Pointing to a long line running toward the foot of the cliffs he continued: “That long wooden box in the snow covers pipe lines for both air and water. It’s filled with sand to keep the water from freezing. It’s just wide enough to walk along, single file, and miners use it instead of the trail going to the upper workings.”
We walked past the shaft house and I had my first glimpse of a hoist. There was the machinery operating a cage, lowering and lifting men and materials within a nearly vertical opening from the surface to the lowest level of the mine.
The only splash of color in that area was the red junction house of the Telluride Power Company through which came the high tension wires distributing power to all the mines.
We came home to a scanty dinner. We were out of food, and what would happen if our supplies did not arrive on the morrow! I couldn’t imagine. I went to bed wishing there were a corner grocer nearby. At four o’clock in the morning a faint sound like the muffled pounding of a hammer filtered through to my consciousness. I woke George and drawled sleepily, “Dear, what is that noise? I heard the same thing yesterday morning. It seems to be near our house.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve heard it too. Perhaps the shifts are changing at the mine. It’s about that time. Anyway, it’s nothing to worry about.” Reassured, I fell asleep again.
Later that morning when I had finished my dab of housework I heard a threshing sound near the door. Opening it hastily I beheld a big mule, heavily loaded, wallowing in the snow. The skinner was tugging at his rope, trying to get him nearer the door while, out on the trail, the other mules of the string stood waiting indifferently.
My supplies! Just in the well-known nick of time. The skinner began dumping boxes in the snow and I gaped in amazement. That sack of sugar which, in Oakland years ago, weighed ten pounds, changed by a misunderstanding in nomenclature to one hundred pounds! Ashamed to betray my ignorance I never mentioned it. Besides, it would cost a dollar fifty to return it. But sugar was not listed on my orders for a long time.
The Tomboy Mill, 1906.
That afternoon I crossed the trail to borrow a cake pan from Beth Batcheller. Six feet of snow covered the trail separating our shacks. As I neared the door I could hear her whistling a cheery tune. Inside that drafty hut I forgot cold, snow, and isolation, for the room glowed with warmth and hospitality. A faint odor of roses came from a potpourri on a small table in one corner. Portraits of her New England ancestors looked down from the rough walls. Old candlesticks held burning candles which brought out the shine in Beth’s lovely eyes and a gleam of happiness on the cheeks of this young wife who was transplanted from a life of wealth and travel to a remote mining camp. Within minutes we were “Beth” and “Harriet” to each other, exchanging family data and events like old friends long apart. The Batchellers were both members of pioneer New England families. Jim, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was superintendent of the Tomboy Mill. He and Beth had been married in 1905 in Mattapoisset, Massachusetts, at the summer home of Beth’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Deyoung Field. A special train had carried the guests from Boston. We talked until it was time for me to mix the cake I was planning for dinner. Saying farewell she added, “Come over for tea tomorrow afternoon. I want you to meet Kate Botkin. She lives in that house above the tailings, the one with a tree in front. She has been suffering from rheumatism and hasn’t been down for awhile. Her husband, Alex, has charge of the mine office.”
In the snow surrounded by friends, with Beth BatcheLler on the right.
“I’ll be happy to meet her,” I said, unaware how true that remark would prove to be.
The next day over teacups and gleaming silverware I met Kate Wanzer Botkin and later that afternoon, her husband. A graduate of Yale, Alex Botkin was the son of a former Lieutenant Governor of Montana, appointed by President McKinley as chairman of a commission to recodify the laws of the United States.
Kate, the daughter of the chief consulting engineer of the Union Pacific Railway, had lived in St. Paul where she had conducted a private school. They too were married in 1905 and immediately left for the Tomboy, two sparkling persons radiating optimism and good humor. We felt fortunate and, as George said, “we struck it rich” in finding such friends in this remote eyrie.
A few days later Beth asked me again to join her for tea. There were two other guests that day. Mrs. Rodriguez, a frail Mexican girl, had coal-black hair and olive complexion, deep brown eyes with a melancholy expression, and hands roughened by hard work. She and her husband, a miner, lived in one of the houses clustered near the tailings flat.
And there was Mrs. Matson, a chubby woman from Finland, blond, rosy cheeked, and lively. With nine mouths to feed on a miner’s wages she helped lay washing and ironing for others and that morning had returned the laundry she had finished for Beth Batcheller.
The beautiful silver tea service was in use again. Beth poured tea and served cake with the grace and graciousness of a hostess in a mansion of luxury. I listened to their talk carefully for every bit of information I could glean concerning the problems of living at an altitude of 11,500 feet. Indeed there were problems and I rapidly became aware of them.
CHAPTER 4
Clustered at the mouth of the tunnel leading into the Japan Flora Mine were four shacks, the boardinghouse, change rooms, blacksmith shop, and George’s assay office. From our back door I could see these small buildings and the long snowshed covering tracks leading from the tunnel to the waste dump.
Roustabouts, men who did the odd jobs other than mining or mucking, pushed cars of waste-rock to the end of the track and there, by releasing a catch, dumped the rock over the hill.
As carload followed carload the pile gradually built up to the level of the track which then was extended and again a dump began building. Throughout the mountains, below yawning mouths of deserted prospects, these piles of waste were natural monuments. Some sadly marked the graves of cherished hopes, shattered and lost; others were monuments to dreams fulfilled of vast fortunes gouged from the earth.
One clear day, looking up the slope and hoping to catch a glimpse of my husband, I noticed a roustabout pushing a car from the snowshed to the end of the track. He tripped it and the rocks rolled down the slope. The air was so clear I could plainly hear them falling, but I could see the car tilting dangerously and the roustabout struggling to hold it back.
Too far out for his cries to be heard he was frantically turning his head, looking for someone who might recognize his plight. I knew if the car broke from his grasp it would crash down the steep slope and might bring death to a rider on the trail below.
I ran to the stable and, gasping for breath lost in that short distance, telephoned to the Japan Flora office. Then Fred Diener and I watched anxiously until we saw rescuers run out of the shed and help pull the car back on its tracks. Such an emergency like this prompted action by any and all who might be near the scene. Apparently, I had done the right thing at the right time. I was learning.
It was the time of year when, even far from the glitter and excitement in the cities, the feeling of Christmas was in the air with nostalgic memories of festive gatherings and feasts. The Batchellers of “Castle Sky High”, as they had named their shack, invited Ned Morris, the Tomboy assayer and Al Awkerman, the master mechanic, single men living in the boardinghouse, the Botkins, and the Backuses for Christmas dinner. And on that day it was a castle, indeed!
It was a day of blustering wind and a darkening sky that foretold a storm. But we found a fire roaring in the only fireplace on the hill, and is there anything so cheery and inviting? At the other