The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-08-14
CHEYENNE WYOMING TUESDAY MORNING. AUGUST A. 1877

gion. Nothing can ever be produced
there to feed man or beast until God
changes the climate, except perhaps
oats and rye. Grass is abundant and
rich, and no finer grazing country is
in summer, but in winter the SHOWS are
very deep, and cattle could not subsist
there as at Laramie and along the
Platte, the Bear and Green rivers.
As to gold, believe the Hills are full
of it, but mostly in quartz, rotten quartz,
where the gold is free and easily worked
by the mills; but no man should go there
to make money, or earn wages, unless
he has means to buy quartz gold lead
or mill to crush it. Placer mining in
there is no demand for labor of any
quartz gold. That there is enormous
wealth there in these quartz mines is,
think, demonstrated, and with capital,
skill, quartz mills and economy, in
very short time the overflow of gold
will be very large, and will increase
yearly, there can be no doubt. The
ordinary population there now is much
stocked-laborers, mechanics, clerks
and all classes, save skilled miners and
millers, can find no employment. There
are not and cannot be any farms there,
the heats of summer and the SHOWS of
winter forbid it. 1t cannot be a graz
ing country, except in summer. Placer
mining is exhausted or nearly so, and
without capital to introduce hydraulic
power, nothing at present can be done.
But if you want a ensation-something
new in life-you can have it from the
'road agents." the highwaymen who
invest the road from Cheyenne to
Deadwood, and constantly stop the
coaches after gold dust and greenbacks,
passing up and down.
To be aroused out of ones sleep at
midnight, after the moon has gone
down, in desolate sandy plain, to hear
the words Halt! stand and deliver!"
and simultaneously Herewith the click
ing of FIVE Spencer rifles, as they are
cooked; to peer out of the window and
see by the front lights of the stage five
tall wiry-looking gentlemen in domin-
oes, with their Spencer rifles brought to
bear on driver and passengers in deadly
aim; to hear your driver respond in the
Black Hill's vernacular-'Halt? You
bet will!''-to listen as the road men
bid the express messenger ''hold up his
hands and come DOWN. to hear this
tall masked gentleman, with long rifle,
come to the stage window and in a
voice as musical and soft as woman's
say: Gentlemen will please leave
their arms in the coach and descend
one by one, and pass to the front for
examinations" to get out one by one,
five great strapping passengers, leaving
their arms in the coach; to have your
baggage all taken out and examined,
and then stand up and have the same
soft-toned gentleman in domino feel
your pockets, examine your wallet, take
its contents not leaving a penny; to
take off your boots and stockings at his
gentle command, lest something may
be there concealed; to give up your
gold watch and chain, and to surrender
that beautiful revolver, your compan-
ion for many years, to have Dick Tur-
pin, after doing all this, gently say:
"Well, old fellow, think know you,
what's your name?" livery imperatively)
and then, to give him that name on
compulsion, sir-then, after all the rob-
bing to eat peaches with the gentlman
of the road, to be marched back in
single file to your seat in the coach, land
as the horses dash away in the dust to
realize that man has been robbed so
gentlemanly, so pleasantly, by one of
his old clients and friends from Salt
Lake, is what you cannot find at Sara
toga or New York, but what did hap
pen to GEO. e. BATES.