Then our neighbor, the Finn, stepped off the cage hoist and suddenly slipped on the icy ground. Sprawling there before Tom he frantically tried to cover the contents of his opened lunch bucket. Too late! The tell-tale pieces of ore lay evidence to all his secret activity. Needless to say the man was caught “dead in his tracks.”
The Finn’s shack was thoroughly searched. On the ground under a freshly nailed floorboard a cache of one thousand pounds of high-grade ore was discovered. It was taken to the mill where George amalgamated it and recovered a large amount of gold. The noise in the early morning hours that had puzzled us had been the sound of the high grader crushing the ore with a mortar and pestle to extract the gold. This is what the Finn was up to when he reached home after his shift. My curiosity about the “aloof” neighbors was finally satisfied.
Several months later a trial was held in Telluride and the entire story was told. The Finn had been employed at the Tomboy for several years and recently had been under suspicion, but there had to be proof of his crime before he could be accused. He had been working in the “lower workings” where rich pockets had been uncovered—so rich, in fact, that the management mined low grade ore in greater quantities to average the values. The man could not resist the temptation. He took out several pieces of highgrade ore without being caught. Growing bolder, he repeated the theft time after time, only a few pieces every day but he knew how to select them and his filching continued until that fatal slip on the ice.
The judge set a high bail and his wife promptly deposited thousands of dollars in Finnish securities purchased with the stolen gold. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. However, he said he didn’t mind. He needed a rest and he had bought enough securities in Finland to assure independence for himself and his wife when, after his prison term ended, they would return to their homeland.
CHAPTER 6
When the storms and bitter cold of March were upon us, we learned that a shack on the bench above the tailings was to be vacated. The school teacher would need her house shortly so we thought it wise to get settled permanently.
It was customary for those leaving the hill to sell their meager furniture to the new occupants, usually a so-called bed, a table, chairs, and stoves priced from thirty-five to seventy-five dollars. We bought the outfit from our predecessors for seventy-five dollars and moved into our “furnished” home.
The view was superb. On three sides the great white range of mountains stood close like a surrounding guard of honor and we could look down the deep canyon as it sloped off into the valleys toward the horizon.
Our entrance porch was made of three rotting planks weakly supported by a six-inch-thick log on the down side. Squatted flat on the ground unpainted, like all the other shacks, it measured twenty-two feet by ten feet in size and was built of one-inch boards with battens, but no lining whatever. It was divided into three sections by partitions with doorways lacking doors. Between the front and rear sections, our parlor and kitchen each eight feet deep, a six-foot sleeping compartment was literally squeezed in. A small window on each side of the front room and one in the kitchen supplied daylight. The middle or bedroom had no window, but from the middle of its rough ceiling was a long cord and a small electric light bulb which could be carried into the front or back rooms to light the darkness. This room contained only a double couch. There was no space for a dresser—even if we had one. The only daylight came through the doorways.
In the depth of winter, our shack is faintly seen at extreme right. The range on the left is part of the 13,000-foot cirque surrounding it.
The “parlor” consisted of a pot-bellied stove in one corner, a single mattress on legs, and two chairs, one of which was made of three twelve-inch-wide boards painted black.
The kitchen seemed larger only because there was no ceiling to hide the rafters. A large coal range, a small table, two chairs, three narrow shelves on the wall completed our kitchen equipment, except of course for the tin basin in its stand with the utilitarian five-gallon can beneath.
Yet, more accessible than at the teacher’s house, the important outhouse was only fifty feet from a decrepit lean-to attached to the kitchen, less than half the distance George used to shovel snow.
The flooring of our shack was of ugly, splintering planks. Something had to be done about that! At least in the “parlor.” With blue denim, brought up from Telluride by the faithful mules, we nailed our “carpet” over a padding of newspapers, then we went to work on the walls. They were rough-surfaced boards impossible to paint. George got enough blue building paper to line the entire house, tacking the paper to the boards and over the narrow ledge that ran horizontally around the walls three feet above the floor.
The snow was too deep for the mules to climb to our shack so our sacks of coal were dumped near the main packed trail, two hundred feet away. The labor George was saved digging to the privy was more than doubled carrying coal four times the distance. Every night when it was time for him to come home I watched until I could see him start up the trail with a hundred-pound sack of coal on his shoulder, propped the door open for him, and turned and dashed to the kitchen in order to avoid seeing him at this Herculean task. I couldn’t bear to watch and suffered with him all the way. If one foot slipped from the icy ridge, he would sink deep into the feathery trap, sometimes able to hold fast to the sack of coal, but more often it would slip from his grasp and only with strenuous effort could he lift it from the snowy depths and start again. And that was not all!
Water was as precious as on a burning desert and in winter the mine company’s most serious problem. The only available source was at the summit of the range, beautiful Lake Ptarmigan, named for that bird of high altitudes that changes its dark summer plumage to white in winter. The lake was small, its capacity limited. The amount drawn for running the mill and all other uses must not exceed sixty gallons per minute. Consequently, not a drop could be wasted. Besides the coal, George had to carry water from the shaft house four hundred feet away. A five-gallon oil can on his shoulder contained our entire daily supply. Fortunately the can had a screw-on cap because often George slipped off the trail and not a drop could be spared. We longed for the day when a frozen spring behind our shack would thaw. This natural source of supply was the only luxury our friends envied.
On about the same level, ninety feet away, was “Cloud Cap Retreat,” the home of the Botkins and their pride and joy, a great Dane named Thyra. Sometimes Alex would walk three quarters of the mile uphill to have lunch at home, taking Thyra back to the office with him. A little later she would come bounding back with Kate’s mail in her mouth, her beautiful head held high above the snow to protect the package for her beloved mistress.
Except for two houses at the upper workings, our shack was the highest. I could see the panorama below, miners walking the pipe lines, riderless horses returning to the stables, occasional skiers catapulting down the opposite peak, packtrains on their wearying journeys—fascinating scenes indelibly etched on my memory.
Most horses in the Telluride district were owned by Rodgers Brothers. In the town the main stable housed fifty, with a small barn at the Tomboy. Day and night, summer and winter they were ready for hire. Riders, experienced or not, distances to be traveled made no difference. On reaching his destination the rider tied the reins to the pommel of the saddle and turned the horse loose. Regardless of the distance, knowing the trails far better than most riders, the horse quietly and surely returned to the nearest stable, at the Tomboy or in Telluride. In winter they went directly to the barn. In summer they might wander awhile, seeking tufts of grass. A riderless horse was part of life in these mountains and no cause for concern.
How I loved them! Never did I lose the pleasure of knowing that with an affectionate pat I could dismiss my
