Arizona republican., 1899-05-11

| and LcadVille 1t became. Soon he be-
 gan ta grubstake needy prcspectors,
 who with the outfits furnished by him would go back into the hills and hunt for precious metal, which they usually didn't find Tabor's friends said it was bad business and predicted his ultimate ruin. but he kept adding to his busi- ness. and, despite the items charged to profit and loss on account of his grub stake business, he i}rcspered- It was generally supp-1ed that his aid to the prospectors was not regarded by him as an investment, but as a charity which ne could afford to dispense where it was most needed, and it is certain that he saved many men from want and hunger in this way. Every body knew that these items of profit and loss were all loss. and, as usual, everybody knew the thing which was net.
 For ene day in 1878 there came to the store keeper an Irish prospectCr and a German tailor, badly smf,ten with the gold fever and without means, whom Tabor started on their search with a good outfit They went up on the hill and dug until they were ex- ceedingly weary of digging and at
 
 curious looking gravel, heavy in the spade and not pretty to lock at. When they became finally convinced that TO gold I1as in reach at that point, they abandoned the claim and went away, the Irishman taking with him a bag of the gravel, saying that, as he had dug So much of it, he would just find out what it was that made it so etern- ally heavy to hoist. The assayer to whom he took il told him it was silver. almcc,t pure. The IrishEnan and ILe German survived the shock, went back to the claim and scld out fer $10O,0O apiece. This was the Little Pittsburg miGe. One-tinird Of it belonged to Ia bor as his 5:ake for the grub. He was regarded as an irresponsible idiot when he refused s1O0,O0O for his share There was plency of time, holwever, for those whCI so regarded him to change their minds during the days when the claim achieved the neat little output Of sS,0OO a day Tabor finally sold his part Of it for 8 million and said that as he'd done Itoierably well on his profit and loss account he'd just keep on in his mining business fer awhile
 This was a source of unselfish sor- row to his friends, who krew that an innocent sort of chap like Tabor would get swindled right and left if he tried tcr increase his capital in gold instead of soaking it away. The first person who thought Tabor would be a good subject for a confidence game was Chicken Bill'' Covell, ex-mail carrier for the district. Chicken Bill'' had claim on Fryer hill net far from the spot where the two prosPectors located the Little Pittsburg, and he had worked it for six weeks without taking anything cut in exchange for his labcr excepl tons of unproftab,e sciL. One day he helped himself to some pay dirt from another and luckier mans claim and dropped it in the mud vein he was working. Then he sent fer Tabor, showed him the dust and offered to sell out fer $50. Unhesitaingly, the in nOcent Tabor paid the price. Chicken Bi1l' went down and bought drinks for himself for week At the end of that time he i1as looking for some one 10 blow him eff to a carbolic acid cocktail, for Tabor had dug five feet deeper than he had gone and had struck gold that had not been transplanited. Before the vein was worked out it brought in S1,- GOO, GOO. That was the way the Chrys- olite mine was discovered. People said this was bull-head luck, and Ia bor was a gocd fellow, but didn't know enough to go in when it rained. After he had organized 9 few stock conpa- nieS and come out far ahead Ca all of them, public opinion had another oip- portunity for a second guess.
 Among those who thought that Ta- bcr was easy" were Foley and Will gus, owners of the Matchless claim which showed some color, but nor enough to convince them that it was really much good. They convinced Tabor, however, SC successfully that he gave them S112, ,000 for the property It was reckoned to be worth perhaps $25,- 900, as claims were gcing then. As soon as the sale was completed the l former owners went about telling everybody how they had fooled good l old Tabor" The curious circumstance | of a subsequent offer of s3,000,000 to Tabor for the Matchless saddened the | remainder of their existence with the | knowledge that under some circum- stances honesty is the best policy by | a huge percentage.
 Then there was tEle Mald of Erin | mine which Tabor an;1 a Major Dubois l bought fer S2O,0O0; a dead loss, said | Leadvi1le. Two months later they | sold out to an English syndicate for | ten times that amount; he luckiest | hit ever made, as Leadvi1la p,1t it. But l the syndicate didn't like the looks Of | the claim after they had bought and | raised such lamentations over the mat ter that Tabor said he didn't want to swind,e anybody and he'd take the mine back at the same price. There Epcn Leadviile, which hadn't learned i aEy better yet, wrung it's collective hands and said that somebody ought i to 11ok up nice, quiet lunatic asylum for poor Tabor, where he'd be re- from dissipating his fortune in such 8 manner. A year or so later