The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-14

men were hardy, bold, enduring, skill
full. They grubbed about in the hilie
with the keen, restless instinct of ants
over a mould of earth, moving rapid
ly pausing often, lighting finally, with
an accuracy that to the outsider would
have seemed something preternatural
on the one quartz vein of the many
or the one significant lead in the null
titude of systems that scanned the coun-
try in all directions. Thereupon thew
posts, and blasted little troughs TO
show nilk-white quartz or red ore I'll
ing. And finally they disappeared like
bats before daylight. leaving not an
echo of themselves to recall their pres
ence to the hills in which they had
toiled.
Their places were taken by the spec
ulator, the miner with a little money.
the small capitalist willing to invest
and not unwilling to work with his own
hands. These men paid a certain mod
est amount to the first discoveries for
the chance to take chances on the en-
bryo mines. The prospector never had
the patience to wait, or scheme or de-
velop, to the justification of a better
price. The excitement of the chase
was his. He was a master who sketch
ed, in bold comprehensive strokes, the
design of work which men patient in
the little details must fill in with color
and value. Having thus outlined the
lifetirnes of men, the prosperity of the
whole great industry that was to be,
he was content to move on TO where a
new and virgin country offered a fresh
canvas to his creative genius. He was
always poor, but he never pitied him
self.
The new owner, then, represented the
investor He expected no immediate
returns. He was willing to wait Mean
xIyhi q IN egOfn
over the $4,000 square yards of his ono
claim as his predecessor had in exc
aiming the whole $500 square miles
of the district He carefully analysed
the lead, it's tendencies, it's virtues, its
defects. When he had fully satisfied
his mind, he sank neat, square-tim-
bered shafts, from fifty to two hun
bred feet in depth, from which rami-
fed tunnels, both cross and along the
drift. The debris he piled outside,
without attempting to save its value.
In this manner, gradually, he came
to possess points of view from which
the next purchaser of the claim could
plainly see it's worth and possibilities.
For this second proprietor never Ak
pected to make his profit from the ore.
That accrued later and to another
man. When the country became a lit
tie known, the other man would hap
pen along; he, in his turn, would be
willing to invest; and the present hold
err of the property, the middleman in
this queerly constructed industry,
could measure the success of his I'M
dertakipg by the difference between
the price he had paid TO the original
grub stalker" and the price he now
received from the future developer.
Meanwhile, he worked hard with his
hands.
Thus the camp presented the phe-
re- Nv
nothing more tangible than hope. When
the cabins began to crowd thicker and
thicker between the walls of the little
gulch Bill Martin had been forced to
give up agriculture because of lack of
room; so that Copper Creek produced
absolutely nothing, not even potatoes.
Every cent of it's present and actual
value came from outside, either with
the men themselves, or with some in
weston who brought in the price of
wages for a contemplated improve
nient. Only as long as there existed
in mems minds the comparative GER
tainty of a future stamp mill, by which
the quartz could be made to give up
its treasure, would the machinery of
life run we'll. Hope depended on con-
fdence.
The miners built themselves cabins
in which to live, and so there came
into being a town. 1t was a dusty,
new little town; but venerable in its
age--old air from the first. The cab
ms themselves were low and dark,
Ranking the street closely. a sort of
monotone of brown, by which the sta
BILE, the saloon, and the hotel were
thrown into stronger relief; the one
by virtue of it's wide-open door, the
other two because of their porch and
painted front respectively. These struc-
lures held the eye. One noticed the
cane chairs on the stoop; the bench
outside the saloon; the dumped down
saddles, the hay dust, the lazy loafers
about the stable. And always one drew
aside instinctively to the edge of the
broad, dusty street, as If to let pass a
horse race, or a train of cars, or some
thing equally swift and Irresistible.
The camp lived on each side of that
river of binding white; never in it.
Later, perhaps, when Copper Creek
| reached the industrial or producing
stage, and became domestic, it would
be a Rubicon over which contending
armies of small boys would dispute
the supremacy of the north and south
side of the town. Now it wore a con-
slant air Of being quite empty. Per-
haps nothing was more characteristic,
struck the eye more forcibly, fingered
longer In the memory as the dominant
note in the impressionistic picture of
the place, than this single silent road;
not even the sombre cabins, or the
great pine-clad hills, or the clear noun
tain air imparting quality of it's own
to the very appearance of things, or
the little singing brook that ran be-
hind one row of cabins and the stable
or the eagles wheeling and screaming
so far UP in the blue Western sky. The
town seemed to draw back on either
side Of the road to avoid spelling it's
effect, overawed by it, humbled by its
dignified solemnity. Copper Creek
would have been willing to have its
history recounted by that road, which
was primarily, indeed, the cause of its
being.
And Bill Martin, in the cane chair
Of his stoop, the only man capable of
recounting that history owed most of
his unique knowledge of events to the
ancient thoroughfare Men came from
the lower gulch, abode their brief hour,
and disappeared into the thin air of
the upper curve. From one wind, across
the white stage, out by the other wing.
the actors changed; the setting remain
ed always the same.
Now each morning early the old inn
keeper saw defile before his windows
the Optimist, intent on developing his
dream. A motley crew, these Optimists,
having little in common with one an
other but the inner spirit of hope.
There was Old Mizzou, short, squat,
grizzled, good-natured with back-slop-
IN hall