OCR Text |
Show 208 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS. How such a slick steal could be accomplished without detection, was a profound mystery to Mr. Chapin, and he expressed himself accordingly. An old negro standing, by sorrowfully shook his head and said, "Ah, massa, it may be dat nigger was starvin, and you know necessity is de mudder of invention." Early in the afternoon we started to visit some of the mines. The " Morning Star " seemed " only a step away," and we prepared to walk, so that we could gather wild-flowers and rocks by the wayside, and occasionally look back to where we came from. While Leadville boasts of its lofty perch there is no level ground around it, and no matter in what direction you go, you must expect to climb and get your lungs inflated with rarefied air. We scrambled over a wilderness of stumps, the only remains of a once proud forest, and were informed the trees which grew there had been used in timbering the mines. So the forests have been transplanted underground, which is a violent reversal of the natural order of things. We stopped often on the way, not so much to look back, for that was rather nauseating from our dizzy eminence, but to get a full breath. Reaching the "Morning Star" we sat around on the stumps and discussed various subjects, prominent among them, the "fitfulness of fortune." The men who discovered the carbonate belt and opened it, are almost national celebrities; their names are familiar household words throughout the country, and we felt privileged to talk about them. Many of these miners are still rich, but as in every other mining country, the majority of them are poor. Nine out of ten who made from five to twenty thousand, spent it and philosophically re- |