The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-22
ROMAT|C STORY OF
 SUDDEN VEAL I'll
How Clarence H. Lamb Got
 Rich By Copper,
CROSSED THE ARID DESERT
After Weeks of Privatlon He and Hi3 Companion Find Themselves PIutocrats in a Great
 Nevada Country.

Goldfeld Nev October -(Speeial)- That romance still glimmers in the air for the man who braves the untooth- brushed wllds in strenuous quest of precious metals has received still one more testimonial from the melancholy crags where the Funeral Range shoots to- ward the heavens from the waste of Death Valley. Among these erags, bleak and sullen. and picturesque only in the pigments of the sunset and sunrise, or in the note of awe struck by their massive heaping together, there has just arisen a new king in copper. who may, If he likes, race his own automobiles. yachts and horses for silver or golden guerdon. and who but one short year ago was eating slumgulion and clad in dungerees among the sacks of Rhyolite.
 The name of this new copper king IS Clarence IT, Lamb, and he can feast on pheasants and hamlngoes' hearts for three years before he will have turned thi1ty He looks like Napoleon and talks like a bashful boy His first extrava- ganee after turning his hard-won bo- nanzas Into double eagles was a new pipe, his second, a new carriage for his new baby, his third, the handsomest rope of pearls for his wife that he could order from Tiffany's. He still wears eorduroys, formerly the last symbol of opulenoe, tueks his trousers into brogans and lin- gers wistfully where the landscape is sagebrush and sand sand and sagebrush with rim of fiinty mountains on the horizon.
 Lamb, who is anything but a lamb in spirit, was born in a small town about sixty miles south of Chicago. When he was four years old he took his parents out to Lincoln, Neb., where he kept them employed in his behalf till he was sixteen. Up to that time, having been unable to decide whether he wanted to be pro fessonal bicycle rider or bugler in the navy, he had suffered himself to progress in learning as far as the High school. Then, however being eager to shufhe the cards of his own destiny on any terms ho abandoned his dreams of medalled or glory to learn the jewellers s trade.
 When he was 21, being a bit weary of scrutnlzing the inwards of watches, he made a flying leap to Cripple Creek, and there, after discovering that his knowledge of mining was joke, he became jewell Ter again. Six months of Cripple Creek, however. jared his adventurous soul into a further migration. and he circled to Los Angeles by way of Seattle.
 Married at Santa Rosa.
 Ho was gradually learning to make up his mind and keep 1t made up. Having eXcursoned one day to Pasadena, he It. |. l there, sooner or later and build himself a splendid home. That promise will be fulfilled this winter. Having seen a girl in Santa Rosa that struck him as being the incest girl in the world, he decided that she should marry him. She did. Having accumulated a capital of $2500, through luck energy and codicil, he annuonced that he was going into Nevada to get rich. Now he has million.
 When Lamb came into this state the railroad that now runs to Goldneld from Reno ended at Tonopah, and he had to do the last lap in a stage Among his fellow-passengers on the stage was a chap named RosenkranZ, who knew all about the restaurant business and who was likewise dead broke. Lamb liked the reastaurant man and when they reached Goldneld, then but the crude embryo of the present booming town, he suggested
 
 perience might be profitably combined into a place to eat. The pair accordingly started what was known as the Oxford restaurant, where their gross receipts kept barely ahead of expenses for several months. They paid their walters ten dol lars a day, their cook twenty, and as the nearest lee was at Reno their importa- tions of fish, meat and vegetables had to be grabbed from the stage and slapped tha iaha Whpthar there a toner for them, or not
 Firing of the restaurant struggle, and glad to get out of 1t with most of his original capital, Lamb hlxed still farther into the wilderness-this time to Rhyolite Here he dallied in small claims, got an occasional rake-off from lucky grub stake, and pottered along, somehow, till the 24th of March, last year. Then he heard how Fred Berney and Phil Creaser, grub-staked by Dennis Clark of Spokane, had made a big copper strike in the Flu neral Range, just over the California border. He thereupon suggested to his partner, William J. Cleary, on March 26, that they should themselves hasten down to the Funeral Range and get little cop per of their own. Thus came the next emigration.
 Does Death Valley Route.
 The road leading to the ultimate crests of the Funeral Range, in those days, was over a circuitous and desolate trail cut by the twenty mule teams that hauled the borax out of Death Valley. They tray eled over it, as far as Furnace Creek ranch, in three days in a wagon drawn by two horses and laden with barr@s of water. The ranch gained with no greap CT privation than terrific heat and immi- nent suffocation in the twirling dust, they replenished their water supply and again set forth. For two days they toiled stead fly upward toward the mountain tops Then one of the horses fell sick and they were forced to wait three days before he recovered. Then two of their barrels sprang a leak in the night and let every last drop of water still remaining trickle upon the thirsty trail. The next morning found them desperate They had lost their way, both horses were evidently on their last legs, their throats were sore and full of grit, their tongues were beginning to swell, and the game seemed to be about up. Stubbornly podding along, they sud denly discerned q tiny trail which shot abruptly to the right It was decided that cleary should explore this trail afoot If he found water he was to fire his revol- yer five times. If he didn't find water well, they simply shook hands.
 Hears Welcome Signal.