. Newhouse and Baker took to the "tall and uncut."
As the door closed and the vanishing forms of the visitors could be seen disappearing around the opposite street corner, all of the men in the room pointed their guns heavenward and shot at the ceiling, which was of canvas. The sharp report of the revolver-shots rang through the air. This was followed by hollow groans, calculated to freeze the blood of the retreating party, and by a scraping and scuffling sound that conveyed to the imagination a violent struggle between several persons.
Fifteen minutes later two stretchers, carrying the "dead," were taken to the undertaker's shop. Mrs. Glyn and Mr. Newhouse, with drooped chins, stood by and witnessed the dismal spectacle.
Of course, the "murder" of these two gamblers, during the progress of a card-game for sensationally high stakes and in the presence of the authoress of "Three Weeks," made fine front-page newspaper copy. Rawhide suggested itself in every paragraph of the stories as a mining-center that was large enough to attract the attention of a multimillionaire mine magnate of the caliber of Sam Newhouse and of an authoress of such world-wide repute as Elinor Glyn. The camp got yards of free publicity that was calculated to convince the public it was no flash in the pan, which was exactly what was wanted.
The next night Elinor Glyn, having recovered from the shock of the exciting poker-game, was escorted through Stingaree Gulch. The lane was lined on both sides with dance-halls and brothels for a distance of two thousand feet. Mrs. Glyn "sight-saw" all of these.
Rawhide scribes saw a chance here for some fine writing:
The wasted cheeks and wasted forms of frail humanity, as seen last night in the jaundiced light that was reflected by the crimson-shaded lamps and curtains of Stingaree Gulch, visibly affected the gifted English authoress. They carried to Mrs. Glyn an affirmative answer to the question, so often propounded recently, whether it is against public morality to make a heroine in "Three Weeks" of a pleasure-palled victim of the upper set. It was made plain to Mrs. Glyn that her heroine differed from the Stingaree Gulch kind only in that her cheeks were less faded than her character.
That's the kind of Laura Jean Libby comment on Mrs. Glyn's tour of Stingaree Gulch that one of the Rawhide correspondents wired to a "yellow," with a view to pleasing the editor and to insuring positive acceptance of his copy.
Later in the night a fire-alarm was rung in. The local fire-department responded in Wild-Western fashion. The conflagration, which was started for Mrs. Glyn's sole benefit, advanced with the rapidity of a tidal wave. It brought to the scene a mixed throng of the riffraff of the camp. The tumult of voices rose loud and clear. The fire embraced all of the deserted shacks and waste lumber at the foothills of one of the mines. The liberal use of kerosene and a favoring wind caused a fierce blaze. It spouted showers of sparks into the darkness and gleamed like a beacon to desert wayfarers. The fierce yells of the firemen rang far and wide. Of a sudden a wild-haired individual thrust himself out of the crowd and sprang through the door of a blazing shack. He disappeared within the flames. Three feet past the door was a secret passage leading to shelter in the tunnel of an adjoining mine. Mrs. Glyn, of course, did not know this. She acclaimed the act as one of daring heroism.
Water in the camp was scarce, so there was a resort to barreled beer and dynamite. Soon the flames of the devouring fire were extinguished. Again the newspapers throughout the land contained stories, which were telegraphed from the spot, regarding the remarkable experiences of the much-discussed authoress of "Three Weeks" in the new, great, gold camp of Rawhide. The press agent was in his glory.