Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1909-02-06


you read their language. and the
coyotes that come down from the
hills in the early morning might re-
veal many a desert tragedy.
Here is a story of a man who
spent a lifetime in search of the end
of the rainbow. 1t has to do with
years of hardship and suffering, and
also it has to do with three children
left motherless and fatherless, with
out food or money, in a desert min
ing camp.
"A mining engineer called it to
my attention. He knew the man and
he knows the children.
The once upon a time is the
present and julie Shettle the hero. A
few days ago they dug a hole for
him out in the desert sand and two
little girls and a boy are mourning
him.
The boy wrote down to a San
Francisco nan who held a bill of
sale on his fathers assay outfit, ask
ing him to release it that they might
sell it for money to live.
That is the way the mining engi-
neer came to know of the fate of an
old pal. This is the story as he tells
it:
I knew julie Shettle for many
years in Nevada. He was not a
clever man, though a good assayer.
He was old-fashioned and woman
ish in his ways, but he was an hon
est man, and that is the best you
can say of any man. have often
laughed at him and called him an
old fool time and again, but all the
same, right down in my heart / adj
mired him more than l IAN say.
About seven years z julie lost
all his money in a mining deal and
soon after his wife died, leaving him
with three little children to care for.
Two Of them were girls, one about
2 years of age and the other 5. The
third was a boy of Z. julie had no
relations and no money to send them
to a home, but he couldn't have
parted with them if he had, nor they
from him.
julie wandered from one mining
camp to another with these little
tanned waits of the desert with him.
He nursed them, washed and groom
ed them night and morning, and
sang them to sleep as their mother
did. He made and mended their
clothes and taught them to write. He
taught them manners and taught
them honesty Cad! as the picture
or him and the kiddies is recalled to
my mind as / saw them sitting
around the fire in his lone cabin ont
in the hills, with him reading stories
out of the Bible to them, and their
little faces upturned in wonder as
this picture comes back to me | feel
all broken up; not that l have much
religious sentiment, but-well. |
don't know what. | can't analyze
my feelings, for l am simply a poor
miner with limited powers of ex-
preston.
sometimes the children's father
would have to leave them for three
or four days to get supplies from the
nearest mining camp. On n occa-
sion | was prospecting in their
neighborhood, and of an evening
used to go over to their shack to tell
them stories and keep them company
till their bedtime came, and then
would leave them with the remark
that l would sit outside and smoke
for two or three hours Just to kinder
comfort them with the thought thai
a friend was lear. When they were
asleep would mosey home and turn
in.
And when their father came
home! Say! The poor little devils!
How happy they Were! l believe
they must have kissed him 10000
times. | thought they would eat
him up.
You may think | am running
into romance, but I'm not. | couldn't
for julie Shettle is dead and his
three little children that he loved
and cared for so long are fatherless
and penniless in a shack at Soda.
vile. The people in that camp are
too poor to do much for them, and
Just thought maybe some of the Bull.
letin readers would help the kids BY
sending them some money. dom
remember their given names but
money sent to the Shettle kids,
Sodaville, Nevada, for them in care
of the postmaster would reach
them
There were tears very near the
surface of the miners eyes as he
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