The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1900-12-06
MOTHER TUBES and I were tn,

MOTHER TUBES and I were the
lVi only passengers in the heavy, ol6
stage coach as il slowly crept up the
steep and rocky ascent of Golden pass
Il was raw cold November day on
we would have ridden outside with
sherry. the driver, but as there was q
fine, chilling mist in the air, we were
glad to wrap ourselves up wall on
the back seat of the inside of the
coach. Mother Tubbs was already in
the coach when | entered it at Silver
Gap camp She greeted me quite as
IL | were nj. old friend although had
never seen her until that moment.
She was a large, motherly, comfor
table looking woman of about Gj
years, and she was loquacous to the
last degree.
"My man he says that my tongue is
loose at both ends" she said. merrily,
soon after had seated myself by her
side in the coach. | had thought that
she might prefer to have the back
seat to herself, and | was about to
take the front seat when she sad
You'd better set here by me, for
it's more comfortable riding forwards
than backwards, and then there amt
but just this one robe in the stage,
and we can both use II If you set here.
Much as I've trailed round in stage
coaches in the last 25 years, it makes
me dead sick to ride backwards"
Have you lived here in the Rockies
25 years?"
Indeed. have my son. And | amt
ever been out o. sight of 'em in all
that time, either, Oh, I'm an old-tim-
er, am. My landl the booms I've
lived through, and the camps I've seen
60 up and down in that time! l went
all through the Lcadville boom, and
the Gunnison county booms, and
here | am on my way to another one
over here in Poverty cullen, where !
reckon you are bound for. Some o
the boys they say n boom wouldn't
be wuth anything if Mother Tubbs
want in it. That's what they call me
Mother Tubbs. And land knows |
have mothered enough of 'em to have
earned the title"
We had ridden about ten miles, and
Mother. Tubbs' tongue had run inces-
sanity in very entertaining way.
Presently we rode down into a narrow
gulch, where five or six log cabins
with sunken roofs and fallen doors in
dicated the existence of "a little min
ing camp in days long past. Mother
Tubbs glanced out of the window in
the door of the coach, and said, with
little sigh:
Dear mel Here's all there is left
Of old Camp Fancy, and when them
cabins was built it was thought ii
would be the biggest minin' camp in
the country. That's what the miners
think about ev'ry new minin' camp,
There was as many as a thousand
miners in this gulch one summer and
there were tents and cabins all up and
down the gulch. Then the min'ral
veins all petered out. You see that
cabin up by that big bowlder?"
"Yes; I see it,"
We'll, / KEEP lodgin' house there
20 years ago, and sometimes | KEEP 30
people over night in the three little
rooms that cabin had. / never think
OF them days without calm to mind
something that happened one night
along the first o. the boom, when
there want great many folks in the
gulch yet. I'll tell you about it if you
say So"
30 please do"
well, it was one real cold and stormy
day in November when the stage come
along and dropped a single passenger
at my house, and I'd never had such
a passenger dropped there before
She was a yaller-haired, blueeyed, in
hocent loolsin' young thing of about
49, whose pa and ma had no bizness 10
kt her be trav'lin' round alone, even
she was on her way to marry the
fellow she was engaged to. But IT
was like this: The girl was inclined
70 be weak-lunged, and the doctors
IN her home back east had said that
the thing for her to do was TO git out
70 the mountains as soon as she could.
Wei, it so happened that she was en-
gagged to be married to young feller
VINO had come from her home out here
70 seek his fortune. He had got the
m'nln' fever, and had come to tins
gulch, thinkin' +here was to be a big
Doom here. He had a little money, so
"hen the girl writ him what the doc
.ors had said about her, he sent word
,or her to come right out here ana
'ney would be married. He was full
hope about tho f,iture and he knew
meyd git along all right. Well, she'd
so' here day or two ahead o. time
81 he want here to meet her. lie