The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-03-23
THE BLACK HILLS.

1nE DLACh HILIISs
Id-Hunters-A Sketch of Everyday
Life in Cheyenne-A GreenhOrn,s First
Northumberland of the Men
VINO are Going Into the EiIls-A Word
ADout the Best Routes to the Gold
Fields.
IFrom the Pittsburgh Gazette.
CnEYENNE, WY. T., March 2, 1876
This town, always remarkable for its
hyeliness among the mushroom villages
sprouted up by the enterprise of the
Union Pacific Railroad, has forged ahead
to fastness so rapidly, under the stimu-
lus of the Black Hills gold excitement,
that it would scarcely be recognized by
any of its friends of a year or two ago.
Last fall the first flush of the adventur-
ers did not appreciably affect the life of
the town, and, after the pioneer pros
pectors were driven out by the army,
many of them became burdens upon the
body polite, because their exchequer
was down to bedrock, and their appe-
tites were looming up among the hun
deeds at bonanza marks. These gen
tiemen of fortune, however, were not
surfeited with fastidiousness, and when
they become princes of the new Ell Do
RADIO they will, no doubt, look back
complacently at the time when it was
necessary to have serious business with
the wood-pile in the backyard as pre-
liminary to an interview with the pre-
siding genius of the kitchen. Yet these
men, in the
INTERVALS OF PAUPER DRUDGERY,
talked of their claims with the air of
bonanza kings, and it was comical to
see them leave off shining boot to en-
phatically declare that they would not
part with their claim for less than $780,
900. They reveled in the fortunes of
fancy, and filled the gaps of gloomy re-
Election with forty-rod whisky, and, as
a rule, sweetly slumbered in the soft
end of an empty box car. Of course,
there were a few of the gold-hunters
who were not reduced to such straits,
but these, as a rule, camped out in their
. prairie schoOners," and only visited
the towns at intervals for provisions,
until they were driven in from the
plains by severe winter weather, and
then they cOntrived to get better quar-
ters than their impecuniOus brethren.
The team and wagons were good col
lateral security, and their owners Jared
pasSably until they had devOured the
value of their property.
WHAT KIND OF MEN THEY ARE.
During the months of January and
December small squads of adventurers
arrived here daily, but few of them
pushed on until about the middle of the
present month. Then the influx of
tender feet" as old miners call the
new arrivals, was something like flood,
and the belief that the Government
would not again drive the men out of
the Hills sent them forward into the
Hills in very large numbers. The later
irruption was of different material from
that which inaggurated the descent up
on the Hills. idaho, Montana, Nevada,
Colorado and California contributed
largely to the new force, and hundreds
of old weather-worn miners, from the
older gold and silver fields, slOuched
carelessly along in the tide of green
horns that was surging toward the new
field. The air of conscious knowledge
which these old stagers wore d;stin-
guished them from the novices by whom
they were surrounded, and the simple
recognition of one of these old, grizzled
veterans was an honor that the - tender
feetn strenuously struggled for. TO be
asked to drink by one of these heroes
was a consuming honor that but few of
the new corners were rash enough to
hope for. The objects of all this adula-
ton, at times marked and demonstra-
tive, wore their honors with becoming
dignity, and were ever in readiness to
resist undue familiarity on the part of
the ambitious new-fiedged prospectOrs.
THE "TENDER FEET"
A company of novices equipped for
the start into the Hills is a pageant of a
most amusing nature. Generally each
man is loaded down with deadly
weapons, and the arms vary from the
old rusty army musket to the new Spen-
Ger repeating rifle, and from the Allen
pepper-boX to the Remington siX-shOOt-
er. At all hours of night these tyrOs
are popping away, and the frayed and
mangled switch-fans on the line of the
U. p. II. Il. are evidences of their dead
ly craftsmanship. The old hands de-
light in making the beginners take
water, and at the slightest indication of
disbelief, on the part of the tyrOs, of
the gaudy stories poured into them, the
Vet whips out gun, and the " tender
FOOT apologies profusely. The eti-
quette of this region is governed by
such fastidious rules, made by the in
veterate wags of the farther West, that
a fresh arrival-filled full of the manu-
featured reputation of the old despera-
does-speaks in whispers, and utterS
the most dreary commonplaces in ac-
cents of apology, and with depreca-
tory expression as pitiable as it is
laughable. This feature of his life in
the Hills grows amazingly as, after be-
inc broken in, the tender-fOotn out
Herods Herod in guying the nOvitiates.
Many of the old hands arrive here
broke, their whole stock in trade being
a repeating rifle and an ugly-looking,
self-cocking, hair-trigger revolver. This
class are agrariains, and the way they
divide up and appropriate the goods of
the greenhorns, make the latter sweat.
As arule these encroachments are philO-
sophically borne, and the sufferers
become in turn the plunderers after
they have paid their footing.
THE MYSTERIES OF PROSPECTING.
The profound ignorance of the mass
of the adventures of all things pertain
ing to prospecting in never-ending
source of fun to the experienced miners.
After being here twenty-four hours the
greenhorn's conversation reeks with the
mining slang of the Pacific coast, and
he splutters about "leads," "placer
pockets, - I" claims" and the "cOlOr y
and prospecting with an affectation
of knowledge that is appalling. He is
very dubious about this prospecting,
and there are hidden terrors in the term
that make him very uneasy when he re-
flets what a world of knowledge and art
is covered by that one short word. His
idea of the color is that gold in 8
crude state can be detected by any one
that ever saw a $50 piece, and this false
impression is the cause of much Of his
suffering. He begins by determining thai
for the first wears ha will cOnfinp him