The whole situation was greased for your descent. It was a shoot-the-chutes and a bump-the-bumps proposition. Congratulations on your survival.
Hundreds of letters of a similar tenor poured in upon us. Many of these came from the camp of Ely itself, where large blocks of the stock were held by mining men on the ground.
Thursday the stock closed at $1¾; Friday it advanced to sales at $17/8 and hung there.
The Scheftels organization now drew its first long breath. Friends and enemies alike marveled how the corporation had managed to survive. We had held the fort, but at murderous cost.
I got busy with the publicity forces at my command. Through the Scheftels Market Letter and the Mining Financial News the story was told of the whole dastardly campaign.
The Weekly Market Letter of the Scheftels company on November 13, 1909, devoted 24 columns to the story of the raid.
That the Guggenheim-managed Nevada Consolidated was well pleased with the publication of the Engineering & Mining Journal's attack seemed clear to me. The reason was this: In its attack the Engineering & Mining Journal stated that two drillholes put down by the Nevada Consolidated in the immediate vicinity of Ely Central had failed to show better than nine-tenths of one per cent. copper ore which, the article said, was below commercial grade. (At this late date, October, 1911, they are mining ore in the steam-shovel pit of the Nevada Consolidated that will not average more than eight-tenths of one per cent. copper transporting it to the concentrator, more than twenty miles away, and treating it at a profit. But this is not the point.) An engineer of international prominence telegraphed the Scheftels company from Ely as follows:
Two drill holes mentioned in Engineering & Mining Journal article were completed only last week. Results must have been telegraphed to New York.
These holes gave great trouble on account of caving ground. I heard drill runners say they were stopped on that account and were in ore in bottom. In any case, it is not conclusive of unpayable ore in vicinity. This condition often occurs.
I could write a book in reply to the Engineering & Mining Journal's tirade, showing the utter flimsiness of the statements it made. Limited space forbids anything more than an outline.