Chapter III: A Brace of Mining Experts

Out of the chaos of the world, beyond our orbits of which we know so little in our circumscribed limits of thought and action, there was about this time evolved two typical characters of the mining camp. Diametrically different in methods, and working in entirely distinct departments of the mining industry each was an expert in his own particular line. The first was a dapper little Frenchman, of pleasing appearance and address, sprightly of tongue and limb, neat of dress and rejoicing in the appellation of Captain De Vere. He had spent his whole life since the famous days of forty-nine in California in the study of mines and mining, in all their details from the standpoint, first of a practical miner, and later as a diligent student of metallurgy, and it was said, made a good thing by virtue of his knowledge, of which even the oldest prospector who depended upon his experience with pick and shovel alone, had little conception. He took lodgings with mine host, and cultivated the acquaintance of everybody with the ease of an old stager, and in a way to bear out the natural reputation of his countrymen for social graces. His time was spent in wandering about among the mines gathering specimens of ore from many sources, and in assaying them and recording the result in the office which he established ostensibly to do test work for the public; but he spent so much of each day in field work that his business did not seem to be a very flourishing one, which fact seemed to cause him very little concern. The Little Pittsburg had now come into prominence and the Wilson Brothers decided to work it vigorously, so one of them took charge of the property, erected a shanty close to the shaft, and employed a force of men to operate it. One day as Captain De Vere was making his rounds he strolled to the shanty of the Wilson mine and began to examine the earth thrown out in a heap upon the dump. One variety of clay thrown up was of a soft putty-like appearance, dull white in color with a bluish tinge. The cabin had been banked all around with this substance to shelter the nightly occupants from the chilly winds. The captain examined this carefully, compared it with that in the heap, found them identical in quality, and in that simple fact made an important discovery to him, namely, the owner’s estimate of its value in putting it to this homely use. There was a bright glitter in the Frenchman’s eye as he carefully pocketed a specimen, then strolled carelessly away till sure of being well out of sight, when he fairly flew to his office, locked himself in, and in great excitement began to test his morning’s supply of specimens. Whatever the results, when he appeared at noon among his associates no one could have suspected from his manner that he cared a fig for all the silver in Leadville. He was gay and talkative, even more jovial than usual, but his interest seemed to be anywhere else than in mining. A day or two after this he loafed again into the dominion of white clay and asked for Mr. Wilson, who soon appeared, when Captain De Vere asked him carelessly, after some conversation, if he wished to sell The Little Pittsburg. “That depends,” said Mr. Wilson; “we all have our price, you know. My brother and I are satisfied that we have a good thing here, and are in no hurry to part with it; still we will sell if we get what she’s worth.”

“Could I look her over?” asked the captain.

“Why, yes, certainly, but I don’t believe I can show you through to-day, as I have an appointment below; but I should be happy to show you all there is to be seen at any time after to-day. I will be here at two o’clock to-morrow.”

The captain took his departure for his office, and the astute owner of the promising mine hastened to keep his appointment below, which did not happen to mean one in the town at the foot of the hill, but below the surface of a little square of the earth’s surface to which he had laid claim with all the leads, spurs, dips, and angles that might underlay it, and during the rest of the day he was, indeed, a very much engaged man, preparing, like a prudent housewife, for the coming visit.

At the appointed time the two gentlemen were lowered away by the miner’s windlass, to the depths below. As many men as could be utilized had been kept busily at work since her late development of riches, and several drifts had been started in various directions and different levels to fully develop the wealth supposed to lie there and form a basis on which a miner could glibly tell you, to the fraction of an ounce, how many thousands were “in sight.”

The captain inspected each tunnel minutely, making a few inquiries, probing some weak points in the make-up of the ledge, until they came to, and passed, what appeared to have been, to the Frenchman’s keen eyes, the beginning of another drift tunnel that had been abandoned, and barricaded with rocks and clay. “Halloo!” said Captain De Vere, “what’s this?”

“Oh, that’s a drift we run there a little way, but she showed up nothing, so we quit her and made her a dump for this worthless white clay.”

“By the way,” said the captain, “this white clay is going to take your mine yet, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no, I guess not,” said Wilson, trying to conceal any show of annoyance that he might feel, “that will run out when we get down a little further.”

“But doesn’t it grow thicker in the vein at present there?” asked the captain.

“Well, yes,” replied Wilson, reluctantly, “but we think that it will peter out presently.”

Next morning a little wizened old miner in regulation attire presented himself at Wilson’s cabin and asked for a job. As the work was extended in different directions it gave a constantly widening field for work, and he was told to go below and clean out room number five. Three hours later Wilson himself went below to inspect the work of his men, and on coming to the spot where he had erected his barricade he found it partly removed and the new hand was busily at work in it, clearing away the rubbish.

“What the devil are you doing in there?” demanded Wilson.

“Why this is number five, isn’t it, boss?”

“H--l, no!” roared Wilson, “get out of there and out of this mine; here’s your day’s wages; I don’t want any such stupid jackasses about the works;” and the crestfallen miner went his way, leaving the angry proprietor to repair the damage done to his defenses, and sputtering away about the folly of hiring green hands who made more extra work than their necks were worth.

The magician of the retort was again at his work in his little office and his labors seemed to exert a strange spell over him, for his countenance worked in a sort of time-keeping spasm to the changes in the ores undergoing analysis. He laughed satirically to himself, he paced the floor in half-suppressed excitement, composed himself to make some entries in a little private record, and to the figures he added a few words of annotation in cipher, closed the book and thrust it into his inner pocket; and, like a man changing his workaday coat for evening dress, he assumed again the beaming, careless, happy countenance of a contented philosopher who has enough to meet the demands of his everyday life and would not go out of his way for more. By merest chance (?) he sauntered into the post office a few days later as Wilson came out. Greeting him cordially he inquired jocosely, “How’s the potter’s clay panning out?”

“That’s all right, captain, but she’s doing a little better to-day than she did yesterday, and she’s been going that gait now for a good many days. The Little Pittsburg is all OK.”

The captain was passing on, but had a second thought, and stopping, he asked: “Well, how much less will you take than you gave for those shares you bought of Hardman the other day?”

“Rats, rats,” said Wilson, “you know she’s worth all we gave for her, and a handsome sum to boot; I’ll tell you what, captain, it’ll just take a hundred thousand dollars to buy The Little Pittsburg. Say the word, captain, and she’s yours for that money, but not a penny less.”

“I’ll take her,” said the captain coolly, “I may as well make a fool of myself as anybody, I haven’t any family to suffer if I do go broke. Come to Hobson’s notarial office with your brother, this evening, and we’ll fix it up,” and the captain tripped away as serenely as though his heart was not beating like a triphammer, and his emotions threatening to choke him. Wilson, with less perfect training, hurried away, excitement plainly written on every feature and expressed in every action. He hardly dared to believe that the captain meant what he said, or would stand to his bargain through the day. But when, in company with his brother, he presented himself at the appointed time and place, the little captain seemed to be still laboring under the strong delusion that impelled him to regard the mine as a bonanza. The transfer was speedily made, and the evening express bore to Denver a package bearing the address of Wilson Brothers’ bankers, and containing a hundred thousand dollars in gold. It also bore the little captain on his bland way to London, where he must have produced some convincing arguments of the worth of his property, for he was accompanied on his return by one of the trusted representatives of a rich London firm who dealt in mines and mining stocks. Once more the various galleries of The Little Pittsburg were swept and garnished in preparation for a visitor. Once more the impressionable putty clay was to take a plaster cast of a foreign-made boot, but this time the barricade of rocks in room number five was removed and everything done to invite the visitor to enter.

And now John Bull and Skye Terrier pant up the mountain, scarcely able to breathe enough oxygen in this thin atmosphere to support the living flame in the lusty Englishman. Arrived at the cabin, they inspected the clay on the dump and the captain is telling his companions that there are thousands of dollars lying right there on that heap of white clay. “It is the richest ore of the kind I’ve ever seen taken from the earth, but these mummies know no more of its value than if it had been aluminum; but come below, there’s a prettier sight there I want to show you.” They descend to the level of room number five, and make their way there at once. “Look here,” said the captain pointing triumphantly to a dark streak of mineral about an inch in width, running zigzag down the face wall of the ledge. “There she is, the pure stuff! Some of the lumps I gathered the day I went to work for Wilson as a miner tested eighty to eighty-five per cent. of silver, and these looneys who have been mining all their lives pronounced it a vein of iron, and tried to smuggle it over for fear it would injure the sale of their property. Ha, ha! I like to be injured that way, though I didn’t make a great success working for Wilson, blundered into the wrong stall you know, and got fired. Now we’ll see the other levels and inspect the vein of putty in its native state. Too bad it got worse on them all the time, expensive stuff to handle, ate up all the profits. I’ll convince you that at each level where the ledge is tapped this rich silver-bearing but innocent-looking white clay grows steadily thicker, and when we get our drift through from the bottom of the hill, we’ll show you one of the greatest bonanzas in the history of Leadville or any where else.”

And undoubtedly De Vere made good his word as far as bringing convincing proofs of what he claimed for the ledge is concerned, for, before another week had elapsed, the town was all a-twitter with the news that Captain De Vere had sold a half interest in The Little Pittsburg to a London syndicate, for the handsome sum of one million dollars in good yellow gold. I had thus the pleasure of seeing my property increase in value tenfold; each time it changed hands but, I alas, was at the wrong end of the progression. Still, I can sincerely and honestly aver that I have never yet seen a day, or an hour, when I regretted the part I had taken. I felt as if I were not yet ripe for such a blow of prosperity and one that would most probably have knocked me off my pegs entirely. I felt, too, that my destiny and fortune lay in another direction from the time I first knew my flambeau friend, Dad Callaway, as the boys, with a touch in the rough, of feeling for his venerable years, had named him.

I was deeply interested in all his plans and ambitions and resolved in due time to tender my assistance; but at present my great concern was to learn how to make a footprint that would not be instantly recognized as that of a tenderfoot. I could already discern clearly enough a wide field of profitable employment for those who were competent to cultivate it, and the experience of Captain De Vere, I felt, was almost as valuable to me as though I, and not he, had realized the million from our mine. I could but own that it was but a just price paid for knowledge; what little information I possessed had sold readily enough for ten thousand, Wilson’s a grade higher for practical purposes sold for a correspondingly higher price, while Captain De Vere’s expert knowledge on the subject brought its adequate reward.

Encouraged by his example I felt that in years to come, I, too, could combine the knowledge derived from college life with that of the everyday life of a miner, and become a two-fisted fellow ready to cope successfully with all classes of men and mines that I should come in contact with, but I confess I had not the slightest conception, or prophetic ken, of the job in store for me.

But the other type of mining expert, what of him? We must beg his pardon for having left him all this time standing on one leg waiting for an introduction, like a big, awkward schoolboy, while we went into rhapsodies over the fortune-getting that was interesting to us chiefly as a spectacular entertainment, or, if valuable as an experience in life, we bought the same at a good round price. If the example of the other acquaintance to whom we are about to present you should prove of any value, and it is with this earnest hope in view that I record it, it will be chiefly as an example to be avoided, and lest, by assuming the responsibility of presenting him I should also incur the guilt of aiding and abetting in fraud and illicit practices, I shall plainly label him and present him to you, my readers, as Jim Mitchel, P.M.S., professional mining shark. He is a strapping, coarsely-framed fellow with swarthy complexion and a sneering cast of countenance, and, as to nationality, that might pass for any foreign, or home-bred progeny of the villain type; while his speech proves that by habit of life he is legitimately of the mining-camp breed.

He appeared at our camp about the same time that Captain De Vere made his appearance. He belonged to what might be termed the night shift of our boarding-house community, for he seldom took time for sleep during the natural hours for such repose, but was to be seen frequenting the saloons, faro-games, and roulette wheels, especially during the harvest time of those flourishing institutions, which was from Saturday evening till Monday morning. Thousands of the miners worked claims that lay at some distance from the city in the surrounding mountains. It is the testimony of all old miners and inhabitants of mining towns, confirmed by a not ungenerous range of observance by myself, that ninety-nine of every one hundred men, whose sturdy labor produces the mineral wealth of the land, fail to realize any material benefit from their labors beyond a bare living. When the labors of the week are ended they all flock to town to enjoy their holiday, hear the latest mine gossip, lay in provisions for the coming week, and last, but uppermost in their minds, enjoy the privileges, the delights of the saloon and gaming table. Wholly indescribable to the uninitiated were these scenes in the palmy days of Leadville. Every saloon was filled to overflowing with rough miners drinking and jesting, and around the rows of gaming tables were gaping crowds of infatuated spectators, anxious for a chance to try their luck. Huge piles of gold and silver lay on the tables, and heavy stakes were played for. There was one feature of the scene that appeared inconsistent with its general character, which was a notable absence of wrangling and wordy disputes that were the invariable accompaniment of such scenes in Eastern cities. In fact the scene was one of armed neutrality, for almost every man carried a heavy revolver at his side, and in that fact was found the solution of the problem; for it was well understood that epithets sown broadcast would speedily reap a harvest of bullets, and the drunken sot, who, in an Eastern city felt privileged to thrust his maudlin visage into your face or apply lightly decorative word-painting to your cognomen, never so far forgot himself here as to take such offensive liberties, knowing that they would not be tolerated for a moment, and proving that in his boldest flights of imprudence the toper is still responsible and capable of distinguishing between good and evil, but is possessed by a reckless spirit of deviltry, which he will wreak upon you if he knows it is entirely safe to do so, knowing that when he meets you next day, and you venture to remonstrate with him he has the convenient scapegoat, “the drink,” to bear his sins away.

But when trouble did arise which was not seldom, “The devil and Tom Walker,” was to pay, guns were drawn by the principals in the dispute, and as there seems to be no possible question that can arise in life but has its votaries on both sides, the sympathizers of both parties promptly drew theirs, lights were blown out, or shot out, a regular fusillade in the dark resulted in the death of perhaps half a score of poor fellows, quite as likely to be of those who had no part whatever in the quarrel, as not. Their comrades would carry them out when the scrimmage was over, and the room relighted, after which everything went on again as before, with only a little estrangement between the contending parties. In the midst of such scenes as those Jim Mitchel was perfectly at home; he staked his money freely, and bore his varying fortunes with sneering good humor. He was better posted on the nerve and weakness of the different players in camp than, perhaps, any man in it, so that his stakes were wagers of his superiority of judgment of human nature. In that sense Jim was a sure thing man, for he generally managed to foot up a balance in his favor after each night’s play. If a horse race was to be run on a Sunday on the main thoroughfare, which was the staple Sunday amusement, and the main street the regular racecourse, Jim was a prominent character, going about with a handful of twenty-dollar pieces held aloft and calling out the odds on his favorite horse, till he found a taker. All these sports were with Jim the mere by-play, to amuse and while away the present moment, while he waited for the curtain to rise on his five-act drama. Jim was a fisher of men, but in the waters where we have seen him, casting hook and line, he caught only what he considered minnows, which he intended to use for bait to attract game worthy of his attention.

Jim had a claim on one of the remote peaks of Prayer Hill group, but judging from appearance he valued it mainly as it gave him standing as a miner among the boys, and occasioned healthful exercise in doing necessary assessment work. He was no indifferent on-looker at the prosperity of The Little Pittsburg, and he drew his own conclusions, being careful to cultivate a natural feeling in the public mind, of expectancy that other mines in this group might prove equally valuable.

Meanwhile, no doubt, his mental eye was scanning the financial horizon of Leadville for a star of the first magnitude, before which he might perform his devotions. His affections suddenly centered upon an object to all human appearance the most unpromising imaginable. Good old Dr. Maxwell, a practicing physician, who had amassed a comfortable fortune before coming to Leadville, and had increased it to a decidedly handsome one by judicious investment in city real estate, was opposed to all mining speculation, and boasted that he had been around mining camps since the days of the forty-niners’ paradise and had never yet been attacked by the “buck fever,” or mania for speculation in mines.

“Mitch” was too astute a student of human nature not to observe that an element of weakness cropped out in that very declaration of strength, and proceeded in the practice of his profession on the principle that every man who came in contact with mining affairs would have his turn at the disease as surely as he was subject, in earlier life, to the measles and whooping cough.

He was too good an artist to attempt to interest the venerable doctor by any commonplace method or argument, but from the moment the latter made his confident assertion, Mitchel set him down in his list of eligibles and patiently awaited the opportunity to lure him into his parlor, with the winding stair, when he should convince him, that according to the doctor’s complacent explanatories of contagious diseases, “Humanity is rendered immune from contagious diseases only by experiencing that disease in a more or less violent form.”

Variety theaters, horse races, faro dens, and jag shops were vastly more congenial to Mitch as places of amusement, but the frequenters of these places were not favorable subjects for his manipulations, for they, as a rule, had been thoroughly inoculated with every form of mental epidemic and fanciful fever, till they had become dulled to such influences and far too _blasé_ to make desirable converts.

He resolved that if ever he should be sick, none but Dr. Maxwell should prescribe for him. Fortune would not have been doing her share toward aiding this general in fighting his battles, if she had not come to his rescue now. He had the good fortune, while toying with a gun, to have the little finger of his left hand shot off, and sought the doctor’s office to have it properly dressed, and proceed forthwith to “call” him softly. Fumbling in his pocket for a stray gold piece to pay his fee, he, by the merest accident in the world, drew out with the twenty dollar piece a little nugget of silver an inch square, such as we have seen taken from the “iron seam” in the Little Pittsburg, and remarked casually, as he separated it from the coin: “Doc, here’s a nice little specimen for your cabinet, take a look at it. About ninety per cent. pure silver, I should say. Nothing small about that, hey?”

He noted carefully, as ever did this knight of the pill, every circumstance entering into the diagnosis of a difficult case, the look of interest in the old doctor’s eye, as he examined the innocent little piece of mineral that was to produce a greater tumult in his quiet bosom than his favorite dose of calomel could produce in his patients.

“That’s a beauty, Mitchel, much obliged; where did such a specimen as that come from?”

“Oh, that’s from my little property, The Queen, upon Prayer Hill. Lots more like it there. I’ll bring you some more next time I’m down if you like it.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and develop your mine, Jim? You might have a good thing there.”

“Might have, I know I have, without any ifs or ands about it, but I can make all the money I need without digging for it; that’s hardly in my line; I do enough work on her to clear the law, and that’s all I care for at present.”

And Jim, having seen his patient swallow the first dose, dropped the subject as if of little interest to him, and soon went away. He came daily to have his finger dressed, but took care to forget all about his promise to bring some more specimens, till the doctor had reminded him of it once or twice; then he finally produced another of the same kind as the first one brought, but a still larger and finer specimen, some lumps of putty clay, rich with blue streaks of silver, and several different kinds of quartz, specimens all rich in their way, for sly Jim Mitchel knew that they would go, not into the doctor’s cabinet, but into the assayer’s hands; then he remarked lazily that they were precisely similar to the ore found in The Little Pittsburg, at the same stage of development, and furthermore, that his lead would one day cut The Little Pittsburg out, and make them answer for every dollar they were taking out.

Then he loafed away again, leaving his little lump of blue clay to leaven the whole lump of mercenary meal in the white-haired physician.

Long he sat in his office pondering on many things. He had succeeded beyond his expectations in his profession, had reaped a comfortable harvest of professional honor and a goodly store of wealth, but he had a large and ambitious family, sons and daughters, anxious to obtain the best educational advantages Europe and America could afford. He had learned by costly experience that youthful ambitions were expensive. To be sure, he had always inveighed against such speculations, but this was an exceptional case. Here was a mine owned by a profligate who would rather make his money by gambling than by digging, and who, even if he did develop and realize a fortune from his mine, would only squander it shortly, and reap no permanent benefits, but rather injury, for it would only give him a new impetus in dissipation.

Then he reviewed his whole business and professional career and concluded that his success had entitled him to a fair opinion of his own judgment, and made up his mind, that if, after investigating, he found as promising an investment as surface views indicated, he might possibly invest a little money in The Queen. He promptly turned over his samples to be tested, and, as you and I are well aware, they were no bogus samples, and, therefore, it does not surprise us in the least to learn that they made a remarkably good record, duly attested and certified to by the responsible and bonded firm of Krupp & Golden. So Jim went on his way, only a poor, ignorant fool, beneath the notice, ordinarily, of a professional gentleman of Dr. Maxwell’s caliber. He could not relate a single college incident, or converse intelligently on the subject of college boating, and football clubs, of secret societies for the promotion of the dignity of the seniors, and the holding in check of the rising imprudence and conceit of the “Freshies,” and “Sophs;” knew nothing whatever of coaching and hazing, while all these were pleasing, everyday themes of conversation with the doctor and his companions, even though they might seem, at times, a little heedless of the courtesy due some friend present who had never known such a seventh heaven of delight. But, after all, could such an one have the fine sensitive nature that could feel neglected by being ignored in this feast of the little American gods? The ultimate conclusion arrived at in his cogitations was that he had good grounds for believing in himself as a very prudent, careful, and eminently capable sort of a person and he sometimes prayed with himself consciously, or unconsciously, “Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men, or even as this poor profligate who wastes his substance in riotous living, like the unfaithful steward of whom Thou hast said, even that which he hath shall be taken from him,” but out of native politeness, and a refined and classical nature he refrained from hinting to the Throne of Grace that he was eminently the proper person on whom the confiscated goods should be bestowed.

But the doctor had his own private opinion on that subject and began to think that he would like to take a look at the property known as The Queen.

He regarded it as almost a providential bit of information on a subject that was deeply interesting to him, but of which no human being had heard him breathe a word, that one of his patients who was suffering from an ugly flesh wound received in one of the free-for-all fights in a saloon the night before, had remarked while being cared for, “That was a lucky shot for me that it’s no worse; but it was an unlucky scrimmage for Jim Mitchel.”

“Why so?” asked the physician.

“Well, you see, Jim was just arranging a deal with some of the boys who had had a streak of luck to bond The Queen for a hundred thousand dollars, but they quarreled about fixin’ the papers an’ he lost the whole deal for what didn’t amount to four bits.”

Reflecting when alone on this information the doctor concluded that the time had come for him to investigate this matter, and that it was advisable to act decisively before the game went entirely out of his hands. So he sought the haunts of Mitchel, and told him he should like a few more specimens from his mine for a friend, for he reasoned that it would not be policy for him to show his hand at this early stage in the game, when his partner was an ignoramus who could not understand his motive, or appreciate the business sagacity that suggested such a course.

They went together to the incipient bonanza, Queen, armed with a pick, with which to loosen the specimens. There was to be no chance for any trickery here, the doctor had soliloquized, and at any rate a man who is foolish enough to be duped with his eyes open, ought to have his eye teeth cut. He superintended the work of knocking down a good supply of samples from the ledge, and saw them gathered up and put into a sack. Any one could see with half an eye that these specimens were genuine without the possibility of mistake. Was not the ledge bristling with the same kind of ore, was not the earth beneath their feet strewn with the same sort of samples from the parent ledge? It would require an expert to determine which pieces were broken off now, and which ones had been detached at an earlier period.

Entirely satisfied that he had in his grasp a sack containing a fair sample of the ledge before them, and a little inclined to blame himself for distrusting his companion, who, after all, was guilty of no worse crime than that of dense ignorance of many things in the world that were patent to himself, the doctor returned to the city, and delivered them to his “friend” Krupp, of the firm of Krupp & Golden, who put them into his cabinet of curiosities in the shape of a record of silver ore, bearing at the rate of so many ounces of pure silver to the ton. The sagacious doctor then consulted his “friend’s” cabinet to find the value of these specimens compared with those of The Little Pittsburg, which also adorned his “friend’s” extensive collection, and found that in quality they were identical, confirming Mitchel’s view of the case that he had the same lay-out as his prosperous neighbors. He quietly posted himself as to what The Little Pittsburg was doing, and found that it was yielding more than was generally supposed, an amount to make his pulse perceptibly quicken and he felt something of the thrill that youthful hopes and plans used to yield.

He consulted his attorney on the legal aspect of a case in which a “friend” was interested, in which the ledge dipped toward an adjoining claim, and found that here, too, Mitchel had been correctly informed; though it was something of a mystery to him how a rude, untutored intellect like Mitchel’s could pick up and retain so many fragments of correct information. The result of all these business-like and methodical steps was a little talk with Mitch, in his private office, in which he explained suavely that he was looking for a little investment for a friend, who wanted to engage in mining speculations, and though he had tried to dissuade him from it, he was determined, and the doctor had consented to do his best to find a little property that might yield small and steady returns as the party was too old to wish to dabble in anything in the wild-cat line, nor did he expect to strike a bonanza; but he had thought that perhaps The Queen would fill the bill at a low figure, otherwise he could not invest. Jim, the stolid and ignorant, heard all this without the changing of a muscle, and replied that he would consider an offer of seventy-five thousand dollars as a very low figure indeed, but he was undecided as to whether he ought to sell her as she was bound in time to become a bonanza, and so forth. The pious doctor was almost paralyzed by the mere mention of so large a sum.

“But, my dear sir, that is out of sight; you ask more money than my friend ever thought of owning in one batch, to say nothing of putting it into a wild speculation like that.”

“Well,” said Mitch, “I’m not pertickeler about sellin’ her, but I’ve named the price that ’ud take her, and that’s the bottom notch.”

“How would you like to trade her for some city real estate? I’ve got some lots that are hard to beat for location and value.”

“I’ll take anything that’s capable of bein’ turned into dust,” said Mitchel, “only I must know she’s got the intrinsic value, dollar for dollar.”

Thus they played their little game at cross purposes till far into the night, and a few days later it was announced by the official organ of the city, the saloon keeper, to his patrons, that Mitch had closed out his mining claim to Dr. Maxwell for real estate, valued in the deal at sixty-five thousand dollars. And a few days later it was further stated that Mitch had “cleaned up” fifty thousand in the clear stuff from the sale of his real estate, and was treating everybody who could be induced to eat or drink, for a day or two, and drinking huge potations to Dr. Maxwell’s health and prosperity, after which, with a particularly diabolical leer on his smirking countenance, he boarded an eastbound train and our little world knew him no more.

Nor, in fact, has our little world, or any other, that we know of, for that matter, ever known anything more of The Queen, except that there is still the mound of earth where a test shaft was begun by the claimant, one James Mitchel, ignoramus, and afterward continued by right of acquisition by the well-known and highly respected Dr. Maxwell, and last of all was abandoned by him and turned over right, title, interest, and estate, to the owls and the bats.

Dr. Maxwell is still a prominent figure in Leadville. He is still the same cultured gentleman and able physician. He still delights in reminiscences of his college days, and has still, perhaps, a weakness for desiring to set all the world right on the fact that he is a college man, and he is both able and willing to give his children the best of educational and social advantages, and talks of removing soon to Chicago where he can enjoy more fully, with his family, the society of quiet, genial, and congenial men of wealth and refinement; and he is regarded as a happy, successful man, with a well-balanced mind capable of getting out of life all that is worth the seeking. He is a man who will go away from Leadville followed by the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens, and leave behind him a character for sterling honesty, and unqualified contempt for petty schemes and dodges in business transactions. He will also leave behind him a certain piece of real estate that is not his own, and another certain piece of mining property on Prayer Hill where he rarely goes nowadays, and in all the wide range of his conversation there is one little nook he never invades, and only one or two of his friends are on sufficiently intimate terms of friendship with the doctor to venture, occasionally, on the innocent inquiry, “When did you hear from Jim Mitchel last?”