The mission accomplished, they started back. When they came out of the valley Tom said, “Long Man, this is white man’s country. You know it. I don’t. You go first.” In after years, referring to their trip, Tom said, “Long Man, you heap ’fraid that time.” “I was,” Fairbanks confessed. “Me too,” Tom said.
When the Goldfield strike was made, Fairbanks saw that a supply station on the main line of travel was a surer way to wealth than the gamble of digging. He knew of a ranch with good water and luxuriant wild hay at Ash Meadows. Hay was worth $200 a ton. The owner had abandoned the ranch, however, and moved into the hills. Fairbanks could get little information concerning his whereabouts. “Up there somewhere,” he was told, with a gesture indicating 50 miles of sky line. But he wanted the hay and started out and by patient inquiry located his man just before daylight on the second day. “What will you give for it?” the man asked.
“Well,” Fairbanks parried, “you know it’ll cost me as much as the ranch is worth to get rid of that wild grass.” Having only a vague idea of its real worth he had decided to offer $4000, but sensed the man’s eagerness to sell and started to offer $1000. Suddenly it occurred to him that someone else might have made an offer. “I’ll go $2000 and not a nickel more.”
“You’ve bought a ranch,” the owner said.
Elated, Fairbanks wrote a contract by candlelight on the spot. Both signed and they started back to find a notary. “I determined the fellow should not get out of my sight until the deed was recorded. If he wanted a drink of water, so did I. If he wished to speak to someone, I wanted a word with the same man.”
Finally the deal was closed and Fairbanks started home. Outside, he met Ed Metcalf, chuckling.
“What’s so funny, Ed?”
Metcalf pointed to the departing seller. “He was just telling me about being worried to death all morning for fear a sucker he’d found would get out of his sight. He’s been trying to unload his ranch for $500 and some idiot gave him $2000.”
Fairbanks also operated a freighting service to the boom towns in the gold belt as far north as Goldfield and Tonopah. Rates were fantastic and he made a fortune. He opened Beatty’s first cafe in a tent.
Money was plentiful and after a trip with a 16 mule team over rough roads to Goldfield, he was ready for a relaxing change to poker. When the white chips are $25, the reds $50, and the blues $500 the game is not for pikers and he would bet $10,000 as calmly as he would 10 cents.