El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1901-03-09

at the kindergarten. when you were on
the gridiron and we're being handed re-
marks which I. rom my knowledge OF
your life history, hal cooked up. Per
haps you fail to see any hrmor IN VI is
letter Neither IS there. but in the alb
stract / will elucidate-
First. however, you will want to
know how l managed to get out here
on the edge of things, and where and
how / have lived for two years. You
are well acquainted with the awful
mess 1 made of my career at Princeton
what an Indian / was-how l drifted
blithely through days that were never
anything but golden, taking as little
care for the future as blooming grass
hopper. never studying line if 1 could
by any possibility avoid it, and finally
getting my dip. only. as old Professor
Kettler told me, by the grace OF God
and executive clemency. You know.
too, how the realization Of my entire
worthlessnesS came as solar piexus
blow through girl - but I'll omit
the narrowing details. That and the
discovery that 1 had burned up the
small wad that came to me from my
aunt, came near being my finish. 1
had wasted my opportunities. l had,
by a reckless life. forfeited any claim to
consideration from the one woman
was broke. And why l didn't remove
myself from the earth I don't remem-
Der now. Some small remnant of saw
ing grace. I suppose. Anyhow, the
bounding west seemed TO offer security
and a life hard enough to keep bitter
, memories and regrets down to the
safety point So I disappeared, and
the west swallowed me-
How have lived 1 hardly know my
] SELF / have. in a way, been piece OF
I the fiotsam and jetsam of this sad
southwest I have drifted from one
place to another, working when 1 could
| find work, tramping when I couldn't.
have been street car driver, hostler and
teamster: l have hammered drills in
| the mining camps, and have even SHOW
eled dirt on the sections. l have frozen
and burned and starved / have tasted
| the very dregs of the cup of bitterness
But was expiating my folly of former
years and that the expiration might be
complete I have lived a life at which
an ascetic could not cavil- I have come
through it with no other stain than
that of Mother Earth. and I have won
back my own sclf-respect. | wopder If
you will smile at this, and think it
Quixotic. But / have always had some
odd kinks in my cerebral convolutions.
you know. and the necessity for it all
was very real to me.
Now. as to the testimonial, it hap
pened thIs:
Six months age I had turned cow
puncher. and was working on a ranch
some twenty miles east of here. at the
base of the San MateO mountains. l
had held my job for sew eral months,
and for the first time had managed to
save some money. One day while look
ing for fugacious COW in an arroyo"
or gulch. / stumbled on some rich
"f1oat'-silver ore. A short search dis
covered the ledge from which it came.
A few strokes of a hammer day or so
later revealed beautiful two-foot vein.
and DEVELOPED a virulent case OF min
ing fever, discarded the rope for the
pick and went to work.-only to find
that the claim was already located. |
The owner. a "ranchero." as is often |
the case in this country. wanted price |
that. considering the lack of develop |
ment on the claim, was exorbitant, nor |
could he be induced to shade it. / tried !
him on a lease and bond proposition, |
and finally secured lease for six |
months on agreeing to commence work |
Immediately, the price at the expiration !
Of the lease to be $4,000. cash. This. |
take it by and large, was an absurd |
layout. and no experienced mining man
would have touched it. But in my
hlissful ignorance / signed the papers |
and started shaft. Five feet below |
the surface / had eighteen inches of
ore that assayed S145 to the ton: fifteen
feet further down the contact was
closed to knife blade seam. but it
showed sulphides and assayed way up
yonder. At twenty-five feet depth there
wasn't a trace of ore or value, and
nothing but a disposition of mulish
stubbornness kept me from quitting.
But didn't quit. For weeks I plug
ged doggedly away, living alone. drill
ing and picking, hosting with always
increasing labor a few pounds of rock
at time. and still not pin head of
ore The vein was there-a true fissure
between walls of lime and porphvry as
smOth as 4 marble slab, but absolutely
barren. The weeks heightened to
months. and the end of my lease hove
in sight My money was nearly gone.
and my grip too. / was as blue as
/ sailors nose. when one day / dragged
out a kidney of ore as big as my fist.
1t was all alone. but it was real. and
the innocent necessity for hitching mp
the broncos. which with my tools. con-
stituted my possessions, was forgotten
IN a rush of a renewed hope. A foot or
so lower another chunk turned up, and
then another. Every day I would drop
into the shaft feeling confident that /
must soon reach the ore body from
which these kidneys must have come,
but the Gays went by and no ore-body
appeared. I had about concluded that
| was a fatuous idiot to waste time and
money on prospect that l wasn't able
to work properly. when the name of
Dennis French the big Colorado min
ing operator, caught my eye in an old
newspaper. visited Steven French one
summer, and it occurred to me to write
to his father on the chance that could
him infarocfad only