The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-12-24
Personal Recollections of Early
Days in the Leadville Camp.
THE DUGWAY MOUNTAINS.
Out in the Gray Bosom of the Great
American Desert
Where the Lizard and the Rather and
the Tarantula Own the Country
and the Hot Days of Summer
Make a VeritabIe Eades.

had just become full fedged coun-
sellor under the burdensome five years re-
quirements of the New York laws when 1
heard of the fabulous mines discovered at
place called Leadville, near the head
waters OF the Arkansas river, in the new
state of Colorado. AS soon as 1 could
shape my affairs l started for the wonder
full sulphide camp, not doubling that
some old gentleman would show me
subterranean stairway and bid me de-
scend, which | would do, as a matter of
course, and presently return with the
fortunate lamp. | think l would have
wagered my hands and legs that would
be in that Mecca of the west within two
weeks unless l lost both sets of extremi-
ties on the way and became s'back-
number IN the matter of travel. But,
alas for intentions! They became paving
material, according to the saw of crusty
old Sam Johnson. 1t took me exactly one
calendar year to reach the Missouri river.
One morning when, just at daybreak,
the train rolled into the old Spanish
Pueblos, in Colorado-three towns then,
only one now-as I looked from the car
window in the dawn, 1 saw what took
to be huge white cloud, high up in the
heavens, stationary, coldly magnificent
a singular island in an ocean OF pale blue.
Then the dawn waxed whittier, and l saw,
that what took to be cloudmass, was
stainless show-the flowing "canon1cals"
on the shoulders of Pixies peak, some
seventy miles away.
When reached the capital city of Den
yer, with the royal mountains in the
fairgrounds, fourteen miles distant, but
looking to be within a stones throw. 1
terminated my peregrinations and, bar
ring time and politics, settled down
steadily to the practice of the law.
1t was seven years and more before I
finally went up to the Cloud City. And
then, after two years. experience and
knowledge of the mines. and an insight
into the ways and opportunities of money
making, | regretted that | had been
tempted or DETECTED from my path as first
marked out, and | determined, once and
for all, that when the first great mining
excitement ''broke out' l would be IN
the vanguard of the gold-hunters, on
wheels, on horse back, or on foot.
With this resolution laid away in one
corner of my mind l was plodding along
here in the City of Gardens, under the
mixed guidance OF the law and the ap-
pointive judges, when there came sudden
and unexpected news OF rich silver de-
posts in the lonely Dugway mountains
away out in the gray bosom of the Great
American desert, or, as it is sometimes
unpoeticaliy designated, the Great Mud
| Flats. - (Fhere is mud enough there in
the winter, the Lord knows; but the au-
thor of that phrase. ''Mud Flats, - ought
to be out there with the Lizards and rat
tiers in July and August. If he disbelieves
IN literal hell, he would recant and
cease to be heretic.) And then, as many
will remember, one or two wagor-loads
OF rich ore came into tOWn-so ricn, that
one OF the owners of the 'sBuckhorn''
said he would build railroad himself if
its vein or pay streak held out for one
hundred feet-rich enough, also, to set
hundreds of people wild. thought THAI
the.great opportunity had come-provi-
dentially, almost, because 1 was so near
the place; and, not to miss the flood-tide
as did before, | made instant arrange
ments for a headlOng plunge into the
desert.
Among other things, I called in the
nearest philanthropist known as ''sec-
ond-hand man" and promptly sold the
contents of q comfortably furnished Office
for thirteen dollars! This gentleman was
really a benefactor TO his fellow-man.
He not only bought of me, but sold to
me-although, In the latter case, the pre-
position must be omitted in order to per-
fectly comprehend the nature of the trans
action. Particularly with reference to
certain extraordinary black horse |
think that horse was full brother to the
one warranted to the buyer by q pious
Quaker: 81 tell thee, friend, that /
know that horse; and I tell thee that
when the comes to the bottom of the hill
thee will ind HIM there eUeyy tlmeI' My
warranty was not exactly in those words;
but when l came to the bottom of the
first hill, at Spencer's Point, l t'found
him there,' and think he would have
:; been there yet had / not sold him for five
dollars and bought a plowhorse in his
stead. ! am not very superstitious and
yet l could hardly exclude the idea that
the balky brute would ''hoodoo" the
whole adventure; and it was with some
rel ef, and no tears to speak OF, that [
learned shortly afterwards of his death.
But what would l not have given to have
seen that secondhand man out on the
desert setting on that horse, 'spushing
on the lines" and praying Jupiter to loan
him just the smallest link OF second hand
chain lightning.
One would think that a desert is about
the last place on earth where man
would manifest egotism, to say nothing
3UOuO lildhluS Vic NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. pdlulU1.
Yet | met with queer instance of this.
The Quaker horse had become merely a
memory, and 1 had got along towards the
edge of the great waste of sand on the
eastern border of the desert, and within
few miles of a hating place called ''The
Cedars'' A four-horse team overlook
my outfit, and, as it was passing, asked
a red-headed adventurer for some direc-
tions to the Dugway mountains. ''Why,"
he snapped, ''loe had no one to ask ques-
tions of when IRE first came out here! We
had to 90 as pioneersl In fact, we are the
dlScouererS of Dugway! If you don't get
there right away, just let US know when
you do git there!'' I was glad that he
was not Turkish sultan of the Middle
Ages, and that he could not quite see his
vay to behead or bow string me. l
.,,o,:alIz saicL ..LIharl-s liz D..