Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-10-28
The Old SILVER TRAIL.
BY MARY E. STiCKNEY.
iCoryright 1896. by j. B Lippincott Col
CHAPTER I.-CoNTINUED.

So'long as the Mascot mine had been
as a rayening monster crying: Give,
give!" its discoverer had been permit
ted to do. with it as he would. He
might cast into the mines insatiate
NAV his money. his hopes. his very
life. and there was no man to claim the
right to share the venture, none to med
die with the method of his immola ton.
So long as Windy Gulch had been
accounted one of the deadest camps
in all Colorado, its peace had been I'M
disturbed; but now that an era of pros
perity had dawned, a walking delegate
appeared to organize a branch of the
Miners union, and Harvey Neil was
first of all waited upon by the COM
mittee deputed to request that thence
forth the mine-owners would employ
Zone but union men. while certain de-
tails as to wages and hours of work
were peremptorily insisted upon. The
majority of the mine-owners, believing
discretion the better part of valor. con-
coded the demands after brief parley;
but Neil. with a spirit i'll equipped to
brook undue interference in what he
considered his private business. sent
the deputation to the right-about with
such singing speech that the union
was reused to immediate retaliation,
and for the first time in ali its history
Windy Gulch was treated to the spec
tacle of strike that BODIED no good to
any man.
1t was time of general business de-
preston, and hundreds of needy work
ingmen were eager to take the places
vacated by the strikers; but the I'M
happy "scabs" came but to suffer
martyrdom. Threats and excavations
pursued them through the streets of the
camp; and some who were caught out
after dark were so mishandied that
they were glad 20 cry enough and es-
cape to the minor evils OF wagelessness
and want. Neil, so far from being
brought to terms by such methods,
grew but the more obstinately III
trenched in his position WITH con tenn
platiou of each new outrage. Such ron
union men as had stood by him be
would protect by every means in his
power, upholding their rights as well
as his own, come what would. He would
listen to no talk of compromise; not
one iota would he yield, although
q sympathetic strike had now been Or
dered, and every mine in the camp that
depended upon hired labor stood still
for his determination. Deep shafts
filled with water, and costly machinery
rusted in idIeness; and Windy Guick,
but the other day as law-abiding and
sleepily plodding as any New England
village, was now alive with throng of
boozing idlers, nursing bitterness
against the mine-owners, and especially
Fasting curses upon the name of Harvey
Neil, whose plutocratic Indifference to
the rights of labor was held to be the
cause of all the trouble. Appeals for
protection were made to the authorities
in vain. until at length, the strikers
souls Unframed to frenzy by non-success
and want, that towards ally dynamite
was invoked to bring to terms the Mas
cot mine, while had not Harvey Neil
been summariiy hustled out of sight
by frightened friends. the chances
seemed that even murder might have
been ADDED 10 the horrors OF that night.
the county authorities were now
aroused to take summary action, and
peace was after q time restored. But
capital which might have been tempted
had been frightened back from field
which lawlessness could so domino tie !;
Windy Gulch, poorer by far than it had
ever been before, had ceased to dream of
any boom; while Neil, all the costly i'm
provements upon his property de-
stroyed, with no possibility of redress,
found himself practically at the foot OF
the ladder once more. More disheart-
ened than ne had ever been, the young
man, who now felt old. borrowed money
to get his mine in working shape once
more; and when that was done he be
took himself to the east for the rest and
change he SO sorefy needed after the
long strain that had been upon him.
And now up by the old trail the
Grubstake mine was presently vyins
with the Mascot in outward showing OF
prosperity. Buildings went up and de
yelopment work proceeded at such q
rate as only unlimited command OF