“What about Montezeuma and Tam-o-shanta? They were here. Horace Tabor made a big success of his mines.” Judy wagged her head in the manner of one who had spent her life in the bowels of the earth.
Lynne looked at her in surprise. “How do you know?”
“Oh, I’ve been reading up about it,” she answered with a superior smile.
But the old man saw nothing strange in Judy’s erudition.
“The young lady’s right,” he said. “Montezeuma had plenty of good ore and it did well. Made Tabor a tidy fortune. But it was too high. Nearly thirteen thousand feet. Dragging supplies out there was hard, but only a man like Tabor could make a good thing of it.” He nodded at them and a great smile spread over the wrinkled face, deepening the two well-marked furrows around his jaw.
“Tabor built a mansion out here, real elegant, gold paper on the walls. Built it for Baby Doe. That’s the second Mrs. Tabor that maybe you heard about.”
“Yes. Did you ever see her?” Judy asked, with mounting interest.
“Well, in a manner of speaking. Saw her coming and going. The day she came out to see Montezeuma, Tabor was that happy he declared a twenty-four-hour holiday for everyone working in the mine. He was a real silver king.” The old man shook his head appreciatively. “He treated everyone that day to all the liquor he could drink.”
But his smile quickly faded. “Augusta got that mine too.” He sat thinking for a moment. “Not that you can altogether blame her, the first Mrs. Tabor. She’d helped him when he was—well, nobody. And now that he was rich and famous, she wanted to hold on. Guess she loved him, so she said right out in all the newspapers.”