In 1892 I went to Wyoming and broke horses there for a couple of years. Then I heard of the Cripple Creek gold stampede in Colorado. I sold my rig and went to Cripple Creek and it looked like everybody in the world went there. There was two railroads in there and every passenger coach would be loaded with people. The roads were lined with people of every description—some walking, some riding donkeys and some with wagons.
About every other house there was a saloon and gambling house. Of course, there wasn’t work for everybody and lots of them were broke when they landed there—that was in the month of November and shortly after the weather turned bitter cold. I have seen men lay down on the floor to sleep in those saloons which kept open day and night, and when the house man started to clean up in the morning he would find dead men under the tables and on benches. The altitude was very high. Those people had no place to sleep—and nearly all of them contracted mountain fever and that went into pneumonia and they would sometimes die in a few hours after taking sick.
New Year’s night in 1894 was sure a wild night in Cripple Creek. Every man that filed on a mining claim prior to that time had to have one hundred dollars’ worth of work done in order to hold it by law and, of course, there was the usual contention when people are crazy for gold, some claiming the required amount of work was not done—and others claiming they had fulfilled the requirements of the law. The results were that every man owning a claim was on his ground at midnight with a gun to protect what he thought was his property.
I was in a good spot that night to get a view of the Big Mountain around Cripple Creek, and the lanterns moving around from claim to claim looked like a bunch of stars. There was reported nine men killed that night over claims and I didn’t hear of one arrest.
I had a little money when I landed in Cripple Creek but soon lost it all gambling and then took down with mountain fever. An old prospector took me into his cabin and he took sick, too. We were both broke and had nothing to eat but a half sack of potatoes, but had plenty of wood and kept warm. We took turns, when one was a little better than the other, going out and gathering mountain sage and making tea out of it—and I am sure it saved our lives, as it broke the fever. When I got a little better I made a little money to buy food, gathering that sage and selling it to sick people.
When I got a little stronger I got twenty dollars for digging an assessment hole on a fellow’s claim, so I got in a poker game with that and won about a hundred dollars. I will never forget that night. People were being help up every night—sometimes hit on the head—sometimes killed, and the amount of money didn’t mean anything, as some of them birds would hold you up for five dollars.
This night when I had won that money quite a crowd gathered around me in the gambling house. I didn’t know any of them but bought a drink for everybody and thought I would slip away. There was one big tough-looking guy persisted in shaking hands with me and gave me some kind of a sign that I did not understand, so I was rather nervous when I got out of there.
I had to walk about a mile to my cabin following an old mining ditch. I had got about half way home when I saw a man’s head raise up out of the ditch just in front of me. That sure scared me. I turned the other way, back towards town. The farther I went the more scared I was ... and the faster I ran. I think even if a jack rabbit had seen me he would have admired my speed, and I didn’t stop until I got into town where there was light. I could not get a room in town, so sat in a chair all night in one of the gambling houses. I kept my hand on that hundred dollars and sweat with fear.
A few nights afterwards I was going home late. I had to go by a lot of wagons—a freighting outfit. Just as I got opposite the wagons I saw a man in the dark coming towards me. I had a gun that night so I got it in my hand and backed up against one of the wagons. This fellow came up about twenty feet from me and stopped—neither of us spoke for several minutes (but seemed to me to be an hour)—finally he said, “Hey, there.” I said, “Hello.” He said, “What are you doing here?” I thought quick and said, “I am working for the man that owns this outfit,” and said to him also, “Who are you?” He said, “I am the night marshal.” I believe I would have kissed him if he had been close to me because I sure had him sized up as a hold-up.
I stayed around there a few days longer and hung onto the hundred dollars, but decided it was no place for a moneyed man, so took the train for Denver and lived quite respectable for awhile until I was pretty near broke and started for Montana. I rode box cars the most of the way and saved my little money to eat on.