THE WIFE—AT GOODSPRINGS
Not Hitherto Published — 1947
By John T. Bristow
To round out the foregoing story, I might say here that my wife was a guest for the week during my absence in Crescent, at Mrs. Yount’s hotel in Goodsprings. Sam Yount, the landlady’s husband, was leading merchant, postmaster, private banker—and miner. And he backed the hotel proposition too. The sleeping quarters of the hotel were a detached row of ground-floor rooms close by the main structure. It was before the building in Goodsprings of the Southern Nevada Hotel, said at the time to have been the most commodious hotel in the state. It was before the camp boasted a newspaper, even before the camp got electricity.
My wife was not versed in the ways of the West; and she had some misgivings about making this stop-over on the desert, particularly because of the lateness of our train, while on our way to visit my people in California. I had told her that of the many times I had been out there I had never seen a gun-toting man—and that there was a fixed impression that it would be about as much as a man’s life was worth to molest a woman.
This trip was made at a time following the great flood that had wiped out all the railroad bridges for many miles along the Meadow Valley Wash, in eastern Nevada. Owing to a slow track, our train, due in Jean in the forenoon, did not arrive until near midnight. There were no accommodations at Jean when I was last out there, and I had told Myrtle that, as we would now miss the stage, we might have to sit in the depot until morning, or walk ten miles across the desert to Goodsprings.
Frankly, she was not of a mind to do anything of the kind. She said we could remain on the train, go on to Los Angeles, and maybe stop at Goodsprings on our return trip—or we could, as far as she was concerned, pass it up altogether. I pointed out that we could hardly do this, with her trunk and all her fine clothes—clothes she didn’t need at all—checked through to Jean. And besides, we would be returning by way of San Francisco.
Remember, I had told her that I had never seen a gun toter in the West. Remember also that this was before Crescent. Then, imagine my surprise, and the wife’s renewed misgivings, when, on getting off at Jean, the first and only man to be seen had a murderous looking six-shooter strapped on him. And the wife had so little respect for my veracity as to tell me right out loud that in her best judgement I had purposely misrepresented matters to her.
George Fayle, whom I had known in Goodsprings — associated with Sam Yount—had come over to the railroad to engage in the mercantile business. He owned a general store, a restaurant, and was building a hotel. This made matters fine for us—almost. Fayle was postmaster, and handled pouch mail between the postoffice and the trains. The gun he carried was only routine.
George Fayle took us to a ground-floor room in his unfinished hotel. The room had wallboard partitions, bed upon springs flat on the floor, with a blanket hung across the outside door opening, leaving one-fourth of the space with nothing but thin desert air between us and the unknown. George did not tell us what kind of characters he was harboring beyond the cardboard—but he did wish us a pleasant good night, and, patting his six-shooter, said we would be perfectly safe, as is.
But the wife did not readily catch the spirit of the West. I had told her that the desert was overrun with lizards and sidewinder rattlesnakes, the poisonous kind that travel in spiral form with head up ready for a strike at all times. She put in most of the remainder of the night watching the 18-inch opening between the blanket and the floor—precisely for what, she could not be sure. Luckily there was no wind. The blanket hung limp throughout the night. I can swear to that. Two of a kind, you might say.
At breakfast, George told me there had been a manhunt the day before over in the country west of Goodsprings — that an escaped convict was reportedly holed up in the hills east of Sandy. That would be in the neighborhood of our lead mine. The wife took this in without comment — but it was plain to be seen that she was stowing it away for future consideration.
When Frank and I had returned from our tour of inspection at Crescent, after nightfall, we found the Good-springs camp in an awful state of alarm. My wife, fully dressed, was sitting upright in the middle of the bed in our ground-floor room, afraid to put foot on the floor. She had been so since shortly after dusk. Dusk—that indeterminate translucent veil which, like a mist, screens and magnifies, transposing even the most common objects into phantom figures.
She had heard a scraping noise, likely a block away, but at such times the imagination does tricks to one’s reasoning. In her state of nervous tension, it was but natural for her to imagine that indistinct noise had come from under the bed, the obvious place for an intruder to hide.
Ordinarily Myrtle was not given to such fits of timidity. But she had entered the country under trying conditions, and therefore was not prepared for the many unexpected irregularities. We had not counted on our train being so far behind time as to land us out there in the middle of the night. With my memory of the surroundings as I last knew them, it required a lot of silent argument with myself to get up courage to subject her to the risk we must necessarily take in finding accommodations of any sort, at Jean. I knew there were ten miles of desert on either side of the railroad station. That the country was not inhabited might or might not have been in our favor. Certainly, it presaged loneliness—and it was dark.
A woman at the hotel in Goodsprings thought she had glimpsed the deadly thing, at dusk, near the sleeping quarters—and Myrtle’s door had been left open for a brief spell while she was out. Or rather the door had been found open on her return—she just wasn’t sure how it was. Myrtle informed me that all the other women in camp were just as frightened as she was. And she bade me look under the bed, forthwith.
The thing I was supposed to make sure was—or wasn’t — there, had an overall length of about two feet, a width of four to five inches, an inch or so less in height when inactive—and it was a little pot-bellied. It was rusty in color, with yellowish spots distributed the full length of its body. It had a fat meaty tail, and a broad ugly looking head.
There really was something alive under the bed. It moved. Its eyes moved toward me. Also there were now two people upon the bed. And simultaneously the door swung open, as if the devil was in cahoots with the thing, bent on letting in all the demons of a wicked world. I had hit the bed on the bounce with a jarring thud, causing the door to swing in, as it invariably did when not securely latched. And the cat “hightailed it” out into the night.
But the house cat was not the thing so much dreaded.
Mr. Springer’s Gila Monster, a lizard-like reptile, even more poisonous than the rattlesnake, was on the loose. It had got out of its place of confinement two days back, and diligent search by the whole camp had failed to locate it. On the third day, however, the Monster was found at a water-hole, an old trench dug years before by our former Wetmore citizen, Green Campbell. The camp demanded that the reptile be killed immediately.
Elwood Thomas, also formerly of Wetmore, was a close neighbor to Mr. Springer, and he had carried the word of caution to Myrtle. It was all so very exciting—even worse than a panther scare. And, miraculously, the wife was to experience that one too before leaving the Goodsprings camp.
We were to go with Frank Williams to stay over Sunday at our lead mine, which was twelve miles over the mountain range on the west side. The daily stage (except Sunday) passed within a few hundred yards of the mine. Frank and I started to walk over, at sunup, on Saturday morning. Myrtle was to go over on the stage in the afternoon.
To make a short cut, Frank and I took a burro trail at the summit, near the Columbia mine. While trailing that rugged miner ten yards in the rear, going down on the west side, I sprained my right ankle, badly, rolling down the slope almost to where Frank was—my camera trailing in the wake, taking the bumps.
We stopped for a brief rest at the Hoosier mine—formerly owned by Frank’s uncle, Elwood Thomas—where the miners were taking out zinc ore, a new find in that district. And “tenderfoot” though I was, I made a discovery there which had escaped my seasoned miner-partner for a whole year. At least I thought I had done this to him. Frank had cut through a 12-foot body of identical appearing stuff in running the tunnel, and had several tons of it ricked up on the dump. It would require an assay to convince him that we had a zinc mine, as well as a lead mine.
In accordance with the miners’ code we were invited to stop at the Hoosier shack in the foothills and get our dinners. By this time my swollen ankle was hurting so badly that I preferred not to stop until we could get out to the stage road a mile farther on—but Frank said it would be an insult to the Hoosier boys for us to pass them by. And besides he was hungry. Also, according to the miners’ code Frank had to wash his dirty dishes. This is a must in the mining country.
This is where I went down—second time. Took this picture while waiting for the stage. Frank’s mail box is about a mile around the bend of the road. The trail—foot path—going over the mountain starts near the right edge of this view’ and tops the mountain starts near the right edge of this view, and tops the mountain at the head of a canyon, on the other side.
We reached the stage road about two hours before the stage was due. Frank walked on three miles farther to the mine, and I hobbled along until within a mile of “our” mountain—then my ankle toppled me over again, and I lay there with my head shaded by a single sagebrush. As the sun moved along on its westward course—which of course it didn’t do at all—I had to scratch gravel frequently, sliding on my back, to keep my head shielded from the burning desert sun.
The stage-driver let us off at Frank’s mail box, and Myrtle had a hard time helping me over the hump and down the canyon to the mine. We took the short cut over the mountain instead of going a mile or more around on the wagon road; through a saddle-back, and then up the canyon to the mine, which would have been less arduous. We were carrying provisions for six meals for the three of us. There was water at the mine. It had rained a month before, and Frank had scooped up the water out of a ditch. No fiction in this. Water really “keeps” out there—when in an underground house, anyway.
We had overlooked the need for candles and coffee—or rather they were missing from the pack. Acting on Frank’s suggestion, Myrtle went out on the mountain side, gathered leaves from the lowly sage brush—and we had our tea. But the absence of candles was a more serious matter. Frank hunted the underground house, and the tunnels, finally finding a two-inch piece of candle at the far end of a 500-foot tunnel.
The wife and I slept—no, bunked—the first night in the underground house. To get into the place we had to hug a wall as we approached the door to avoid dropping into a 60-foot shaft by the side of the entrance, where Frank had taken out $65 worth of RICH silver ore—at a cost of $500 for digging the hole.
There were mice, and probably lizards too, running over our bed on the floor. Little lizards were very active on the outside, in the daytime. And Frank and I had killed a rattlesnake while strolling about over the grounds the year before. The crack under the door was big enough to let in almost anything short of a panther.
Also, a big body of ore protruding from the ceiling directly over our bed looked as if it might slip from its moorings with the slightest jar, and there was some jarring force at work all through the night. Grains of crushed limestone, like sand, sifted down upon us almost continously. Myrtle spent the night lighting, blowing out, and relighting that little piece of candle. In this way she made it last until morning.
The next night—Sunday night—we slept, or rather bunked, on an ore-sorting table out on the tunnel dump, under the stars. Frank had taken his bedroll a hundred yards down the canyon to find level “ground” on which to make his spread. I had sent an old trunk filled with bedding including a couple of pillows the year before. The wife thought Frank had been a little lax in the matter of laundering same.
After going over the mountain (at left) we — Myrtle and I — came down the canyon to the mine. The tunnel dump shows between the two arms of the mountain — about a half mile away. Getting down from the top was tough. I had to back down much of the way — and have a lot of help. Frank had said he would meet us at the mailbox — but he was taking lessons in French off a gramophone and did not show up until we were well along the way to the mine. Frank’s and Edith’s first tent house — part canvas — was built was built on this dump.
This, of course, was before Frank had gone East to study political economy. Also it was before he had brought back to the mine a New England school teacher called Edith, bearing his name. There was no laxity after Edith took charge. And, with this touch of “new life” on the job, the mine, besides yielding rich ore, sparingly, produced two fine little girls, Ruth and Helen—girls that grew up at the mine. With their father a graduate of Campbell University, Holton, Kansas, and their mother holding a teacher’s certificate, the girls didn’t fare badly, even in semi-isolation. As a matter of fact, district school was held for a time in their home, with their mother as teacher.
The home at this time was a four-room house on a 5-acre water claim—held in connection with the mining claims — on the edge of Mesquite Valley, one mile from the mine. There was a 75-foot dug well, with windmill, and running water in the house. And there were growing fruit trees, a vineyard in bearing, and a green—very green alfalfa patch. The two Williams girls represented two-sevenths of the possible pupils for the school.
Then a little green school house was erected not more than three hundred yards from their door—with Miss Leah Lytle as first teacher—where all seven of the miners’ children studied their lessons, romped and played among the sage and mesquite. While so doing, Helen Williams was bitten by a rattlesnake. She was taken to Las Vegas, the nearest big town, fifty miles away for treatment—and that move spelled the end of the little green school house in the Mesquite Valley so far as the two girls were concerned. They finished their schooling in Las Vegas, graduating from the high school there. Then, when Rex Ewing, Frank William’s closest mining neighbor, moved to Las Vegas to capture some of the prevailing high wages, the school blew up. Rex had supplied the other five pupils. The sequence of events as set down here may be faulty—but were I able to chronicle them in order, the result would be the same.
This, I believe, is noteworthy. Besides the single claim purchased by Frank and me from S. C. Root, operator on Bonanza Hill, one mile south of our holdings, Frank Williams located three more adjoining claims, taking in practically all the surface ore croppings on this mountain—and recorded them in one group, which meant that the work done on any one claim of the group, if extensive enough, would satisfy the $100 annual assessment for each claim.
There was, however, a small showing of ore apparently like the zinc at the Hoosier mine just outside those claims, on the west, close to the wagon road Frank had blasted out, at considerable expense, to get up to the tunnel he was driving. There were no other operators on that mountain. Frank was lonesome. He wanted neighbors. Old man Ewing and son Rex, nomad sojourners in Goodsprings, were invited to come out and try their luck on that small cropping.
The Ewings struck pay ore almost from the start, and began shipments, while Frank was still driving his tunnel — with ever increasing high hope. Frank’s wagon road proved to be a big asset for his new neighbors. Rex Ewing also mined commercial lead ore back on the high end of his claims, which was brought down to the wagon road by burro pack. Large trucks now travel that wagon road right up to Frank’s ore bin, at the mouth of the tunnel, and take off with five tons to the load.
At this juncture I might say that though Frank has spent fifty-five of his seventy-six years—as of this date, 1947—in the Nevada mines, he has met with only two accidents, and neither of them was actually in the mines. He was working alone at our Crescent claims, and by way of a little deviation from routine work, undertook to blow open a big boulder—just curious to see what was inside. It was not in the way—and it would have told him nothing of advantage had he proved his suspicion that it contained gold, for gold was showing in the ledge up slope from which the boulder had been dislodged. What I said to Frank when he told me he meant to waste a day in blowing open that big rock does not matter now. Nor did it matter then.
Even before Frank had started to drill the boulder, while clearing away some loose rock, it rolled half-over, pinning him underneath. I judged the boulder would weigh two tons, maybe more—but a smaller rock had prevented it from crushing the life out of Frank. Two miners were working, in sight, across the canyon about a quarter mile away—and Frank called and hollered for seven hours without attracting them.
Now, here is something that, from my power of reasoning, is inexplicable. There are, however, people who would have a ready explanation for it. Elwood Thomas, Frank’s uncle, had driven his team of ponies from Goodsprings over to Searchlight, ten miles beyond Crescent, and was returning late in the afternoon, aiming to go by way of Crescent, as it was shorter and a better road.
Elwood told me that when he had come to the by-road leading through the canyon past his nephew’s location, he naturally thought of Frank, and as he drove on toward Crescent he began to think he should have gone the other road. He said, “Something told me to turn around—I wouldn’t pretend to say what it was—but it was so strong, so insistent, that I did turn around after I had gone a mile.” He found Frank still hollering for help—but his calls were now very feeble. With the help of the two miners Frank had been trying to attract, Elwood got him out from under the boulder, loaded him into the wagon, and drove on down through the canyon and across the big flat to Nipton, the railroad station. Frank was put on the train and taken to a hospital in Los Angeles. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Six weeks in the hospital fixed him up as good as ever. Frank was on his own then—that is, had no insurance. The expense was terrific. I think Frank never did get his curiosity satisfied about the boulder.
As his inactive partner, I cautioned Frank against working alone in those remote places—but it did no good. He said he was safer working alone in the mines than I was when riding the trains between Kansas and Nevada. When I first went into the mining country, I observed that practically all prospectors had partners. I asked an Irishman (a miner) why was it so? He said, “And how the divvel would a man pull his-self up out of a hole widout a partner?” But there was a more important reason. It was for protection against accidents such as Frank had just experienced.
Frank’s second accident, more serious than the other one, was at our Goodsprings mine, while loading out vanadium ore on Government contract, in more recent years. He was unable to tell how it happened. The trucker had left with a 5-ton load, and Frank was “waiting around” for him to come back for a second load. When the truck driver got back from his ten-mile trip over the mountain, he found Frank wandering around down on the road below the ore bin, in a dazed condition—really worse than that. Frank wrote me later that he remembered standing on the ore bin after the trucker had gone with his load, and thought he must have fallen off—but remembered nothing more. The ore bin is built against the slope of the mountain, having a flat top about 16x20 feet, on a level of the tunnel, with car-track extending to the outer edge, where a drop would be about 18 feet—and less, (to nothing), at the upper end of the ore bin. Frank did not say where he was standing in the last moments of consciousness—but a fall from anywhere near the upper edge would mean a rough tumble all the way down to the road.
When Frank was taken to the Las Vegas hospital, it was found he had a broken collarbone, a bad head injury — and a touch of pneumonia. He remained two months in the hospital, at state expense, plus $90 per month compensation — with final payment of $1,500, on a basis of one-fourth incapacitation.
In Nevada now you don’t have to apply for state insurance. If you are a miner, you’ve got it, with monthly billing—unless you have filed notice that you do not want it.
The Williams girls are both married and live in Las Vegas. Helen is the wife of Vaughn Holt, a barber. When I called at her home in 1941 she had a very sweet little girl not quite a year old. Ruth’s husband, Charles Thomas, is a linotype operator on Frank Garside’s Daily newspaper. He is not the Charley Thomas who grew up in Wetmore and spent many years in Nevada. That Charley was the son of Elwood Thomas and was Frank William’s cousin. And it so happens that Ruth now takes her grandmother Williams’ maiden name—Ruth Thomas.
Frank Garside, postmaster at Las Vegas, and publisher of the Daily Review there, formerly lived in Atchison. His aunt, Frances Garside—well known to me at that time — made a record writing “Globe Sights” for Ed Howe’s Daily Globe, back in the “Gay Nineties.”
And now the panther. Maybe it was only a wildcat, but its scream was enough to put fear in the “sleepers” out on the tunnel dump. The varmint came yowling down the canyon, fifteen feet away from our bunk, going on down the trail Frank had taken with his bedroll. Frank said the thing had been heard several times before, and he was not sure if it was a panther, or a wildcat. Panthers—called cougars in the west—he said, were very much in evidence down on the Rim; that is, the high bank of the Colorado river. And something very like the cougar in habit had killed a calf in the valley, close by. Myrtle regarded the thing as a threatening menace, and had it not been for that exposed shaft at the entrance of the underground house, she doubtless would have made a break for shelter. And I think that, notwithstanding my black and blue ankle, I should have followed pronto.
However, Myrtle was compensated for all this by the fact—vouched for by Frank Williams—that she was the first white woman to set foot on that mountain. By the same line of reasoning, Edith Willams was, I suppose, if we can be sure Frank knows his history, the second, and probably the last, white woman to climb Hunter mountain.
Looking across the canyon, and gesturing toward the mountain-side where some work had been done, Myrtle laughingly said to Frank and me, “I suppose you two old grizzled miners think that ‘Thar’s gold in them thar hills’.”
Myrtle had trod some pretty rocky ground, literally and figuratively, since coming into camp—besides heating gallons of water from time to time at the mine to bathe my sprained ankle—and she certainly was entitled to indulge in a little “fun” at our expense. Myrtle had quoted correctly, but that “grizzled” reference belonged to quite another class of miners. And I may say this was the first and only time I had ever heard that bewhiskered old saying while in the mining country. It was of course a carryover from another era. And, had she not questioned my statement about the gun-toters, I should have told her that there are no such animals in the mining country now.
Myrtle was holding in her hand a gold nugget—real, glittering, yellow gold — about the size of a walnut, and Frank knew instantly its source. She had taken it out of my pocket—but I doubt if Frank knew positively, until this minute, that I had it. He said to me, “You better drop it in that shaft over there by the underground house. There’s but one place that it could have come from—and if exhibited around here, it might get somebody in trouble.” He hastened to say, however, that it would not be me; that he was sure that I had got it legitimately, though maybe a little less openly than the $10 nugget I had secured when he and I were exploring the depths of the famous Quartette mine at Searchlight. That’s the place where someone had said before the camp was named that it would take a searchlight to locate pay ore.
I said, “Yeah, drop it in the shaft and have someone in the future find it, and then spend thousands of dollars trying to locate its source.”
He said, “Any miner who knows his stuff would know that it didn’t originate in this lime formation. It’s straight out of a porphyry dike—and was, until you got hold of it, closely guarded under lock and key.”
I could have told him that I knew all this, but a more brilliant idea struck me—leastwise just for the moment I thought it was bright. But, then, on second thought, what if the assay on our big body of material I had been so sure was just like the Hoosier zinc, should prove me wrong. Well, anyway, I would “ shoot the works.”
I said, “It strikes me that there are some men around here who count themselves miners that do not exactly at all times know their stuff.”
Myrtle said, “Now, now—don’t commence on that zinc again.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll still bet my old hat that it is zinc.”
Frank said, quickly, “If it’s zinc, I’ll eat your old hat — and do it with relish, too, brother.”
“And in that case, if you win, smart boy, you still stand to lose your hat,” said Myrtle, to me.
I believe Frank had already begun to see the light, sense a probability, cherish a hope. Although lead ore running 71 and 72 per cent by the carload had been shipped, the present lean condition of our lead mine could well stand bolstering with a big body of zinc. But of course he would not want to admit, first off, that his “tenderfoot” partner had stumbled onto something of such vital importance. In school, and at countryside lyceums back home, Frank was a top negative debater—always on the “contrary” side. And it was probably the stubborn Welsh in him that caused him to stick by his guns now”His father had been a miner back in Wales—in the identical neighborhood’ that afterwards became known as the locale of the movie, “How Green Was My Valley?”:
I do not know the result of the assay made by Harry Riddell for Frank—but I do know that Frank wrote me, that fortunately, I was going to be minus an old hat, someday. But, for the present, would I send him $500 to start operations on “our lucky zinc find?”
An assay made for me, by C. S. Cowan, whom I met on the train, and who was assayer at W. A. Clark’s United Verde mine, Jerome, Arizona, showed fifty-five per cent zinc. Assayer Cowan wrote me that it was a big surprise to him. He had told me he doubted if the sample would show any zinc.
In the crude, it shipped out by the carload at forty-three percent. But at that, it was no bonanza. Western smelters could not handle that class of ore—and the freight rate to the zinc smelters in the gas fields of southern Kansas, was $500 a car.
Unlike the dark sulphides of the Joplin (Mo.) and Galena (Kans.) district, where paying mines were operating on six per cent zinc, ours was a carbonate ore, running to high values. It was light in color, with the richer ore comparatively light in weight. Frank said it would likely, as she goes down, turn to sulphides and be more permanent, with less values.
But, brother—”she” didn’t go down.
By way of explanation, I might say here that on the preceding Friday, Frank and I paid a visit to the Keystone mine near the summit, north of the Goodsprings highway. Situated in a porphyry zone, it was the only gold mine of importance in the district—with an output of more than a million dollars up to that time. And it might be consoling to my partner, who at that time (1907) had spent sixteen of his thirty-seven years working in the Nevada mines, to state here what he already knows—in fact, he’s the source of my information—that Jonas Taylor, working a silver deposit on his claim, allowed the Keystone gold ledge to lay dormant for three years after he had discovered it. But when he did finally wake up to its possibilities, three days work rewarded him with a four-foot vein of gold ore running $1,000 to the ton—in shipments.
Our former Wetmore citizen, Green Campbell, did not get in on this—but he located, and his estate still owns the Golden Chariot, adjoining. And one of Green’s associates, William Smith, hurriedly fetched his friend Samuel Godbe over from Pioche, and after one look at the uncovered ledge, the latter played a winning hand in a big game without risking any chips. Mr. Godbe asked for, and received from Mr. Taylor, a thirty day option on one-half interest for $20,000. Mr. Godbe then rushed to San Francisco and sold half of a half-interest to Mr. Perry, a banker acquaintance, for $20,000 cash. A few months later Mr. Perry sold his quarter interest to Mr. Blake, of Denver, for $40,000. And nobody had lost any money — yet.
We had driven Sam Yount’s big sorrel mare up Kerby gulch to the Kerby mine, owned by the Campbell estate. From there, we walked maybe a couple of miles—a pretty rough climb—to the Keystone, arriving at about 10 o’clock. The camp cook, the only man above ground, thought the miners were working on the 800-foot level. Frank said he knew his way around—that we would go down in the mine and contact them. He had worked in the Keystone a short while before.
Like an addict bucking a slot machine always hoping for the next turn to crack the jackpot, Frank had put his last dollar into the development of our own prospect, and consequently had been compelled to work in other mines to get a stake. And since it was not in the cards for Frank to distinguish himself, as part owner of the Kansas-Nevada mine — and also, in later years, as if finding a good mother for his “kids” while on that political economy excursion into the East was not enough, he cashed in on that outlay by getting himself elected for the fourth time, to the legislature — assembly, it is called in Nevada. Then to Reno as Regent of the University of Nevada. Also, still later, he started a one-man crusade against gambling. But in Nevada—well, it was slow work.
And, mind you, we ourselves, Frank and I, were at that very time stuck in a mine gamble which might—and did — keep us feeding the “kitty” for years before we could know whether or not we would ever be able to pull out with a winning.
We lighted candles and started down by way of an incline shaft. The Keystone doubtless had a vertical shaft, I believe back on higher ground, straight down to the 1,000 foot level, with safety cage, operated with power. Likely a standard shaft! under state supervision, similar to the one which Frank and I were eased down to the 1100-foot level of the Quartette mine at Searchlight—on a day off from our inspection at Crescent. My cousin, Ella Bristow-Montgom-ery-Walter, lived in Searchlight, and Joe Walter, her husband, had taken time off from his barber business to show us around. Frank had seen the manager of the Quartette, likely through the solicitation of Joe, give me a gold nugget, worth maybe $10.,
I did not collect these rich specimens for their intrinsic value—but rather for study and comparison. Our hope for gold at that time lay at Crescent, between Goodsprings and Searchlight. The specimens from neighboring camps could be helpful in determining our course of development.
At the Keystone, we had gone down that incline shaft to the 700-foot level before the tenderfoot in me began to assert itself. We had walked down the incline easily enough, then climbed straight down on a ladder for maybe twenty-five feet—and then repeated by incline and ladder, gaining distance away from the portal, as well as in depth.
At the 700-foot level, Frank had a sudden notion that we might be heading for trouble. There were crosscuts going out from the various levels, and the miners might be working in any one of them. And it was about time for the shots to be fired. He said we could get out quicker if we were above the works when the powder smoke began to come out. And I was positive that I had had enough. The mine was dripping water—and my nerves were shot.
It gave me a “weak” feeling not unlike I had experienced when Frank took me about 300 feet back into the tunnel at our lead mine to demonstrate a drilling, and the firing of a shot. It was late in the afternoon, almost sundown. Frank said we would have to hurry, as daylight was running out on us, and we yet had to make our beds out on the dump—that is, find places where the crushed rock had been trampled down to some semblance of smoothness. He said he was drilling in soft white lime; that the blue lime at the contact two hundred feet farther in, for which the tunnel was projected, and where, it was confidently believed, we would encounter a big body of lead, was hard as granite. He drilled a hole sixteen inches deep, then cut a suitable length of fuse, fitted a dynamite cap to one end, tapped it together lightly with his steel drill—then shockingly gave that dynamite cap, having a 500-pound explosive force — which alone has been known to blow a man’s hand off when hit with a hammer—a final clinch with his teeth. He had a little tool for clinching the caps, but he didn’t want to waste the time to fetch it. He “hooted” at my protest of that dangerous performance. We were about twelve miles from civilization, and I didn’t relish the prospect of being left alone out there in the night. He slit a stick of dynamite with his knife—dynamite has been known to explode with rough handling—but he eased my fears by saying a cow had chewed up a stick of dynamite without harm. He inserted the capped end of the fuse in the slit, squeezed it together and dropped it in the hole. He filled the hole with fine rock drillings, and nonchalantly tamped it with an iron bar. He lighted the fuse with a match—and said it was time for us to skedaddle to the portal. No report. Frank said he would go back in the tunnel and dig it out, and fire the charge. Now, I did protest. I told him to defer that job until morning. He thought maybe it would be best, said that a fuse would sometimes hangfire. Dusk was upon us. However, we found suitable spots for bedding down, and I rolled up in nice clean blankets I had purchased in Los Angeles the day before—and, using a “soft” white lime rock for a pillow, slept the sleep of a budding plutocrat. And, believe it or not, that delayed shot waked me before dawn. Frank had performed the dangerous task of digging out that dud, and reloaded the hole. He said, “It was no job for a simpering tenderfoot to watch. And furthermore, if you will stick around me you’ll learn something.” And that was no boastful exaggeration.
The Keystone manager took us to the administration building, unlocked a door, and showed us five tons of very rich gold ore piled in one corner of the office. A narrow strip of one inch and less—along the hanging wall of a four-foot vein of $40 ore—shot with particles of pure gold, averaging $72,000 to the ton, had produced that $360,000 pile of Keystone wealth.
The manager was very kind to me. He pointed out some extremely rich specimens, and watched me “eat ‘em up” — figuratively, of course. I knew that it would have been unethical, if not worse, for him to have offered to give me a specimen, especially at a time when all that “high-grading” was going on in Nevada, particularly at the Goldfield Consolidated Mines.
Satisfied that I had been sufficiently impressed, the manager turned to Frank—they were old associates, you know—suggesting that he might be interested in having a look at the work-sheet, blue-print, or something of other entertaining, on the desk. When Frank was sufficiently absorbed, with back to me, the manager stepped out the door, “whowhoed” and gestured—probably held up two fingers — which I afterwards interpreted to mean he was making known to someone he would have guests for dinner. And I still think I read the signals aright. Anyway, my hurriedly selected specimen had only the gold content of one double-eagle—and that would have been grand larceny in my state.
I do not know if the Keystone maintained a change-room, such as the management of the Goldfield Consolidated was compelled to install about this time to cope with its “high-graders,” But the Keystone had had experience with “high-graders.” Frank said that in earlier days, off-shift miners would ride the ore-wagons down to the mill in the Mesquite Valley near the town of Sandy, dropping rich pieces of gold ore by the roadside for their confederates, following on foot, to gather up.
At the Consolidated Mines in Goldfield every miner on coming off shift, besides having to shed his work clothes before he could pass the doorkeeper to get to his street clothes, was compelled to say “Ah!” Perhaps you can think of some other way a stripped miner might conceal a bit of gold? The miners did. And the detection of that unique manner of “high-grading” precipitated a riot that had to be quelled by the state militia. The Union miners agreed, magnanimously, to submit to the new order of things—provided that they be permitted to name the doorkeeper from their own ranks. The Consolidated had broken into some extremely rich ore, streaks of almost pure gold—and the miners were averse to overlooking any bets.
Back at the lead-zinc mine, Myrtle told us what she had experienced in Goodsprings during the week when Frank and I were at Crescent. As the wife of the partner of Frank Williams—no intent of implying self importance—she was at once taken into the hearts of the camp people. Perhaps her own personality was a factor. She had met, at the hotel, Mr and Mrs. Potter, of the Columbia mine; Mr and Mrs. McCarthy, (he was the surveyor); and Harry Riddell, the assayer—all late of Boston. And she had really begun to love the desert, with its ultra-sociable people. Even Mrs. Yount’s squaw cook—maybe she was only kitchen help—a Paiute Indian woman from up Pahrump way, Myrtle said, was friendly.
And, best of all, the camp children had supplied her daily—except of course those two days when Mr. Springer’s Gila Monster had the run of the camp—with a bouquet of wild flowers gathered from the mountain slopes. She loved that.
Also, she had enjoyed, particularly when with the children, watching a reddish-brown dog resembling a cocker spaniel, ride a horse, standing up behind a man. A prospector working a claim up near the summit, five or six miles out, rode a bay horse daily out of Goodsprings, to and from his work—always with the dog standing on the horse’s back. As it was a daily occurrence, the children had become accustomed to seeing the dog ride the horse—but they were especially anxious for Myrtle to view the spectacle, with them. Myrtle had met, and visited with, some of the children’s mothers. One of the women was from Soldier, Kansas, near our home. In fact, with faithful Elwood Thomas as escort, Myrtle had been pretty much all over the camp — except of course saloon row on the north side—Hobson street I believe it was called. Elwood had told her it was not the lowest spot in Nevada, but even so, it was no place for a lady.
Myrtle had now really caught the spirit of the West. She was actually planning on the spending of the yet undelivered profits of the mine, on a home in Goodsprings. Everyone had told her that we were on the high road to a big success. Our home would be on the “bench” near Charley Byram’s place, where we could be sure of getting water. Bachelor Charley Byram, I believe, had the only private well, with windmill, in Goodsprings. He was the son of August Byram, former partner of Green Campbell, in the sensationally rich Horn Silver mine at Frisco, Utah. Born in Atchison, Kansas, Charley was now — in Nevada and Los Angeles, where he lived with his mother and sister — -a typical Westerner, seemingly without the proper appreciation of a native son for his old home town. He said to me, “The last time I was back in Atchison, two years ago, I could have fired a shotgun down the full length of Commercial street without hitting a soul.” To one who knows the unobstructed and flat straightness of Commercial street, it seemed as if he should have been able to do better than that. Charley would have to up his sights and show marksmanship if he were to hit pay ore on his claims up in the porphyry zone. I believe he missed in this.
Myrtle said she wanted flowers, lots of roses, and green grass—a show spot, sort of oasis in the desert as it were. Something that everybody else didn’t have. Well, I too had been caught by the spell. Why not let her have them? Contingent, however, on one little reservation. Only if, and when, the lead-zinc mine should give up its treasure. We couldn’t spend all that money living a prosaic life.
Before leaving Goodsprings for California, Myrtle said to me, “Let’s come back this way. I’d love it. And since you think you are so good at discovering zinc overlooked by your partner, maybe YOU could, after all, find gold in ‘them thar hills’.”
Might say here that eight years later Myrtle had the chance to repay the old miner, Elwood Thomas, for his kindness by entertaining him in our home. Elwood — just in from Nevada — came into the Wetmore hotel one evening about eight o’clock when I happened to be present. Also, Henry McCreery—sometimes affectionately called “Henry Contrary”—Elwood’s brother-in-law, was in the hotel office at the time. We had a good visit together. When Henry was ready to go home he said, “Well, Elwood, I’d like to ask you to go home with me for the night — but I’m afraid Becky wouldn’t like it.” Becky Thornton was Henry’s sister and housekeeper—his wife Patience, Elwood’s sister, having passed on some years earlier. Elwood said, “Oh, it’s all right. Maybe I ought to go out and see the Old Man” — meaning his bachelor brother Manning, living a half mile east of town. Elwood was the oldest and Manning was the youngest in a family of seven children—but the older one was the younger in appearance. I said, “Come along with me, Elwood—I know Myrtle will be glad to see you.” And she was. They had done Goodsprings all over again before retiring that night. And, sadly, we were to see our very fine old friend laid to rest in the Wetmore cemetery within the week. He was fatally injured in a horse-and-buggy accident while visiting his daughter, Mrs. Maude Ralston, in Holton.
Elwood had told us that he had a message from a miner in Goodsprings to deliver to a woman in Wetmore, but he could not remember her name. The wife and I put in a portion of the night trying to figure out who it might be with a connection out there. The next morning after breakfast, I went with Elwood down to the Spectator office. Editor Turrentine gave him a personal, with comment, naming the man in Goodsprings whose message Elwood would like to deliver, if he could find the woman. It brought results. Mrs. Nels Rasmus drove over to Holton the day following publication — and received her message. Mr. Thomas had gone over there to visit his daughter. Mrs. Rasmus had lived in the home of P. T. Casey, the Corning banker. I believe she was an adopted child. The Good-springs miner was connected in some way with one or the other of the two Corning families.
Two years later—1917—I chanced to meet this man with a stalled Model T Ford near the summit west of Goodsprings, on a very slippery road, deep in snow and slush. In the car with me, were Joe Walter, Frank and John Williams, and the driver. We were coming down the grade, and he had been going up. Recognizing the name on introduction, I asked him—just to be sociable—what was wrong with his car? He answered rather smartly, “If I knew I wouldn’t be here.” It was probably a very correct answer — but I thought it was no way to dismiss a fellow who had a message from Mrs. Rasmus for him.
NOTE—Frank Williams died in a hospital in Las Vegas. Nevada, December 19, 1947. This story is printed, without change, just as it was written prior to his death.