The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-10-09
BUNCOING A BUxcoER.
Interesting Episode of the EARLY
Days of LeadviIIe.
From the Washington Post

From the Washington Post.
In a day when Leadville's DIRECTORY
had Leadville had such a tome-would
have shown but two people, Chicken Bill
was easily one of that hamlet's leading
citizens. Old Billy Stevens was the other
inhabitant of Leadville, and he and Chick
en- Bill made up the population Of that
place.
Old Billy Stevens was the first man in
California gulch; Chicken Bill was the
second.
This latter worthy was Of a fanciful dis
position. 1t would seem. too, that he pos
sessed strong bent to defraud and pii-
lage his fellow man.
One of the earlier methods by which
he sought to bunco the unwary was a
fake nugget Of gold, or, more properly, a
nugget of fake gold.
Chicken Bill would obtain rough, irres-
ular pieces of brass of nugget size ana
contour. These Birmingham selections he
would throw into a certain stream in the
gulch, at the foot of little trihe of q.
waterfall, where the descending floods
could beat upon them and churn ana
grind them into pebbles.
This churning process added to some
action of chemical sort which the water
itself took up in the shoddy case of these
brass contributions OF Chicken Bill turn
ed them out at the end OF the week per-
feet gold nuggets so far as ones eye could
tell aught of it. Acids might discover the
imposition; the eye never
chicken Bill would then braise a long
pm on his brass nugget and bestow the
palt for the gulls in his shirt front. Be
lore the day was over, he would sell it
to some ambitious barkeeper, or play it
lrnHa ruaa.
All these transactions in fake nuggets.
by which Chicken Bill turned last and
first many a dishonest dollar, took place
however, after Leadville had fncrea sed
its count far beyond the meager tale of
Old Billy Stevens and Chicken Bill. The
latter never sold OLD Stevens any of his
waterfall nuggets; Stevens was a bird
of age
But it was not to sing of Chicken Bill
ana his brazen nuggets which prompted
the telling of this. 1t was to speak of
time when Chicken Bill in his buncoing
overplayed himself; of an hour when the
victim turned out victor and the bitter
bit himself.
Be it known that in a later Leadville
day. graduating from brass nuggets,
which only at the best meant 800 to his
veal, Chicken Bill became a salter of
claims.
He would salt a claim in various fash
ions. He would sink his shaft until the
surrounding rock showed as ii should
to suggest the existence of silver-bearing
at haphazard in divers corners of the
claim, and hide away ingeniously speci-
mems of the precious metal.
At times to give the salt the force
to make it stick and stay, Chicken Bill
would shoot 1T in with a shotgun.
Still Chicken Bill, by brass nugget SELL
ing and silver mine sailing, gained but a
precarious livelihood, and made a great
deal of bad repute for himself. There
came a day when he concluded that he
would make one elaborate steal, and that
accomplished he would get out with his
reward
First, he must get the claim and salt it;
and then look up his tenderfoot.
So Chicken Bill cast about California
gulch and came finally to make a loca-
ton, which he called the Chrysolite claim.
Then he sunk his shaft and subsequent
ly, by every process known to the expert
mining sharp, Chicken Bill sailed the
Chrysolite claim. He took a patient time
to do ii, and exhausted therein all his in
genuity for fraud.
At last, however, Chicken Bill was ready
to deal;s no claim had ever been "salted"
to such a pitch, of excellence before.
Ready for the victim, Chicken Bill be-
gan to use his eyes. II did not take him
long to pick his man. The party was new
to Leadviile; didn't know much of mines,
and still less of Chicken Bill.
This interesting person, too, had money
Large bundles of it-and he wanted to buy
a mine.
Chicken Bill came to his prey with eau
ton. Little by little he made his ac-
driblets of the chrysolite mine. Chicken
Bill hooked his fish and played him with
a skill which was the admiration of every
bar-room in Leadville.
All knew Chicken Bill, and all felt fair
ly sure of the game he was playing with
the guileless stranger. But no one thought
of interfering.
One of the earliest lessons Which the
west teaches is to attend to ones own
business. Everybody in Leadville had
been taught it long before the day of the
So, while the Leadville public discussed
the matter with itself whenever Chicken
Bill and his victim weren't about, no one
stepped in to stop the wrong.
The see-sawing and haggling between
Chicken Bill and his buyer need not be
gone into. The salt worked to the
queens taste, and the stranger was COM
pletely mislead. He looked on the Chrys-
olyte as a very rich vein, thanks to the
fraudulent arrangements of Chicken Bill
to bring about such a conclusion.
One day the stranger closed the bargain.
The trap was sprung and the stranger
gave Chicken Bill $4,000, and the far
famed Chrysolite was transferred to him.
Chicken Bill put the $4,000 in his belt
and went to Denver, first taking a drink
with every white man in Leadville.
A week went by. Chicken BIZ was gone,
to develope and work the Chrysolite.
Leadville, who knew it was Sailed"
watched operations, and leaned back ready
to laugh whenever the stranger discov-
done to him.
But a week, a month elapsed, and the
stranger never yelled. Work went on at
the Chrysolite, and Leadville began to
wonder. 1t only wondered a brief period,
and then it began to investigate.
In a way a chill of horror shot through
the entire camp when it was found that
Chicken Bill, instead of fooling the strng-
err had inadvertently fooled himself. The
Chrysolite had been sailed, but the Salt
might have been dispensed with.
Had Chicken Bill, while digging his
shaft and setting his trap, taken the trou-
Bile to examine the rock, he would have
found that the Chrysolte was one of the
richest mines in Colorado.
And that is the story of how Chicken
Bill "salted" the Chrysolite and sold him
self The mine which he let go for $4,000
was easily worth 100000. The sucker in
this case of mistaken bunco was Gov.
Tabor.
SLsL