Cy Warman

“ Creede, who was the first to see the animal, shot one swift glance at his companion, raised his rifle, a Marlin repeater, and fired. The great beast shook her head, snorted, increased her pace and bore down upon her assailants. Again and again Creede’s rifle rang out upon the evening air, and hearing no report from Chester’s gun, he turned, and to his horror, saw his companion, rifle in hand, running for camp. Many a man would have wasted a shot on the deserter, but Creede was too busy with the bear, even if he had been so inclined. ”

“ IN the early springtime, at that time of the year when all the world grows glad; when the green grass springs from the cold, brown earth; when new flowers bloom on the graves of other roses; when every animal, man, bird and beast, each to his own kind turns with a look of love and tender sympathy, we find the restless Red Men of the Plains on the war-path. ”

“ Crossing the wide stream with all possible haste, the game little ponies, struggling with the treacherous quicksand for [56] which that historic river is noted, the scouts struck the trail on the opposite bank and pushed rapidly forward. Although they knew that the Sioux outnumbered them three to one, the Pawnees were eager for the fray—an eagerness shared in by their intrepid commander. Chanting their war-songs, their keen eyes scanning the country ahead from the summit of each sand-hill, they pushed onward with the remorseless persistence of blood-hounds up the trail of fleeing fugitives. ”

“ Miss Emma Woodruff, a school teacher on Wood River in the sixties, and who afterwards married a telegraph operator at Wood River Station, became quite noted as a buffalo hunter, and regarded it but as an ordinary achievement to mount her pony and kill one of the shaggy monsters. The long-haired showmen who infest the country and tell thrilling stories of their desperate adventures and narrow escapes while hunting the buffalo, draw largely upon their imagination for bait to throw out to the gullible. No one in a dozen of them ever reached the west bank of the Missouri River. ”

“ When the statement is made that this mine for some time paid a monthly dividend of ninety thousand dollars, it is easy to figure the daily income of any or all of the gentlemen interested in the property. What a striking example for the monometallist who argues that silver can be produced at a profit at the present prices; but it stands as a well-known fact, that, taking the whole output of Creede camp from the date of the discovery of the Amethyst vein to the present time, every ounce of silver that has gone down the Rio Grande has cost the producers more than a dollar. ”

“ She is too pretty a girl and too inexperienced to be exposed to the associations of a mining camp like Creede, where there are so few decent women, without great danger. She has got courage and an earnest purpose, and those qualities are a woman’s best safeguard; but still, she is only a girl of nineteen or twenty and she doesn’t realize what a delicate thing a woman’s reputation is. ”

“ But she will lead Harry a dance before ever he captures her—you bet she will—for she has a touch of the coquette in her nature in spite, also, of the warmest and most loyal of hearts.
I hope he will fall in love with her; it will do him good, even if nothing comes of it. A fellow whose nature is not morbid, is never any the worse off for loving a good little girl like Polly, even if she do not reciprocate. ”

“ Every perilous expedition was intrusted to Creede and his invincibles. A favoritism was shown which permitted certain officers to remain in camp away from danger. They never knew how proud the Lieutenant was to lead his gallant scouts. It was a comparatively easy road to fame with so brave a band of warriors, and the attendant danger only served to appease the leader’s appetite for adventures. ”

“ I suppose it is a matter of no little trouble to find any one, unless you happen upon him, in such a mad rush as has set in for Creede. I met Whitehead of the News, who is just back from there, and he says that not only are the platforms even of the cars crowded, but men actually ride on top from Alamosa over, in the craze to get there. What insanity! How can such a rush of people be housed and fed in a camp that contained but five little cabins ninety days ago! ”

“ Above all things, see that she has a boarding place where there is some respectable married woman, and give her a talking to about the camp that will open her eyes. She will take care of herself all right if she is once put on her guard.
I want you to understand she is no pick-up for any rake to trifle with; but a woman is a woman—you know that, Cy, as well as I do—and youth is youth. ”

“ Of the great army of prospectors constantly seeking to unearth the vast treasure hidden in the rocky breast of the mountain ranges of the West, few attain a realization of the hopes which lead them onward, and secure the wealth for which they so persistently toil. The instances are very rare in which the prospector has reaped an adequate reward for his discoveries. ”

“ What a magic camp Creede must be, after all! It was manly in those vigilantes who hustled Ketchum out of camp so unceremoniously to treat our little friend, Polly, to so generously and so delicately—but it is characteristic of the West.
She is a courageous and capable girl isn’t she?—her quickness of wit in jumping that Sure Thing claim shows it. ”

“ Creede here, and I believe you could get up a big subscription list in Wall street if you had a canvasser in the field. Everybody has the most exaggerated notions of the extent and richness of the camp, and the newspaper people are as wild as the rest. They have the most childish notions—I mean the common run of men only, of course—as to the condition of silver mining. Their idea of a bonanza is a place where pure silver is quarried out like building stone. ”

“ We have often met the enemy in unequal numbers, but we have never been defeated. In all the battles in which I have led you, you never deserted me. Should I desert you now? I know that I will be censured, perhaps punished, but those Yanktons shall never harm your people. I will lead you against them as I would against a hostile band, and on me will [61] rest all the responsibility. We go now as Pawnee Indians, not as United States scouts, and go to fight for our people. ”

“ I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world, for I confess I like your poetry myself, but I think you owe the singular immunity you have enjoyed in Denver above other poets who have bit the dust or emigrated eastward, to the openly-expressed admiration and affection of Myron Reed and Jim Belford and a few other reckless cranks who have intrenched themselves against “the practical horse-sense” which is the pride of our people. ”

“ Seek fame in other fields. Open a boarding-house or an undertaker’s shop, or both. This will give you a chance to study human nature in all its phases. It is the school for a poet and philosopher. Don’t miss the opportunity. Don’t waste your promising young life writing poetry or running a daily paper to reform the morals of a mining camp. ”

“ And men move on, and give no heed
To life or death,—and this is Creede.
By-and-by it will be different. When we have a city government, crime will be punished. The gambling and other disreputable resorts will be confined to their own quarter, and Creede will become the greatest silver camp on earth.
After paying one thousand dollars on our building and as much on our press and outfit, we had one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars to our credit. ”

“ What you tell me about that poor girl from Denver—Inez, is that her name?—is distressing. Her first bleaching her hair and then cutting it off, shows plainly enough the course her young footsteps are taking. That sharp-faced, wiry little blonde she chums with has no doubt led her into evil ways. There is no company so dangerous for a girl as a bad woman. ”

“ Whatever else you do, don’t show the white feather, for the honor of the press is in your keeping, and if you will immolate yourself, we expect you to die game and not with a bullet in your back. Don’t worry one minute about the obituary notices. That will be all right. The boys will all see you through in good shape and the papers here will all turn rules and celebrate your virtues in such halting meter as can be mustered.
But, seriously, what evil genius tempted you into the project of a daily in Creede, and whose money are you blowing in? ”

“ Major North was himself a brave, energetic officer, fearless in battle and skilled in Indian craft, and not a few of his appointments proved to be valuable ones from a fighting standpoint. Because he was always with them, sharing their danger and leading fearlessly when the fight was fierce, the red scouts came to regard Lieutenant Creede as the great “war chief” ”

“ I have heard a lot about him to-day; ran upon a man who was his head book-keeper and confidential man here in his heyday, and whom he robbed, as he has everybody else who has had anything to do with him. I was out looking up Parsons among the brokers’ offices. He has been a sort of fly-about these last years, into this, that, and every little pitiful scheme, to turn a dollar, and having a desk always in the office of the latest man he could interest in his projects, so he is about as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the hay-mow. ”

“ With his bedding, tools and provisions, packed upon the backs of trusty little burros, he turns from the haunts of men and plunges into the trackless wilds of the mountains. Guided by the star of hope, he pursues his ceaseless explorations in the face of hardships which would appall any heart not buoyed up by a keen expectation of “striking it rich” [105] in the near future, and springing at one bound from poverty to wealth. ”

“ Ah, yes, in the sweet by-and-by! Is there anything that holds so much for the trusting soul? In the sun-kissed over-yonder, there is rest for the weary. Always full and running over, there is no false bottom in the sweet by-and-by. ”

“ As the years went by, a ceaseless tide of immigration flowed in upon the beautiful Territory until the locality where the Creedes had their home was thickly dotted with cabins and tents, and fields of golden grain supplanted the verdure of the virgin sod. As the population increased, game became scarce, and then, as the recognized [17] leader, young Creede, at the head of a band of boyish associates, penetrated the wilds far to the northward in pursuit of their favorite sport. ”

“ If the bear captured them and got possession of the only two guns in the camp, my position on that rock would become embarrassing, if not actually dangerous. I turned to look at Chester, who did not seem to start when Creede did. Poor fellow, he was as pale as a ghost. “See here,” he said, addressing the man who was looking back, smiling and beckoning him on as he led the way down toward the noisy little creek which they must cross to get in rifle range of the bear, “I’m a man of a family, an’ don’t see why I should run headlong into a fight with a grizzly bear. ”

“ THE winter of 1871-2 was spent at Del Norte, and in the following spring Creede, with a party of prospectors, went to Elizabethtown, New Mexico. This town was a new one, but was attracting considerable attention as a placer field. Like a great many other mining camps, the place was overdone, and unless a man had money to live on, the outlook was not very cheerful. Finding no work to do the young prospector staked a placer claim and commenced operations single-handed and alone, and the end of the third day, cleaned up and found himself in possession [110] of nine dollars’ worth of gold dust. ”

“ He looked away to the stream below, where the willows were, and thought of the babe in the bulrushes. He looked at the thick forest of pine that shaded the gentle slopes, and thought of the man who walked in the wilderness. ”

“ Of the army of prospectors who lose themselves in the hills every spring, nothing is ever heard, except of the very few who find a fortune. Among the gambling dens in a mining camp, the scores of men who lose from one to one thousand [146] dollars every night keep their own secret; but let one man win a hundred, and you will hear the barber tell the city marshal that “Redy Quartz broke de bank at Banigan’s las’ night, too easy.” Mining and prospecting are only legitimate gambling, and it is the tens of thousands of little losers that keep the game going. ”

“ It’s day all day in the day-time,
And there is no night in Creede. CREEDE CAMP—THE NEW FIELD—INCORPORATION OF THE AMETHYST.
AS manager of the Holy Moses, Captain Campbell employed Mr. Creede, in whom he had implicit confidence, to prospect, on a salary, with the understanding [140] that the prospector should have one third of what was found. Creede had a world of faith in the country, and had imparted this confidence to the Captain.
An ordinary mortal would have been satisfied with thirty-five thousand dollars, but Creede’s dream had not yet been realized. ”

“ In fact, the range steer is a far more dangerous animal when enraged than was the buffalo, for it possesses greater activity, and is more fleet of foot. The men who have gained notoriety on account of the number of buffalo they have killed are looked upon with quiet contempt by the true hunters of the plains and mountains, who justly claim that hunting excellence can only be shown in the still hunt, where tact and skill are required to approach within shooting distance of the elk, deer or antelope, and [71] proficient marksmanship is necessary to kill it. ”

“ Everybody knows that a poet—a western poet, especially—takes his life in his hands whenever he approaches a publisher, as recklessly as the man who runs sheep onto a cow range. Of course, no western man would feel any compunction in killing a [7] poet, considering that whatever attention they command in the East makes against our reputation out here for practical horse-sense and energy, and tends to make the underwriters and money-lenders suspicious and raise the rates of interest and insurance. ”

“ Out of its depths had risen a hemisphere; not a land finished for the foot of man, but a seething, waving mass of matter, surging with the mighty forces and energies of deep-down, eternal fires. The winds touched the angry billows and leveled out the plains. ”

“ The camp has never astonished the mining world, but it has furnished [120] employment for a number of people, and that is good and shows that the West and the whole world is richer and better because of the discoveries of Creede.
Creede now determined to see a little, and learn something of mining in other sections of the West. Leaving Colorado, he traveled through Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California, prospecting and studying the formation of the country in the different mining camps. The knowledge gained on this trip proved valuable to the prospector in after years. ”