Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-07-13


I'll go to China and Japan next summer,
if I'm not called back to Mexico"
I asked him how his affairs were pro-
crossing there.
81 am in hopes that in another year or
two we will begin paying regular divi-
dends," he replied. The characteristic, far
away look, with eyes cast upward, so ia
miliar to his old friends. fitted over his
face.
THE mines of our company are not like
other Mines" he said. '"They will not be
worked out and become useless. They will
be steady and equable producers for the
my object to make them So" He grew
reminiscent.
His Wonderful Work.
IT went to Mexico first in 1870, and
bought the San Miguel mine for million
dollars. I didn't know anything about
mining then. but an expert I employed ex-
amined the property and said there was
100000 worth of silver in the pillars sup
porting the mine, and 5000 tons of ore in
sight that would run So to the ton.
came back north and reported to the COM
pany that $4,000 would he enough for
working capital I went back and went to
work"
The governor paused and looked out the
window.
Those pillars produced just ss0,oOO." he
said, significantly. land after six or eight
months work with the mill the ore paid
just SILL ton. There was half a million
less already. 1 had confidence in the min
eral value of that arroyo, however. The
old miners. who had worked the deposit
before, had gone ahead on the theory that
the silver lay in assures near the surface,
and did not go deep in the earth. didn't
believe it"
Again he paused in that characteristic
way he has, and then remarked:
Il have gone down in that mountain to
a depth Of l. 100 feet. I am now $50 feet down
below the bed of the river, and the deeper 1
have gone the richer I have found the sill
Yer deposit to be-
mo one can conceive the obstacles that
have been overcome down there" he con-
tinued. Il found a wilderness. mainly COM
posed of steep mountain side and a river.
The arroyo or cleft in which it flows is
from a quarter of a mile to $50 feet wide.
Our hacienda is there now, with i'm
TenSe ore mills refining plant for we re-
fine our own silver and where we once paid
SIS a cord for wood to make steam with,
have secured water, and it runs everything
The wood we were once compelled to use
was cut i'll the mountains, and could only
be brought to US on mule back
Millions Taken Out of the Ground,
He paused again.
II have spent $1,000, 900 down theree and
with the exception of half million work.
irg capital. outside of the original cost Of
the property I have taken every cent Of It
out Of the ground"
He seemed pleased at this, and the mas
sive under jaw shot forward in the old
habit that men knew SO well in Washing
ton twice ten years ago.
l looked at him and thought it. was good
TO be In the presence and to feer the mag
netism Of a man like Shepherd. 1t is
spur to ambition, no matter in which d.
rection it may lie or lead. You realize that
you are in conjunction with the individual
ization of endeavor and enterprise. You re-
member great works you have seen: the
Toltec tunnel, as 1t runs out over the Royal
Gorge; the Loop bet cen Georgetown, Col,
and Silver Plume; the shaft in the Alice,
and dozen other wonder-inspiring revela-
tons OF what genius allied to perseverance
and enterprise can do, and you feel that
the man by your side was equal to all those
things, and more. So it ethereaizes those
obstacles you may have regarded as solid
and unyielding. and you are buoyant and
feel equal to attempting even greater
things. There is immense satisfaction in
the episode. You are delighted to find that
the supposed barriers to your purpose be-
come so puny in contrast with those that
were opposed to his. The natural conceit
in you, which makes you secretly sure you
can accomplish anything any other man
can, aids in the sensation you experience,
and SO, say it Is good for the soul of an
aspiring man to enjoy the companionshlp
of another when the other Is Alecll Shop
herd.
His Characteristics In Conversation.
I have interviewed many men, and found
them ready and voluble, careful and pre-
else, and sometimes. I'm sorry to say. petu-
liant and sententious to point Of Grabbed
ness, but my professional faith, and not
any personal enthusiasm of which, how
ever, 1 admit possessing an abundant quo
ia, prompts me to regard Mr. Shepherd as
the most interesting man in an interview
able sense l have ever had the good for
tune to meet. The same directness of pur-
pose that characterizes his actions marks
his conversation. Dull detail and wearying
statistics find no place in his information.
He is a man of broad strokes and round
numbers, and the interviewer who would
draw pad and pencil on him would raise
his suspicious enough, l fear, to dam the
fuency of his entertaining language. So
sat and listened to Mr.. Shepherd. Some
times he sat and listened to me, for he
asked me about scores of people, old
friendS-and old enemies. toc-aEd display
ed an animated interest in everything per-
tanning to Washington. There was no beat
ing around the bush with him today any
more than there was twenty. thirty or for
ty years ago. have had his colleagues tell
ME that he was as full of determination
and go-ahead-a-tiveness,d despite obstacles
and barriers, when he was twenty as he
was when he was forty, and engaged in the
face Of unparalleled bitterness, hatred and
opposition of all sorts in Transforming
Washington, as some one once said. from
as ready 20 express his candid opinion in
free and open manner in youth as in MIDI
die age He is the same way yet. I held
him on Batopilas because I knew how in
teresting his work there would be to the
tens Of thousands of his townsmen who
have watched his career in the land of his
self-imposed exile and prayed that it might
be crowned with the success he has at last
achieved.
Forty Miles of Tunnels.
Eight years ago I bought all the other
mines at Batopias,'' he said shortly, land
consolidated them in one company. The
San Miguel mine when 1 bought it first
belonged to the men who owned Wells,
Fargo & Company's express. The last
man they had there in charge was named
Robinson. He was there seventeen years,
and in that time had run a tunnel in the
mountain six or seven hundred feet 1
have put in since 1880 enough tunnels to
reach from Washington to Baltimore-over
forty miles of eth. 1 am now cutting a
big tunnel that will eventually pierce
every vein in all the mines. 1t is already
through two OF the largest and most re-
nlunerative veins. This work will SIM
pity the getting out of the mineral araaZ-
insly. 1 told you we now used water as
the power to run our works. I bullr an
aqueduct as big as the one that supplies
Washington and two miles long UP on the
mountain side. I built 200 immense but