{"collection":"mor","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/mor/tfd/chap17.htm","path":"mor/tfd/chap17.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/mor/tfd/chap17.htm","text":"\"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground: Another race the following spring supplies, They fall successive and successive rise.\"\nPope\nI WAS a Tenderfoot, in the vernacular of the camp, but there were many others \nof the same grade of experience. While, here and there, veterans were in charge \nof mining interests, tenderfoot superintendents abounded.\nI suppose the moneyed men and the stockholders of the various incorporated companies \nin this camp were under the spell of romantic adventure in the use of their surplus \nwealth in this distant region, because distance lent enchantment to their view. \nIt is remarkable how romance has influenced wealth. Otherwise rich-freighted ships \nnever would have been sent across wide seas, in search of unknown lands, during \nthe times of Queen Elizabeth. It surely was romance which formed, under the charter \nfrom Charles II, the trading company with this sonorous title, \"The Govenour and \nCompany of Gentlemen Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay.\" Romance helped to send \nFrancis Drake around the world in search of both gold and Spaniards, and Walter \nRaleigh to make his ventures in Virginia. Romance lies back of Arctic Voyages and \nNorthwest trading trips to \"where rolls the Oregon,\" or \"where the wolf's long howl \nis heard on On-alaska's shore.\"\nI do not wonder that romantic young men were found and commissioned, by romantic \nold men, to superintend these mining ventures.\nThese tenderfoot superintendents came out West smartly garbed, even to cuffs and \nwhite shirt collars. A few were dressed in theatrical garb, to look their part from \nthe Eastern view-point. They looked ridiculous to the seasoned miner, used to hard \ntack and hard times. The camp had quite a group of such young men, full to the brim \nwith a book and college knowledge of minerals, tunnel and shaft mining. They were \neducated in their way, but babes to the real business of finding ores and making \nthe search profitable.\nOf all these tenderfoot superintendents, three were known to me very well, and the \nfirst I name, became a warm friend.\nClarence Waterman was a youth for his position, for he was only a little past his \nmajority. He was growing a downy moustache and whiskers, but these indications of \nmanhood were silky with the touch of youth. He was a really good fellow in many \nways, especially in his cheerfulness. He had the youth's bump of conceit well-developed. \nBut this bump may have helped him over obstacles which his youthfulness could not \nhave surmounted. No doubt it was this conceit which obtained him his position as \nsuperintendent. I can imagine his father and his father's friends, at a company \nmeeting, saying,\n\"Clarence! Do you think you can manage our mines out there in Utah?\"\n\"Oh yes indeed. I can do that easily.\" So, being a favorite son, and a favored one \nby the company, this young Mr. Inexperience was dubbed Mining Superintendent, financed \nfor his journey, and entrusted with the funds to open new work in Bingham Canyon.\nTom Robbins was a dark-featured, gloomy-vis-aged young man, who grew a fierce black \nmoustache. His eyes showed much of the sclerotic coat, and he had a way of rolling \nhis eyes which made him look fiercer and more commanding than he really was. He \nhad charge of the Grey Eagle group of mines, and to hear him talk you would feel \nsure the only real mineral wealth of the camp was in this group. He was of a musical \nturn, and put a great deal of the company's money into a Steinway piano, which was \nplaced in his office in the best hotel of the town. He was a rattling player, and \nspent much of his spare time in the company of some musical young women of a neighboring \nboarding house. This tenderfoot superintendent was ideally togged out by Eastern \ntailors, and looked like a stage hero, much to the delight of the girls.\nThe third of these men was James Shuthler. He looked more like a dry-goods clerk \nin size, build, and manner of carriage than a forceful boss of mining men of the \nwild West. Shuthler, like most little men, was a great talker, but there was a steely \nlook in his pale-blue eyes which showed he had \"grit\" at the bottom. He had a hobby. \nIt was playing a worn, shabby violin, which he affirmed was a hundred and fifty \nyears old and once the property of a German master of music. He certainly got very \nsweet strains out of its strings, and he and Robbins were the center of attraction \nat every social and dance.\nClarence Waterman's special interest was a divided one. When not thumping his Remington \ntypewriter he was riding his rat-tailed broncho. It was one of those vicious little \nbeasts which show their mustang origin. When a horse uses his tail like a whisk-broom, \nand puts back his ears like a rabbit when you saddle him, you naturally look for \ntrouble of some sort. Waterman loaded down his little broncho with a full outfit \nof Mexican saddlery, and the little beast was double-bitted, and so strapped fore \nand aft that his inexperienced rider seldom came to grief. He paid some horse-shark \none hundred and twenty-five dollars for a fifteen dollar animal, but he was so proud \nof his nimble purchase, for the horse could run, that we left him alone in his glory.\nThe real work in these mines was done by the foremen, usually old hands; while these \nsuperintendents got all the honor through correspondence with headquarters, and \nthe disbursements of the payroll money that came regularly through their hands.\nOne old foreman was a former cook. This I knew since I ate a Thanksgiving dinner \nwhich he produced out of the abundant stores of the mine, and his skill with a big \ncook stove. It was a fine assortment of food built out of canned goods, all save \na huge steak smothered in onions. This repast sufficed for six hungry miners and \nthree visitors, besides himself, and cost the management quite a penny.\nBut miners, I found, are nothing if not hospitable ; and one never failed to be \ninvited to a good meal if one happened in at the right time.\nI went up to see all of these mining ventures, entered all of the tunnels, and went \ndown all of the shafts; also asked a great many useless questions, while the working-shift \npatiently answered between pauses in shovelling rock.\nThe Ilion Mine, Clarence Waterman Superintendent,-if you had read the sign board \non the tunnel house,-was a wet mine. They were supposed to be seeking the rich mineral \nvein, beneath the discovery hole on the summit of a rocky bluff overlooking the \ncanyon.\nAn able mineralogist, a learned geologist and the surveyor specialist,-all high \npriced men,- had reported that the signs indicated a big bonanza below this discovery \nhole. So after it they went with men, money and machinery. When I went into the \nwet workings, the tunnel's breast was nine hundred feet from the entrance. A large \ngutter was cut, as they ran the tunnel in, since the face and walls oozed water \nso constantly that a little river ran out of the entry and down the mountain side. \nThis whole tunnel was timbered and required no end of prepared wood and a couple \nof carpenters to keep up with the miners. Now wages were high, four or five dollars \na day, timber scarce and high too. You could see money going into the hole, but \nyou could not see it coming out. The Ilion people had great faith in their great \nmine, but that did not prevent its being a great failure. Stereotyped reports of \nthe workings were sent in every week, and for a time the goose that laid the golden \negg kept on laying it. The miners laughed over these reports, but receiving their \nwages regularly they worked on at what their practical knowledge foresaw would be \na barren result. At the time I left Utah the mine was closed down, another one among \na hundred failures.\nI started a day school. The community had voted against a public school, for the \npopulation was a transient one, and little interested in family life and in the \ncare of children. Several responsible men urged me to undertake a private education \nfar the public. I rented a part of a vacant hotel, the parlor and dining room, and \nthis made a good sized schoolroom to accommodate fifty scholars.\nI also purchased the red-wood shelving of a defunct dry-goods store, and worked \nup this lumber, with a little outside help, into seats and desks in lieu of the \nusual school furniture. People were not so particular then about the outfitting \nof a schoolhouse. In a camp like Bingham, where the church building was an old saloon, \nsomewhat altered, it was not difficult to make a hotel parlor serve for a schoolhouse.\nThese camp buildings were of the up-and-down rough-lumber sort, with the cracks \ncovered with strips of the same stuff. None of the buildings were painted, save \none pretentious hotel, the aristocrat of the camp.\nI used to have the room full of boys and girls, who came at 9 A. M. on Mondays to \npay their school dues in the dirty, sticky currency of the day. \"Shin-plasters,\" \nthese little bills of the Federal Treasury, were called. We seldom saw a piece of \nsilver coin, for it had all gone either to Canada or Europe. Our school hours were \nfrom 9 A. M. to 1 P. M., with a recess midday. I secured a supply of old books, \nmaps, and blackboard material in Salt Lake City, and gave them free to the school. \nThe cost of this education to each scholar was a fifty-cent \"shin-plaster\" paid \nevery Monday. Most of the children were studious and seemed glad to have the chance \nto get at their books, I had a little trouble now and then. For instance, a couple \nof boys of twelve and fourteen years, sons of a saloon man, seemed to be ambitious \nto rival the toughs of the bar-room. One of them carried a big knife on the inside \nof his leg-boot, while the other secreted a small caliber Smith & Wesson revolver \nin his pants rear-pocket. This last young, ster was quite ferocious in his talk, \nfor he asserted that he had \"got his man.\" It seemed, on inquiry, that he had accidentally \nshot another boy, in rough play, with a pistol. The foolish jests of the roughs \nabout his father's place had taken serious root in his mind, so he was really proud \nof his \"bloody record,\" like any other \"bad man.\" I took their arsenal away and \nrequested their father to come for the weapons. This he did, and when I suggested \nhe lock up these weapons and keep his boys out of harm's way he declared his boys \nwere not being raised \"milk-sops,\" but to fight their way through life. Probably \nyears later these boys may have fulfilled their foolish father's wishes and figured \nas \"gunmen,\" ending their lives by dying with their boots on.\nThis school ran all winter and well into spring, when an epidemic of scarlet fever \nentered the camp, through some Mormon teamsters from the valley towns, and perforce \nthe school was closed for the season. This schoolroom was used two evenings of each \nweek for musicals. I had a small organ, with handles, which Clarence Waterman and \nmyself carried back and forth from school to church, as it was needed.\nTo these Sings in the schoolroom the tenderfoot superintendents before mentioned \nand a number of young women interested in music and church work used to come. Without \ndoubt the sex attraction had much to do with this weekly rally of the younger element, \nsince the men came generally as escorts of the ladies. How much religion is based \non human interest, and how much on superhuman interest, is a vital query hard to \nanswer correctly. I suppose the mysteries of life, and its apparent dissolution, \nhave a strong pull, which is almost superhuman in its power for church going; but \nI also think that Reuben and Rachel cut a figure in the making of a congregation. \nThere were good musicians and some fair singers who were willing to exercise their \ngifts and spend time in this way, but no sense of duty was the motive; only the \nsimple idea of something pleasant to do. When it seemed an unpleasant task it was \nnot done, and they did not trouble to come.\nI was forced to do a little mining. I occupied a very small house, built close into \nthe hill on a narrow slip of ground; the road passing so close in front that the \nore wagons, in going by, often struck the steps in front. A roaring creek was just \nacross the road. A slide of earth from the steep hill, back of the house, bulged \nin the kitchen wall. I procured the miner's weapons, a pick and shovel, and began \ndigging away the dirt.\n\"Say! pan out that dirt. You may find gold color.\" Waterman was passing and called \nto me. I laughed at the boyish idea, but took his advice. In the creek a few feet \nbelow I washed out several pans of dirt, using the rotary movement which carries \nthe surplus dirt over the edge of the pan, but no color appeared for some time. \nI persevered and was rewarded by seeing a sparkle in the black sediment in the bottom \nof the tin dish. This occurred every now and then. By the time I tired, and had \nremoved all the land-slip, I was possessed with a very small can of sediment. This \nI washed over carefully and collected a few small grains of color. In the assay \noffice, later, I found my hour's labor had yielded fifty cents' worth of gold. This \nwas a wage of four dollars a day of eight hours of labor.\nI record this to show how alluring the conditions were to a tenderfoot. The creek \nwas a rich placer in many spots, the hills had often signs of pay dirt, while the \nrocks, when mined, contained visible veins of lead, silver, and gold leading to \nore pockets, and sometimes to great ore deposits which required only the science \nof the smelter to reduce to commercial wealth.\nI witnessed the luck of one tenderfoot superintendent. He had lost his job, for \nhis company had \"gone broke,\" as the saying is. Tom Darmody was a very easy-going \nfellow, who had brought out his wife that he might have home cooking instead of \ncook-house fare. They lived in a little shack on the other side of the creek. He \nwas mining on his own account, and I often saw him come home wet and disgusted with \nhis hard labor. One day he got back in time to find his wife on the roof of the \nshack shrieking, \"A snake! A snake!\" A big rattler was in the kitchen, and had driven \nthe mistress outdoors. This was nothing strange, for the rocks were full of these \nreptiles in the warm weather. A little pistol work laid out Mr. Rattlesnake, with \neight buttons on his tail, a harmless but hideous corpse on the kitchen floor. A \nbevy of housewives soon assembled to view the creature and to congratulate the lady \nof the house on her escape and the bravery she had shown. I feel sure that Tom Darmody \ngallantly told it around that his wife did the shooting. One day Darmody came in \non the stride and shouting, \"We've struck it rich!\" He had broken into a large ore \nchamber.\n\"Our fortune's made, my dear! We can go\nhome in a month.\"\nThey did. In a few days he sold out his fine prospect to a mining crew for $25,000 \nand left for the \"East and Happiness,\" to use his own words. He was sensible. He \ndid not stay to reinvest his fortune, nor gamble it away in expectation of still \nbetter luck.\nThere was one lucky superintendent who was not a tenderfoot. Old Judge Eells, a \nman of sixty-five, and his wife, an old-time lady of rare amiability, were residents \nof the camp. I boarded with Judge Eells for two months and found him a man of fine \ncharacter. He always had family worship in his house every Sunday, and thought he \nwas doing well for the West. And so he was. Late one Saturday night he and his partner \nopened up a large pocket of ore; he insisted on waiting until Monday before demonstrating \nits extent. You see the grit of the man in this action. His partner offered him \n$ 16,000 for his prospects before Monday was past. Listening to his wife's plea, \nhe accepted the sum offered, and the old couple returned to their home in Waukesha, \nWisconsin, there to enjoy their good fortune.","title":"Chapter XVII: Tenderfoot Superintendents","type":"page"}