The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-11-12
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with a swagger and fguratively drag
their coat tails on the ground at all
times in the hope that some one will
give them al excuse to shoot.
Fairplay is a very good name for a
town or camp, and Fairplay. Colorado,
is today a thriving, %law-abiding place,
but. like all western towns, it had to
evolution from the absolute barbarity
OF its beginning to the high civiliZa-
ton OF the present.
There are many men not yet beyond
middle life who distinctly remember
the first hut erected in Fairplay, and
who retain a vivid recollection of the
first hotel. the Great Western. Which
was composed of three rooms, one
canvas, one log and the other IN
planned boards. Though this establish
ment claimed to furnish "accommoda-
lions for man and beast it had no
stable for horses. and all its dodgers
mad to sleep in hunks in one room.
while bread and bacon constituted the
Dill of fare, WITH now and then sugar
less coffee. The extras" were COM
posed wholly of bad cigars, strong
chewing tobacco and whisky of a kind
so much viler than the ordinary fluid
that one drink Of it has been known to
produce all the effects of delirium
tremens on a man accustomed to it.
and 1t always produced a homicidal
mania in those who INDUCED in it as
often as once a week.
The bar of the Great Western was
the rendezvous, the headquarters, for
all the miners and teamsters in the
vicinity, and you may be sure that it
was a constant resort for the gamblers
and desperadoes who always swarm
about a new mining town like flies
about a sugar hogshead in July.
For the accommodation of the latter
class, with whom he was in full SYM
pathy, and with an eye to his own
gain-he had only one eye-the land
iord OF the Great Western had fitted
up a place for playing faro and a num-
Der OF pine tables on which those SO
lnclined-and it was surprising how
many were SO inclined-could play
that alluring but most uncertain game
called poker.
At this time there were only two
women in Fairplay, viz: Mrs. Cham
%berlain, the wife of the principal mine
superintendent, and Lizzy Chamber
lain, her daughter.
Ladies were certainly at a premium,
and Lizzie was very popular and a
standing toast with the hundreds Of
men working in or near the camp,
But as she was a very charming. mod
est girl she would have been popular
had the sexes been more evenly bal
Anced.
Some men, with wives and daugh-
tiers at home in the states, rather
blamed Mr.. Chamberlain for subject
Ing his family to the hardship insep-
arabic from such a life, but had thew
known that the devoted wife and
daughter insisted on ACCOMPANYING
him and sharing his trials, they would
not have been so hard in their iude-
ment.
Arthur Lyons. a fine fellow of four
and twenty, was Mr.. Chamberlain's as
slstant, and as he boarded with his me-
ployer, 1t was pretty generally O n
ceded that he had the inside track,
SO far as Lizzy was concerned. and
that their marriage was only a cues
ton of time.
There was, however, in Fairplay.
one man who emphatically refused to
believe that Lizzy Chamberlain looked
kindly on Arthur Lyons, and this man
was known as RED" Snively. the first
name being given to designate his com
plexion and the sanguine color of his
bushy hair.
Red Snively wished to be known as
"The Mountain Terror" and he tried
hard to have the name attached to
himself, but as the majority Of the
miners looked upon him as a nuisance
rather than a terror, the name did not
stick to any great extent.
Red Snively was a staggering. ever
armed braggart. He was to
be q silent partner in the Great West
ern hotel, ande it was a matter of
notOriety that all the gambling fea-
lures Of the establishment were under
his immediate charge.
He always had money; he always
drank, yet he was the one man who
did not appear to be affected by the
vile whisky-indeed, it would be nearly
impossible for any liquor to make him
more brutal and bloodthirsty than he
was when in his natural condition.