"Well, that's a great deal better than most towns treat us," said the Manager. "Now, Mr. Jones, you will have to excuse me; I have some business with the President. Don't fail to look in on me when you come to town; and rest assured that the Santa Fé will leave nothing undone that might help your enterprise."
With a hearty handshake the Manager, usually a little frigid and remote, passed out, leaving Mr. Jones to the tender mercies of the chief engineer.
Up to this point there is nothing unusual in this story. The remarkable part is the fact that the building of a side track in an open plain turned out to be good business. In a year's time there was a neat station and more sidings. The town boomed with a rapidity that amazed even the boomers. To be sure, it had its relapses; but still, if you look from the window as the California Limited crashes by, you will see a pretty little town when you reach the point on the time-table called
THE IRON HORSE AND THE TROLLEY
I
Two prospectors had three claims in a new camp in British Columbia, but they had not the $7.50 to pay for having them recorded. They told their story to Colonel Topping, author of "The Yellowstone Park," and the Colonel advanced the necessary amount. In time the prospectors returned $5.00 of the loan, and gave the Colonel one of the claims for the balance, but more for his kindness to them; for they reckoned it a bully good prospect. Because they considered it the best claim in the camp, they called it Le Roi. Subsequently the Colonel sold this "King," that had cost him $2.50, for $30,000.00.
The new owners of Le Roi stocked the claim; and for the following two or three years, when a man owed a debt that he was unwilling to pay, he paid it in Le Roi stock. If he felt like backing a doubtful horse, he put up a handful of mining stock to punish the winner. There is in the history of this interesting mine a story of a man swapping a lot of Le Roi stock for a burro. The former owner of the donkey took the stock and the man it came from into court, declaring that the paper was worthless, and that he had been buncoed. As late as 1894, a man who ran a restaurant offered 40,000 shares of Le Roi stock for four barrels of Canadian whiskey; but the whiskey man would not trade that way.
In the meantime, however, men were working in the mine; and now they began to ship ore. It was worth $27.00 a ton, and the stock became valuable. Scattered over the Northwest were 500,000 shares that were worth $500,000.00. Nearly all the men who had put money into the enterprise were Yankees,—mining men from Spokane, just over the border. These men began now to pick up all the stray shares that could be found; and in a little while eight-tenths of the shares were held by men living south of the line. At Northport, in Washington, they built one of the finest smelters in the Northwest, hauled their ore over there, and smelted it. The ore was rich in gold and copper. They put in a 300 horse-power hoisting-engine and a 40-drill air-compressor,—the largest in Canada,—taking all the money for these improvements out of the mine. The thing was a success, and news of it ran down to Chicago. A party of men with money started for the new gold fields, but as they were buying tickets three men rushed in and took tickets for Seattle. These were mining men; and those who had bought only to British Columbia cashed in, asked for transportation to the coast, and followed the crowd to the Klondike.