In connection with the story of Helen Holmes told above, it should be explained that the original title was “Hazards of Helen” and following an old Hollywood custom, Pathe produced a new version called “Perils of Pauline.” In this the heroine’s part was taken by Pearl White.
Chapter XIX
Death Valley Scotty
A strictly factual thumbnail sketch of Walter Scott would contain the following incidents:
He ran away from his Kentucky home to join his brother, Warner, as a cow hand on the ranch of John Sparks—afterward governor of Nevada. He worked as a teamster for Borax Smith at Columbus Marsh. He had a similar job at Old Harmony Borax Works.
In the Nineties he went to work with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He married Josephine Millius, a candy clerk on Broadway, New York, and brought her to Nevada.
He became guide, friend, companion, and major domo for Albert Johnson—Chicago millionaire who had come to the desert for his health. He did some prospecting in the early part of the century, but never found a mine of value.
America was mining-mad following the Tonopah and Goldfield strikes and Scotty went East in search of a grubstake. He obtained one from Julian Gerard, Vice President of the Knickerbocker Trust Company and a brother of James W. Gerard who had married the daughter of Marcus Daly, Montana copper king and who was later U.S. Ambassador to Germany.
Scotty staked a claim near Hidden Spring and named it The Knickerbocker. He gave Gerard glowing reports of a mine so rich its location must be kept secret.
Scotty appeared in Los Angeles unheard of, in a ten gallon hat and a flaming necktie and with the natural showman’s skill, tossed money around in lavish tips or into the street for urchins to scramble over.
This was the well-staged prelude to the charter of the famed Scotty Special for a record-breaking run from Los Angeles to Chicago. Though Scotty stoutly denies it, he was lifted to fame by a big and talented sorrel-headed sports editor and reporter on the Los Angeles Examiner, named Charles Van Loan, and John J. Byrnes, passenger agent of the Santa Fe railroad. Scotty meant nothing to either of these men, but the publicity Byrnes saw for the Santa Fe did, and the red necktie, the big hat, the scattering of coins, and the secret mine made the sort of story Van Loan liked.