“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re right, Silver. Lillie will be sorry and come back—and with your talent, you will make the Tabor name once again a thing of lustre!”
Slow and silent, in some ways, and quickly and noisily in others, the years slipped away. I had mortgaged the Matchless again, for development work, with the expectation that when the shaft was sunk to a slightly lower level, we would strike high-grade ore. But I was never able to lease the mine to the right group of men to carry out my idea.
“Nobody knows anything about mining any more!” I would cry with exasperation. “All the real miners like Tabor are dead.”
Through their ignorance and bad management, the mine ate up capital. Although the leases paid occasionally in rent and royalties, those sums were only large enough to keep Silver and me supplied with adequate clothing and food. For a while, we rented a small house in town, once on Seventh St. and at another period, on Tenth St. But the Matchless never paid profits sufficient enough to dispel the mortgage. Once more, foreclosure hung over our heads.
“Silver,” I said as we sat down to dinner. “We must go down to Denver and open my safety box. Papa wouldn’t let me sell the very last of my jewels—but now, we must. I’m sure he would understand. The Matchless must be saved. Those were his last words.”
“Oh, Mama! Your beautiful jewelry!”
“Oh, well, I don’t have any use for it now. And when the Matchless pays again, I can buy more.”
Silver and I frequently journeyed to Denver on pleasure trips or jauntily to pass some of the long cold winters when the mine had to be shut down. But this trip was a sad occasion. It was no easy matter to part with those treasures, given to me by my dearly loved husband. But I was determined they should go. I must keep a stiff upper lip. At the bank, Silver cried:
“Oh, not your engagement ring—and not Papa’s watch-fob!”
My engagement ring was a single pure diamond, an enormous stone, surrounded by sapphires and set in gold which Tabor had panned himself in his early days at California Gulch. His watch-fob was a massive piece of gold artwork presented to him by the citizens of Denver on the opening night of the Tabor Grand Opera House. Three engraved pictures in ornament, The Tabor Grand Opera House, the Tabor Block in Denver and the Tabor Store in Oro in California Gulch, were suspended in links from a triangle of gold held by a closed fist. On either side of the richly carved medallions ran mine ladders of gold down to a lacy array of miner’s tools below the medallions. These, in turn, held a bucket of golden quartz, filled with gold and silver nuggets. On the reverse side, were monograms in fine enamel and the legend “Presented by the citizens of Denver to H. A. W. Tabor,” and “Labor Omnia Vincet.”