The region in which Whooping Hollow was situated is the roughest, and, to employ a mining phrase, the "lumpiest" portion of the whole Taos range. It is a deep gulch in the strictest interpretation of the word, formed by two lofty divides, whose crests tower skyward from their bases more than 3,000 feet, which themselves are over 5,000 feet above the Atlantic's level, and the distance across the narrow valley at its widest part scarcely three-quarters of a mile. The angle of the slope of the two opposing mountains is a little less than 35 degrees, making their sides, as maybe inferred, very precipitous.
The town's era of prosperity was long before the days of railroads in that portion of the continent, and such feats of engineering as have been accomplished since in the way of "hog-backs," loops and tunnels were not dreamed of as among the possibilities of mountain travel. Nor was there even a wagon-road to Whooping Hollow. Such a thing would have been regarded equally as difficult and expensive as the wonderful achievement of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé in climbing the Raton Range a dozen years later. Everything was "packed" into the place on muleback, at a minimum cost of twenty-five cents a pound, whether the simplest necessaries of life or a sawmill, and the zig-zag trail the sure-footed beasts were compelled to travel up and down the fearful slopes of the great divides to get in and out of the rocky streets of the narrow town, made one dizzy to look at.
The rude collection of shanties, through courtesy called the town of Whooping Hollow, was built on one side of a little creek which ran at a fearful rate in the bottom of the gulch, whose waters, boiling and foaming, like all mountain streams, rushed over and around the immense bowlders with which its narrow bed was choked; while on the opposite side, immediately facing the principal street, extending for miles both ways, on the hill, the mining claims were located. The houses were in most instances mere shells, constructed of rough slabs; while a few were of hewn logs, presenting a relatively neat appearance. The roofs of all, however, were flat, and covered with earth; they rose one above the other like a flight of stairs, so that one could easily step out of his door upon the top of his neighbor's dwelling below, so precipitous was the side of the mountain on which the place was of necessity laid out. The town consisted of four streets—one devoted entirely to business, the other three to residences only. There were five stores, whose stock was of that character known throughout the West and in the mountains as "general." That is, their proprietors almost literally kept everything, from a toothpick to a steam engine, or from a shoestring to a silk dress. The place boasted also of twelve banks—of deposit only—faro and monte; for the unfortunate individual who once laid his money on the green-cloth tables of these institutions rarely saw any of it again: it was permanently invested! Of saloons, too, Whooping Hollow had its full complement—I think there were thirty at one time; and their owners were not obliged to contribute anything to the support of the town, for as to municipal expenses, there were none. Yet the discipline of the place was fair, to say the least: the ratio of violent deaths to the number of inhabitants was not nearly as great as in any of the Eastern cities; and as to thieving or burglary, such crimes were as rare as a church service—which Whooping Hollow never had during the whole period of its existence. Of course such a unique condition of morality is easily accounted for. "Judge Lynch's" court was the only tribunal for the trial of offenses against the peace and dignity of the town, and from its decisions there was no appeal. Besides, society there was so constituted that it could condone a murder if there existed the slightest shadow of extenuating circumstances, but it would never forgive the unlawful appropriation of another's goods, particularly of horses; horse-stealing being the unpardonable sin, as it is generally on the frontier, the prompt remedy for which was "a short shrift and a long rope."
Notwithstanding the fact that perhaps there were hundreds of men in Whooping Hollow to whose ears the shrill whistle of a bullet would sound sweeter than the soft notes of a flute, still their general good-nature, when sober, and principle of "honor among thieves," kept them within bounds. Occasionally—very naturally, too—there were desperate fights over the gambling-tables in the hells which abounded in Whooping Hollow, and frequently an outrageously obstreperous individual, full of "bug-juice," as the vile whisky dispensed in the saloons was called, would get a hole drilled into him by a No. 44 revolver-ball, or his vitals carved with an eleven-inch bowie. But arrests were rarely made in quarrels of that character, because extenuating circumstances generally existed. Often, under the excellent care of the skillful doctor—a former army surgeon, who had established himself there—the belligerents would recover from their fearful encounter, but oftener took up their last "claim" of six-feet-by-two in "The Bone Orchard," as the cemetery on the timbered knoll (where it was alleged the "hant" was originally seen) had been dubbed by the citizens of Whooping Hollow.
The average miner (and the miners' claims radiated from the place in all directions at varying distances, some as far as thirty miles) would come into town once a week at least, generally Sunday, and if he had been fortunate in his diggings would make a break for the first gaming-table in his way. If he by any chance won he would "make the rounds," which in local parlance meant stopping at every saloon to treat the crowd of thirsty bummers always present on such occasions, and sometimes provoking a quarrel with the first man who got in his way. But if losing, the rule generally, he went drunk and sulky back to his claim, consoling himself with the hope of better luck next time. And so the lives of the majority were passed. Not a few died "with their boots on" in some drunken row with their friends, to whom they had offered a real or fancied insult.
As in all mining-camps at the period of Whooping Hollow's boom, a most heterogeneous crowd composed its residents and transient occupiers. In its rough but busy streets you met all shades and nationalities. The tall, plodding Yankee, fresh from the hills of New England, green as a gourd, but with sufficient gall to extricate himself from any little difficulty he might stumble into; the active, restless Texan; the jauntily dressed commercial traveler, with his samples of bad whisky and worse cigars; the swarthy Mexican, with his broad sombrero, scarlet sash, and irrepressible cigarito; that darker specimen of the genus homo, the negro; and, last of all, the "heathen Chinee." Nearly every State had its dozens of representatives in the motley group of individuals who had come to seek their fortunes in this new El Dorado. It was a grand place to study character; to learn how all the finer attributes of man may be completely crushed out of his nature by years of adversity, and how, under the same circumstances in others, all that is noble and pure predominates, no matter how hellish or pestilential, morally, may have been their surroundings.
The principal store of the town was owned and conducted by Jemuel Knaggs, a man of reputable character, an old plainsman and mountaineer, full of enterprise and grit, the acknowledged "leading citizen" of Whooping Hollow. In every community, whether the most enlightened or barbarous, there is always to be found some individual who, by his force of character and other inherent attributes, becomes foremost in all that concerns the welfare and prosperity of the people who compose it, and this was the rôle that Jemuel Knaggs played in the rough mining-camp of Whooping Hollow. He was a veteran miner, too, of California in '49; Fraser river, in British Columbia, in '58; and Pike's Peak in '59. But having amassed several thousand dollars during his erratic wanderings, in 1859 he abandoned the pick and shovel for the more pleasant occupation of keeping a general miners' store, whose necessities none knew better than he. So he opened up in Whooping Hollow in the days of its incipiency. He was a man about fifty years old, rather slender than otherwise, but there was something in his air and features which distinguished him from common men. The expression of his countenance was keen and daring; his forehead was high, and his lips thin and compressed, indicating great determination of will. One would not have hesitated to confide in his honor or courage, but would have been extremely reluctant to provoke his hostility. He always wore a dark-blue navy shirt, to the collar of which was attached a curious button. Around his waist was tightly buckled a broad leather belt, in which a formidable looking bowie-knife was stuck; to be used, as is usual with all frontiersmen, for various purposes indifferently—to kill a man, cut food, pick his teeth, or for whittling when he had nothing else to do.
Matters progressed very smoothly in Whooping Hollow for two or three years, under the watchful care of Knaggs and a few others of like sterling character, who will be hurriedly described as they appear in this sketch. But at the end of that period a pall suddenly fell on the place. Men would leave for a visit to some neighboring camp or on a hunting expedition, and never be heard of again. Sometimes it would be one of the best citizens who would disappear all at once; the number of instances of this character in one year aggregating twenty. At last the whole town became aroused, and suspicions of foul play in the matter entered their heretofore apparently too lethargic brains. No one felt safe, and when, to "cap the climax" as it were, Jemuel Knaggs was declared "missing," an investigation was immediately but secretly instituted.
It then developed that with one or two exceptions all of those who had disappeared had left Whooping Hollow for Sandy Bar, the nearest mining-camp, sixty miles distant, and to which there was only one possible trail over the divide. That the parties had been murdered was now conceded; but upon whom could suspicion rest? and where on the lonely route were the damnable deeds committed? These were the questions discussed one evening by half a dozen prominent men of Whooping Hollow, who had secretly met in a room about a week after Jemuel Knaggs failed to return at the appointed time. He was last seen on the day of his departure from town by some reputable miners, who had met and conversed with him on the trail to Sandy Bar, not more than twelve miles from his home. He had never arrived at Sandy Bar, however; that fact was ascertained to a certainty through diligent inquiry there. It was only a small camp of less than three hundred people, and he was as well known there as in Whooping Hollow.
About half-way between Whooping Hollow and Sandy Bar there was a narrow, rocky valley, known as Willow Springs Gulch; abandoned long ago as a mining region, the ore in that vicinity having consisted of a series of small "pockets" only, which were naturally exhausted in less than six months from the date of their discovery, and that was more than two years before operations had begun in Whooping Hollow. But the place was still famous for its pure water, which gushed out of the indurated wall of a small cañon in a stream as large as a man's arm—clear, cold and sparkling; the best water to be found in the whole sixty miles' ride. The entrance to the rocky cañon was almost concealed by a dense growth of mountain willows; hence the name. But the beautiful spring was the only redeeming feature in the otherwise barren and desolate landscape. Near this lonely spot stood a small adobe cabin, or rather hut, the only habitation anywhere within twenty miles of the dreary place. Its sole occupant was a miner, ostensibly, who pretended to own a claim near Sandy Bar, but it was alleged that no one ever saw him work it; yet he always apparently had sufficient money to supply his wants, ever paying gold for his purchases. He was a tall, angular, villainous-looking specimen of humanity; rough, illiterate, dialectic in his talk, but possessing the physique of a giant, as courageous as a she-grizzly with cubs, a dead shot with the revolver, and withal believed by every one to be a desperado in the most rigid acceptation of the term. Viewed superficially—for nobody at Whooping Hollow or Sandy Bar knew anything about his antecedents—he was apparently without one redeeming quality, except that he was kind to his dog, a mangy, spotted, wicked-looking yellow cur, with only one eye, and tailless—fit companion for such a surly-disposed master. This strangely mysterious being, with whom no one had any more intercourse than was absolutely necessary, and that confined to the limited conversation required when he entered stores to make purchases, lived a supremely isolated sort of an existence, for he was as carefully avoided by every one as were the rattlesnakes that infested the rocky arroyos of the bald bleak hills where his hut was located. Upon him, then, black suspicion naturally at once fell—so prone is human nature to be guided by visible forms; though there was not an inkling of proof, either circumstantial or direct, upon which to base this man's guilt.