Omaha daily bee., 1906-12-30

singularly active Imagination. But great
many of these yarns are true and capable
Of demonstration. For example:
Walter williams and Charles d. Taylor.
the men who located the Red Top and the
Jumbo mines, were so strapped a few
months ago that when they sat down In
Goldheld saloon to play slough they had
to use beans for chips and the bank had TO
cash in to furnish them their supper. Now
Taylor is worth toward half a million and
has gone back to Nova Scotia to see the
old folks, for the first time in ten years.
Henry Weber, who has Just sold his In
terest in the Great Bend extension for 81
10000 came into Tonopah not long ago on
the soft side OF freight car truck. From
Tonopah he walked to Goldheld. He's now
interested in the Wonder district and has
Just ordered an automobile, specially dc
signed TO make sixty miles an hour over the
desert so that he can daily make the $40
mile round trip between Wonder and Gold
field. Last spring three travel-worn and al
most starving men found their way into the
mining camp at Fairview. They bad just
10 cents between them and they wanted
job as badly as It was ever wanted In these
parts. The mine superintendent gave them
tents and enough money to feed them and
started them in to work They worked
UNTIL Iney nHu idlu up Nou VI etU hpitNS HhN
they disappeared. Two months ago they
walked into Goldfield and sold their claims
for 1906, oOO. But they didn't get their money
until a fortnight or so ago. They are now
trying TO get rid OF 1t as soon as Goldheld
will let them. And Goldfield is very help
full to such as they.
Easy Come. Easy Go.
In fact, nine out of every ten men who
have made much money overnight down
here have spent It in gambling and drink
only less rapidly than they have acquired
1t.
One night last week an old fellow, gray
and bent and marked by years of work
and hardship, walked into the Monte Carlo
saloon and gambling joint. He has been
around the camp for over a year and used
to talk largely about a wonderful claim he
had located, but his kind is plentiful here
abouts and he earned a precarious lve!i-
hood by doing odd jobs around the camp.
This time, however, he displayed draft
for $4,000, which he had received for his
much talked Of claim. He wanted II cashed.
The bartender recognizing the signature
on tho draft, looked up the owner of the
joint, who gave the prospector the money.
! The next morning the old fellow came
into the same place and begged the bar
lenOET TO give MIN a Ilc hdu sam
bled away his $4,000 overnight.
One year ago a Gold1elder went broke.
Among his creditors was a washerwoman
to whom he owed So. Despite her pro-
tests that 1t was all right anyhow, he in
sisted on giving her a bunch of shares la
! a Goldfield mine. AS quotations then stood,
| they were next to worthless.
The other day this same man walked into
! the washerwoman's shanty.
| "What'd you do with those shares l gave
you a year ago. he asked
"Oh, 1 dunno" she answered. between
strokes of the hot iron, II tink they're
up there in that see-gar box on the shelf,
but l amt sure"
The former owner of the shares reached
up and dragged the box down. There they
were, sure enough. stuffed in between half
| a dozen candle ends, a ball of string and
a rusty case knife. The washerwoman'
debtor counted them out. Then he grlnned
THE jokes on me-" he said. They're
worth So, 15O this minute
And they were.
There was a young fellow who used tc
clean out cuspidors and sweep up at the
| Montezuma club He saved what he earned
and bought mining shares. He's said to hi
worth $4,000 today =
| Social Life In the Camp.
| You may hear these tales all night long
this bitter weather around the hotel stoves
of Goldfield and the persons who tell then
give every evidence that they are true.
The day of the mining camp bad meT
is gone forever. Goldfeld has them, 1t Ii
true, but they are behaving themselves
nowadays, for the nan with a record is nc
longer a hero. On the contrary. he II
stunned
There are a score Of men now here VIII,
have got their men before now, but they
say as little as possible about 1t and stitch
to faro dealing or bar tending, The BAD
men are no longer the bosses of a mining
camp.
The powers that rule are now the meT
who own the big properties or who ar,
putting through big enterprises or doinl
engineering work. These men you will
find every evening at the we'll named
Montesuma club.
The Montezuma club is the most com
Portable place in Goldfield. 1t has $50 mem
bers, a pool table, billiard table, a bar
all the magazines and two stoves. More
over. the stoves are always hot, which 81
something in Godfeld.
Here you will find of an evening a GROVE
of men who have done things all over tn
uninhabitable globe. Over there, playin,
bridge whist, is a man who made a FORUM
taking wood into Nome.
His partner spent years diving for pearl
In the South Sea islands. Playing agains
them is a chap who was twenty years II
the diamond fields of the Transvaal. Hi
partner used to be a Cuban ilibuster.
The grizzled veteran reading a magazln,
by the long center table has laid thousand
of miles of railroad tracks in Mexico. Tha
pair hugging the nearest stove are swap
ping tales about old days in Cripple Creek
while the slender young man just making
masse shot has for ten years been sealing
in Alaska.
|, One of the Leading Citizens.
Probably the best known bad man nov
In Goldfeld is 'Diamondheld jack Davis
He has several killings to his credit.
Up in Idaho he was several times con
victed of the murder OF three sheep herder
and was sentenced to be hanged. It's
coincidence that the man to whom he owe
his life, Ex-Governor Hunt Of Idaho, die
here the other day.
'Diamondheld Jack" like the rest of hi
kind, is living quietly these days He ha
shown only one flash OF the old spirit tina
brought him so near the gallows Tina
was while the miners were boycotting tn
Goldheld Sun early last fall.
A crowd was chasing a newsboy dow
the street and the lad ran into Diamond