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diff --git a/old/52398-0.txt b/old/52398-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5a1583c..0000000 --- a/old/52398-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5558 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Silver Queen, by Caroline Bancroft - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Silver Queen - The Fabulous Story of Baby Doe Tabor - - -Author: Caroline Bancroft - - - -Release Date: June 23, 2016 [eBook #52398] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SILVER QUEEN*** - - -E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 52398-h.htm or 52398-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52398/52398-h/52398-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52398/52398-h.zip) - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - - - - -SILVER QUEEN - -The Fabulous Story of Baby Doe Tabor - - -Copyright 1950, 1955 by Caroline Bancroft -All rights in this book are reserved. It may not be used for dramatic, -radio, television, motion or talking picture purposes without written -authorization. -Johnson Publishing Co., Boulder, Colorado - - - [Illustration: _The Denver Post_] - - - - - The Author - - -Caroline Bancroft is a third generation Coloradan who began her literary -career by joining the staff of _The Denver Post_ in 1928. For five years -she edited a book page and wrote historical features for the Sunday -edition. On a travel assignment for the _New York Evening Post_, she -interviewed a long list of celebrated authors in New York, London, -Paris, Holland and India. Her articles have appeared in many nationally -known magazines. - -Her long-standing interest in western history was inherited. Her pioneer -grandfather, Dr. F. J. Bancroft (after whom the three-crested, -Continental Divide peak just south of James is named) was a founder of -the Colorado Historical Society and its first president for seventeen -years. Her father, George J. Bancroft, a mining engineer, wrote many -mining and reclamation contributions to the growing body of Colorado -lore. - -Caroline Bancroft has carried on the family tradition. A Bachelor of -Arts from Smith College, she later obtained a Master of Arts degree from -the University of Denver, writing her thesis on Central City, Colorado. -She has taught Colorado history at Randell School in Denver and is the -author of the intensely interesting series of Bancroft Booklets about -Colorado, including _Historic Central City_, _Denver’s Lively Past_, -_Augusta Tabor_, _Tabor’s Matchless Mine and Lusty Leadville_, _Famous -Aspen_, _Glenwood’s Early Glamour_, _The Brown Palace_, _The Unsinkable -Mrs. Brown_ and the extremely popular _Colorful Colorado_. - - Edwin C. Johnson, - Governor of Colorado - 1931-37, 1955-57 - - - - -SILVER QUEEN - -The fabulous story of Baby Doe Tabor - -by - -CAROLINE BANCROFT - - - - - - - -Johnson Publishing Company -Boulder, Colorado -1962 - - - - - _My Interest in Baby Doe_ - - -The formerly beautiful and glamorous Baby Doe Tabor, her millions lost -many years before, was found dead on her cabin floor at the Matchless -Mine in Leadville, Colorado, on March 7, 1935. Her body, only partially -clothed, was frozen with ten days’ stiffness into the shape of a cross. -She had lain down on her back on the floor of her stove-heated one room -home, her arms outstretched, apparently in sure foreboding that she was -to die. - -Newspapers and wires flashed the story to the world, telling the tragic -end of the eighty-year-old recluse who had, during the decade of the -1880s, been one of the richest persons in the United States. Her body -was found by a young woman, known to Leadville as Sue Bonnie (her real -name was Naomi Pontiers), with whom Mrs. Tabor had been very sociable -during the last three years of the older woman’s life. Sue Bonnie had -become concerned when she saw no smoke coming from her friend’s cabin -and had persuaded Tom French to break a way through three feet of snow -from Little Stray Horse Gulch to Mrs. Tabor’s lonely cabin on Fryer -Hill. When the couple peered through the window, they discovered her -prostrate form. - -The once proud beauty was dead. Leadville, Denver, Central City and the -world reacted immediately, producing a host of memories to round out the -details of her extraordinary career. Other reminiscences came from -Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where she was born, and from Washington, D. C., -where she had married Tabor, President Arthur and several members of the -cabinet in attendance at the wedding. - -Her story had been a drama of contrasts, from rags to riches and from -riches back to rags again, the whole play enacted against the backdrop -of Colorado’s magnificent and munificent mountains. But what those -ruthless snow-capped peaks give, they also take away and almost as if -they were gods, they single out certain characters in history to destroy -by first making mad. Mrs. Tabor went to her death with a delusion about -the Matchless Mine. - -She had lived during the last years of her life largely through the -charity of the citizens of Leadville and the company that held the -mortgage on the Matchless. The mine had produced no ore in years and was -not really equipped to work, although she could not find it in her soul -to admit the harsh fact of reality. She dressed in mining clothes and -off and on during the last twenty years made a pretense of getting out -ore with a series of men she inveigled to work on shares. But she either -quarreled with these partners when she became suspicious of their -honesty or the men became disillusioned about the supposed fortune -hidden in the Matchless and drifted off. - -I only met her once, in the summer of 1927, when I called on her with my -father, a mining engineer, who was making a swing around the state to -report on the mining situation. Mrs. Tabor, who had known my father for -many years, showed us over the premises. She was polite to me but -largely ignored me since she was concentrating on my father with the -hope he might get her new backing. - -The tiny cabin she lived in had been a former tool and machine shop of -the Matchless and the actual hoisthouse was perhaps thirty feet or so -away. When we entered the hoisthouse, it already had an aura of ghosts. -Dirt and rust were accumulating from disuse and covered the hoist, -cables and machinery that were still left there. It was my father’s -opinion, voiced to me as we drove off past the Robert E. Lee mine, that -quite a lot of machinery had been stolen from the hoisthouse without her -being aware of it. Or perhaps “the old lady,” as he spoke of her, had -sold it to get enough to eat and had forgotten the transaction in the -forgetfulness of what mountaineers call “cabin fever,” a strangeness -that overtakes elderly people who live alone. - -I was not so interested in the mining aspects of her situation as my -father (who was always avid on the scent of ore—gold, silver, copper, -tungsten, and at the end, rare minerals such as vanadium, molybdenum, -uranium, titanium and tantalum). What interested me about Mrs. Tabor -were her looks and her personality. I studied her quietly while she and -my father talked about the glorious riches that would be uncovered if -she “could just drift a little further north on the third level” or -“sink a winze through to that stope on the fourth.” - -She was a little woman, very withered, and unattractively dressed in -men’s corduroy trousers, mining boots and a soiled, torn blouse. She had -a blue bandana tied around her head and when we first drove up back of -the Matchless, as close as the car could make it and started to walk to -her cabin, she met us halfway, a very belligerent expression on her -face. My father and she had not met in several years and it was not -until after he gave his name that her manner changed. - -She smiled then and said, “Why, of course, pray do forgive me. And what -a beautiful daughter you have! It is my lasting sorrow that the Lord’s -work has taken my own daughter....” - -I could not have been more startled. The smile, the manner, the voice -and the flowery speech were anomalous in that strange figure. Her smile -was positively, although very briefly, gay and flashing; the teeth, even -and white and the voice, clear and bell-like, while the manner I can -only describe as queenly despite her diminutive size. - -I only remember two other things about that afternoon. After we had -spent some time in the hoisthouse and walking about outside, while she -and my father talked about the direction of veins and probable apexes, -the price of silver and other matters not very interesting to my -youthful ears, Father suggested that in the car he had a jug of homemade -wine his housekeeper had made. It was during Prohibition and wine of any -sort was a rarity so that when he invited her to have a drink for old -time’s sake, she seemed pleased and asked us up to the ledge to her -cabin. - -While Father went back to the car for the wine, she and I strolled on -ahead. I complimented her on the spectacular view of Mt. Massive and Mt. -Elbert, two among three of Colorado’s highest peaks, that we had had -driving out Little Strayhorse Gulch. - -She did not say anything but she turned her eyes full upon me, the only -time I think that she looked directly at me. Again I was startled. They -were very far apart and a gorgeous blue, their unusual color preserved -through all the violence and drama and bitterness of her then -seventy-two years. - -Her cabin, really no more than a shack, was crowded with very primitive -furniture, decorated with religious pictures, and stacked high in -newspapers. It was quite neat although, to my mind, it could have stood -a good dusting and the window panes had evidently not been washed since -the winter snows. We drank our wine from an assortment of cups, one of -them tin. She apologized for their not being very clean and said -something about hauling her drinking water from some distance and using -boiled mine water for other purposes. - -I did not listen—to my shame, now. While they went on talking, I -entertained myself with my own thoughts. I knew almost no Colorado -history in those days; I had been out of the state for nine years at -school, college and working in the East, my interests completely -disassociated. To me, she was just one more of the queer mining -characters my father knew, and he knew dozens. But I lived to regret my -youthful ignorance and indifference. - -At the time she died, I was in the East and two years later, the editor -of _True Story_ magazine commissioned me to write her biography, my fare -being paid from New York to Colorado to do research for a five-part -serial. I spent eight months in Leadville, Central City and Denver -talking to old-timers, literally scores of them, who had known Baby Doe -Tabor. I also looked up court records of Gilpin and Lake Counties and -read old newspaper files. Through the years I have intermittently -continued my study of Baby Doe, adding to my knowledge of her in the -course of other researches. But for human interest details, my greatest -source of information proved to be Sue Bonnie who had discovered Mrs. -Tabor’s body. - -Sue Bonnie sold me the use of her name in order to meet the editorial -requirements of _True Story_ and in consequence, the original version of -“Silver Queen,” now very much altered, appeared from January to May of -1938, signed “Sue Bonnie.” Of course, the serial was actually written by -me, but through the publicity of that seeming authorship, she later -became something of a town figure on her own. Sue Bonnie has since died. - -This young woman had drifted into Leadville from New Haven, Connecticut, -and had struck up an intimate friendship with Mrs. Tabor, apparently -since the pretty Easterner reminded Mrs. Tabor of her dead daughter, -Silver Dollar. The older woman had nicknamed the curly black-haired Sue, -“Songbird,” and it was their custom to visit back and forth two or three -nights a week in each other’s cabins, exchanging tales of dreams they -had had, their probable meanings and writing down spiritualistic -revelations they obtained from a ouija board. - -Sue Bonnie gave me a large number of these papers written in a stubby -pencil by Mrs. Tabor’s hand and a scrap-book of hers pasted up -spasmodically by the older woman. I, in turn, donated these documents to -the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library where they -may be viewed today by serious research workers. These papers are very -helpful to an understanding of Baby Doe’s character in its declining -years. - -But what was most revealing were the many reminiscences of the past -which Mrs. Tabor chose to tell Sue Bonnie. Neither her friend nor I had -any way of telling whether these many intimate memories of Baby Doe’s -were literally true. Sue Bonnie, who idolized her, believed every word -and I, for my part, found in those instances where I could check what -Baby Doe Tabor said against documentary evidence that they were -substantially right. - -I was never sure about Baby Doe’s exact age; I thought she had tampered -with it—and I said so in the first editions of this booklet. Oshkosh -readers interested themselves in my problem. They established the fact -that for Colorado consumption she had taken six years off her age and -had arranged a middle name for a more pleasing and romantic effect. I -still hope to journey to Oshkosh sometime to personally thank residents -there for copies of her christening, her wedding and other important -documents. In 1953, the Colorado Historical Society opened to research -workers letters and scrapbooks in their possession, unavailable for -eighteen years after her death, so that a definitive biography may -finally be written. - -But in whatever form it is presented, popular or scholarly, Baby Doe’s -story has an astonishing vitality. Her name is as imperishable as the -mountains she chose to live in for the greater part of her life. Her -cabin in Leadville was for many years torn at and carved upon by -souvenir-hunting tourists. Finally, it was a desolate ruin, until, in -1953, I spearheaded a civic movement to restore the cabin and open it as -a tourist attraction. The cabin is now an almost exact replica of the -home she lived in. Also, some of the fragile gold furniture and jewel -box, salvaged from her heyday, may be seen at the Teller House in -Central City. Until 1958 her famous suite could be seen at the Windsor -Hotel in Denver, and her wedding dress and other Tabor relics are on -exhibit at the Colorado Historical Museum. She is immortal. - - -So let us have Baby Doe Tabor tell us of her life in nearly her own -words—many she actually used in talking to Sue Bonnie and others I have -imagined as consonant with her character and the facts of her story. - - - - - _Chapter One_ - - -“Oh, you are too beautiful to work, my lovely Bessie. I want you to keep -your arms always as exquisite as they are now. Never spoil those -curves!” - -I can remember my mother pushing me away from a scrub-board with these -words when I was a girl. It was in the kitchen of our home in Oshkosh, -Wisconsin, just before the great fires of 1874 and 1875. Papa was still -quite rich, even though he had been badly hit in the horrible fire of -1859. Later he was nearly ruined by these last ones which practically -destroyed our whole town twice in little more than a year. Mama was a -darling. She had a gay, uncomplaining disposition, although she bore -fourteen children and life was far from easy for her. She was very good -to all us children but I think, in some ways, I was her favorite of the -eleven who grew up. She always said she wanted me to have all the things -she had missed and little did we think, then, how fabulously and how -violently her wish would be fulfilled. - -My parents were Irish and were very good Catholics. Before St. Peter’s -Church was erected in 1850, divine services were held in our home since -my father, Peter McCourt, was a good friend of Father Bonduel. Father -Bonduel was the first missionary priest of that wild lumber country. He -had spent twelve years with the Indians of Lake Poygan before he came to -Oshkosh, and his spirit was an inspiring one. - -All Father Bonduel’s adventures had happened, of course, many years -before I was born. But so fond were Mama and Papa of him that when I -came along, the fourth child, they were still talking about him while I -was growing up. He died when I was seven years old, but I liked the -stories about him so much that I changed my middle name from Nellis to -Bonduel, later on. I was christened Elizabeth Nellis McCourt (which was -Mama’s name) at St. Peter’s on Oct. 7, 1854, when I was twelve days old. -My religion, so begun, was to stand me in good stead as the years rolled -by with their extraordinary story. - -“Too beautiful to work!” - -I’m afraid that phrase helped to make me vain, and I already had the -upright pride natural to all us McCourts. But there were lots of other -things besides vanity and pride instilled into me as I was maturing, -too. I would not for the world want to reflect on the bringing-up Papa -and Mama gave me. They were truly fine people, respected and admired by -the conservative members of the community. - -Oshkosh, in those days, was a very lively, up-and-coming town. It had -been called after Chief Oshkosh, a famous Indian of the Butte des Morts -district, whose name in Menominee speech means “brave.” And certainly no -town was more brave. It had every grandeur of bravery—the swaggering -bravery of the frontier and the spiritual bravery of people who have -great faith. - -The swaggering frontier bravery was all around. It resounded in the -dangerous felling of pines, the perilous running of logs, the great -lumber barges with their snarling bargemen floating through the middle -of the town into beautiful Lake Winnebago. Seventeen sawmills, six -shingle mills, and three planing mills buzzed and whirred constantly. In -these, many friends and acquaintances were amassing great lumber -fortunes. - -Today the forests have been cut back into the northern part of the -state. But at that time Oshkosh was at the outlet of the Wolf pinery. -Log runners, tree cutters, millers, shippers—lumbermen of all sorts came -into Oshkosh for a good time, with their wages or their pile, and many -remained to build homes and settle down. They were a devil-may-care, -hearty lot, ruddy-skinned and robust. Hardly any foreigners were among -them. Mostly they were enterprising young Americans who had come from -farther East to grow up in a new country. Their masculine bravery made a -great impression on a young girl’s heart. - -The spiritual bravery of the place was also magnificent. When I was -nineteen and twenty we had those two terrific fires in the town which -practically destroyed it. Papa had a clothing and custom-tailoring store -at 21 Main street. It was from McCourt & Cameron that most of the -fashionable men of the town bought their suits and accessories. I liked -to hang around the store to watch them drive up in their smart buggies -and toss the reins to a hitching-post boy Papa hired. Nearly always they -would stop at the counter before going to the fitting rooms at the rear -and say: - -“Beautiful daughter you have there, Mr. McCourt—aren’t you afraid -someone will steal her?” - -I thought this much more fun than associating with girls my own age, and -when the first fire started I was, as usual, down at the store. It began -up the street, and since all the buildings were frame, spread rapidly. I -ran home with the news. - -“Mama, our store’s on fire!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as soon as -I got home. Our house was a palatial one on Division street easily to be -compared with the fine residences on stately oak-lined Algoma boulevard. -We even kept a maid of all work—but these good days were soon to pass. -July 14, 1874, was a fatal day. - -Mama came running out on the verandah, and the expression on her face -was dreadful. Up to that moment I had only thought of the excitement of -it all. But when I saw her horror and dismay I realized the danger. -Perhaps Papa would be killed fighting the fire—or if he lived through -it, he might not have enough money to build a new store and stock it. -All sorts of awful thoughts ran through my head and they were true -forebodings. We lost both our store and our lovely house in this -disaster. - -So did lots of other brave people. It seems impossible when I think of -it now. But there were actually seven hundred structures—houses, barns, -and places of business that had to be rebuilt that summer. The smell of -new lumber, which goodness knows we were used to in Oshkosh, now came -from our own front yards. Since our house was lost, we went to stay with -more fortunate friends of Mama’s until we could re-build. We had our -lumber delivered to their yard so that it wouldn’t be stolen. It was all -very exciting. - -“Frontier courage,” Mama said. - -“Faith,” Papa contradicted, because he believed everything that happened -was God’s will. - -The hammering, banging and shouting that summer were terrific. The noise -and energy made a deep impression on me. My brothers and I would walk -around and watch the bustling, stimulating activity. It was one of the -most delightful vacations I ever spent. That year I didn’t go down to -the waterfront as much as I generally did, to watch the steamers hauling -fleets of logs and timbers. I didn’t bother to see the graceful yachts -of the Oshkosh Yacht Club go skimming out over the broad blue waters of -the lake toward Calumet County on the eastern shore. I just watched the -carpentry sideshows along Main Street. - -It was the next spring that brought final tragedy to Papa’s fortunes. He -and his partner had just got a store re-built and running again when the -Lord’s chastisement fell once more. It was a windy spring day, April 28, -1875, that another fire broke out, this time in Morgan’s mill. Papa had -been home to dinner and it was just past one o’clock when I was -shepherding my younger brothers and sister, Claudia, back to school. As -we started down the street a lumberman on a horse came galloping up. - -“We need every able-bodied man down by Fox River. Fire in Morgan’s -mill,” he yelled to Papa. - -We all climbed into the buggy and set off at a fast trot. The tugs -slapped the horses’ flanks as we all but flew down hill in the violent -wind. When we drew onto Jackson Drive, enormous flying cinders were -shooting from Morgan’s mill and floating across to some lumber piles. -The scene was unbelievably beautiful, but there was a note of -desperation in Papa’s voice: - -“We’re done for in this wind—” - -He was right. Roaring and crackling, the lumber piles by the river went -up in flames like match-boxes. Immediately the street became bedlam. -Everybody tore towards their stores to try to save their stocks of -goods. Breathless, terror-stricken, we ran behind Papa toward our own -store, where he and his partner, Mr. Cameron, loaded us with goods to -stow in the buggy. All Main street was wild. Someone rushed up and tried -to grab our team’s bridles and lead them off. I was just coming out of -the door with a bolt of brown suiting. - -“Hey, there!” I yelled, dropping the bolt and making a dive for the -buggy whip. - -The man ducked and dashed off. Before I knew what was happening -something thundered by and knocked me down. Luckily I wasn’t hurt. As I -started to cry out in protest, I saw it was a crazed horse with no -bridle that someone had let loose from the livery stable a few doors -down. - -Beyond, pandemonium was rampant everywhere. The whole town was trying to -save something, seizing any sort of empty vehicle or cart and piling -stuff in. The board walk was alive with jostling crowds, fighting their -way in and out of the stores. Careening teams in the street broke away -from their drivers and ran away from the fire, some of them overturning -their wagons as they fled. Luckily, we were able to hold our team still, -and after the buggy was filled with goods, we unfastened the tugs and -hitched the horses to a buckboard we found abandoned in the street. Papa -and Mr. Cameron filled it and drove off. Grasping the tongue of the -buggy, we young McCourts were able to haul it slowly up Main Street away -from danger. The spreading fire blazed fiercely, and near us walls were -falling. - -The flames took only twenty minutes to race from Morgan’s mill to the -Milwaukee and St. Paul depot and freight station. We had hoped the fire -would turn back toward the river, but it was becoming evident that it -wouldn’t. After our store caught and we had carted away what goods we -could, we went back as near as we dared to watch the terrific holocaust. - -“Oh, I can’t bear it!” I wailed as I began to realize the extent of the -destruction before my eyes. - -The Harding Opera House was starting to go. Flames from the large -windows of the Temple of Honor and its projecting wooden balcony were -leaping out and licking my favorite building, the Opera House. In the -midst of the noise and confusion I got separated from the rest of the -family and just stood, numb and helpless, my eyes filling with tears. -The Opera House was a symbol to me—it made my secret ambition to be an -actress seem more than a dream—and I had had thrilling afternoons there -enjoying matinees of the many road companies as well as at our own -McCourt Hall, which had been the theatrical center before the Opera -House was built. Now both were going— - -I put my hands up to my eyes to shut out the sight. But the roar in my -ears remained, and was just as heart-rending. Fascinated as if by a -spell, I uncovered my eyes and stared. I couldn’t move. After hardly -burning at all, the walls of the Opera House collapsed with a terrifying -rumble that made the ground tremble. Thudding bricks rolled near me. The -terrific heat at its sides had been too much for the great pile I -adored. - -“You better not stand so close. It’s moving this way. Where’s all your -family?” A man’s voice said behind me. - -I turned around but could hardly see through my tears. - -“You were wonderful,” he went on, “hauling that buggy away from your -father’s store.” - -“Oh, I’m so upset—and it looks as if it never would stop. I’m afraid our -houses will catch next—” - -Then the swirling crowd separated us and he was gone. - -The great blaze kept up till midnight, spotting the dark night with -sudden flashes of red, and spreading over the whole town an ominous halo -of light. For a long time I watched its destruction. It seemed the end -of the world. - -The next morning, the heaviest gloom pervaded our breakfast table at my -sister’s house, Mrs. Andrew Haben’s. - -“Well, Mama,” Papa said, “we’re just about cleaned out. I think I can -borrow enough to build a new store—and it’ll be brick this time—two -fires in one year are enough—but I don’t know what I’ll do to stock it. -Or where we will live.” - -“You’ll manage somehow, Papa. You always have.” - -When we went down street, everyone was already outside estimating the -damage, throwing dirt over a few smouldering places, and pulling debris -out of the wreckage to see if there were any salvage value. You cannot -imagine the spirit of that town! Hardly anyone was talking about losses. -But on all sides there was earnest talk of dimensions and materials, for -these eager people were impatient to get to work on their new buildings. -Many families had lost their homes and had bunked in with friends, -sitting up most of the night to tell of exciting side adventures that -had befallen them that frightful day. As we came by, many of them ran -out to repeat these stories to us. - -Papa and his partner, Mr. Cameron, set to work on their plans, too. -Within the year they had erected at 21 Main Street, now numbered to be -64, a splendid brick and stone building which cost $4,000. Papa’s -interest in the store had to be very much less because practically all -his capital (which was around $75,000) had gone in the fires. The bank -really owned the store and Papa worked for a salary as a merchant tailor -despite the fact that he had opened the third clothing store in Oshkosh -and in the early days had been one of its most enterprising business -men. I know this was very galling to Mama’s pride but I was too young -and heedless then to really understand how deep was her humiliation. My -own affairs absorbed me. - -“The belle of Oshkosh!” - -That was my nickname—and more. So many times did I hear myself thus -described that I had decided I really was the belle of Oshkosh. And -because I had my three younger brothers, all near my own age, and their -friends to associate with, it was only to be expected that I should -gravitate toward the opposite sex. As I had grown older, Mama, who was -very proud of my looks, encouraged me in this tendency. - -By the time I was sixteen I was five feet four, as tall as I was ever to -be. In later years it amused me very much the way in which writers all -across the country would refer to me as “regal” or “queenly” considering -how short I actually was. But I could understand how they came to choose -those words because I always kept my carriage meticulously correct—no -matter what hardships or disappointments, my chin was high—and that must -have given an illusion of greater height. Perhaps I really did seem -“queenly.” - -All my life people have complimented me on the sweet flash of my smile -which gave them a glimpse of my even white teeth, and made my bright -blue, far-apart Irish eyes sparkle merrily. I have never lost my smile. -But at twenty I had a peaches-and-cream complexion, and a curving, -rounded figure which everyone found very seductive. My hair was light -golden, rather reddish, and naturally curly. My nose was slightly -tip-tilted, and my mouth was rounded and soft. My ready wit was the true -Irish “gift of gab.” - -Brought up in such an energetic town by industrious, ambitious parents, -I was naturally very high-spirited. In addition, I had a marvelous -constitution, which stood me in good stead all my life—I was seldom to -have need of a doctor except when my babies were born. My parents and -brothers spoiled me and men all around paid me attention. It was only -natural that I should be headstrong, and feel no need for the friendship -of women—especially since I could clearly see they were jealous. - -All during the next months Oshkosh was hard at work with the same spirit -it had shown the year before—as always immune to the heart-break of -recurrent disaster. In 1875, the people built four hundred and -seventy-six brick and fireproof buildings, and laid ten miles of -sidewalk. That was a herculean task for a town of seventeen thousand—but -do it they did! By now, though, I was too busy with my beaux to pay much -attention to anything except my flirtations. I was going to dances and -sociables, attending the theatre, taking buggy rides behind smart -trotters, and sailing with yachting parties on thirty-mile Lake -Winnebago. - -“You oughtn’t to sit up until midnight sewing for that girl and making -her clothes,” Papa would complain to Mama. “And you ought to chaperone -her more—she’ll get a bad name.” - -But Mama would just laugh. - -“Lizzie will take care of herself. She’s got a head on her shoulders. I -wouldn’t be surprised if she became a great actress and why not, with -her looks? Besides, I want her to have all the good times I missed!” - -Papa would turn away with a shudder. He did not approve of Mama’s -encouraging me in my desire to go on the stage, or of her taking me to -matinees whenever we had a little extra money to spend. He would put on -his hat and leave quietly by the back door to pray alone in church. To -him McCourt Hall had merely been a place to bring in rentals. He never -watched the shows and he felt our souls inclined too much toward the -paths of sin. - -One April evening in 1876 my brother, Peter, and I took a walk. I -stopped to get up on an enormous keg of nails to peer through a window -into a new house where the men had stopped work. Behind me, I heard my -brother, Pete, say: - -“Hello!” - -I turned around, and there was a very nice-looking young man standing on -a lumber pile, also inspecting what the workmen had accomplished. All of -us young people were very much interested in this particular house -because the owners had sent all the way to Chicago for the latest -wall-papers. As far as I could see, they were gold and brown flowered -patterns, but the dining-room paper was still in rolls on the floor, and -looked as if it were going to be a red geometric design. - -“Hello,” the young man said. “Is that your sister?” - -“Yes,” Pete answered proudly, “my sister Elizabeth.” - -“Hello,” the stranger said to me shyly, “I’m Harvey Doe.” - -“Oh yes,” I replied, “I know who you are. Your father comes into the -store.” - -“Yes,” he answered slowly—and then with a rush, “and he says you’re the -prettiest girl in town.” - -After blurting out this he blushed, stepped off the lumber pile, and -started down the street. - -“Well, I’ll settle him—” Pete began menacingly. - -“Oh, don’t, Pete. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything. Look how he blushed. -I think he wanted to be nice.” - -Secretly, I was very pleased. - -“Funny way of showing it,” Pete grumbled. But with that the episode was -closed and we both gave our thoughts to other youthful interests. - -He had spoken in a soft, refined voice, and I was quite attracted. I -arranged with my older brother, Jim, to bring him over to call a few -nights later. I noticed how different he was from most of the chaps I -knew. He seemed more quiet and chivalrous. When I had seen him on the -street, I had thought his shyness just gawky, rather peculiar in a -grown-up, but now it seemed strangely attractive. I began to look at him -with fresh appreciation. - -Harvey Doe stayed several hours, visiting with us all that evening, and -from that night on I began to feel real affection. Everything was more -serious after that. Mama asked him to come to supper one night soon and -he accepted. I had found my true love at last. - -That winter there was more than usually good skating. Oshkosh was always -famous for its ice and, before artificial refrigeration came in, at -certain times of the winter the lake would be covered with a great band -of men and troops of horses, cutting ice. Each team of horses drew an -ice “plough” which had seven cast-steel cutters on it. Naturally, with -the residential district sloping right down from a little elevation to -this lake, everyone did lots of skating and had skating parties in the -winter. - -“Did you know the young men at our church are going to have a -competition for the best skater on Saturday afternoon?” Harvey Doe said -to me one evening. “I’m going to try for the first prize—though I don’t -suppose I shall have a chance.” - -Harvey’s family belonged to the Methodist and Congregational Churches—in -fact his uncle, the Reverend F. B. Doe, had preached the opening-day -sermon when they finished building their church that year of 1875. He -had also preached in Central City, Colorado, in the first years of the -gold rush where he had gone to visit his brother, Harvey’s father, who -had mining interests in the famous camp. His family was the sort of -Protestants who thought of Catholics almost as heathen idol-worshippers. -Harvey never said anything to me about their attitude, but I had heard -from the neighbors that his mother wasn’t a bit pleased with his seeing -so much of a “Romanist and Papist.” - -“I’d just like to show Mrs. Doe up,” I thought to myself—I was an -extraordinarily good skater, and could do all sorts of figures and -arabesques—so I asked aloud: - -“Who’s going to be allowed to compete?” - -“Oh, anyone in Oshkosh who wants to and can pay the entrance fee—it -isn’t really a church affair. It’s just to make money for some of our -church charities.” - -That settled the matter with me. All the next week I stole down to the -lake and practiced in a secluded spot. I knew no other girl would enter, -since it wasn’t considered ladylike to appear in public lifting one’s -legs as it was necessary to do to be a good figure skater. But I didn’t -care about that—I would really rather enjoy shocking the town. - -I kept my plan a secret from everyone except Mama. She thought it would -be as much fun as I, and started fixing over a green woolen outfit I -had. She shortened the skirt and trimmed a green hat with a band of fur -to go with the dress. One of her dearest possessions was a set of mink—a -long tippet and a muff to match. She loaned me these to wear, and I -practiced two afternoons with them on. I had to get used to balancing -and keeping in motion while still holding the muff gracefully. - -Saturday afternoon arrived. Pretty nearly the whole town was gathered on -the bank, sitting on rugs or grouped around little bonfires. The judges -were three older men very important in the community—I think one of them -was Mr. James Clark, the match manufacturer. I had just made my entry -under the name of L. McCourt. Everyone thought it was one of my -brothers, not paying much attention to the first initial. Imagine their -consternation when my name was called and I stepped out from the crowd -at the bank! - -“Lizzie McCourt!”—I could hear my name being whispered all around from -one group to another and I could also imagine the raised eyebrows of -Mrs. Doe. It really amused me. I took several little running steps on my -skates and then sailed out onto the ice and into the improvised rink. As -I twirled and skimmed by the judge’s stand, they smiled. I knew in my -heart it was only the women on the banks who would be against me. The -men had too ready a twinkle for the fetching figure I was cutting in my -green and brown outfit. - -It was great fun having all the eyes of the town focused on my movements -and instead of being frightened I found the experience exhilarating. -This is what it would be like if I ever got to be a great actress! My -performance passed in a dream, and seemed over in a moment. Soon I was -sitting on the bank again with Mama while she tucked me up under a -laprobe from the buggy. - -“You were wonderful, dear,” she said, her eyes aglow with excitement. - -The contest went on, but I was so thrilled with my daring that I -couldn’t concentrate on the other competitors. What was my surprise, -though, a little later to hear one of the judges call out: - -“First prize—Miss McCourt.” - -Me, the only girl among all those boys and men! I really was tickled to -have won over them all. I scrambled out of the laprobe as fast as I -could and hurried on to the ice to receive the blue ribbon and box of -candy that was being held out to me. First prize, Miss McCourt! - -Harvey came over after supper to call. - -“You really were wonderful, Lizzie,” he said. “Mother and I quarreled -about you all the way home, but I think you were superb. I just knew I -loved you when I saw you out there on the ice before all those -people—not even perturbed—it was glorious—and I know now that I want to -marry you.” - -“Why, Harvey....” - -This was not the first proposal I had had, but it was the first to move -me deeply. - -Harvey had always seemed to me different from the other men of the town, -and he _was_ different. He would come over to play the piano for all my -family in the evening, seeming to love us all. He would join in the -general fun without trying to monopolize me, like most of the other men. - -He wasn’t so terribly much older than I, under two years, but he seemed -older. He was always so considerate and unselfish. Though shy, he -carried his years with a dignified air of responsibility. I think it was -this, added to his sweetness, and musical talent that made him stand out -from the others. Anyway, deep down in my heart I must have known for a -long time that I was just waiting for Harvey. - -“But, Harvey, what will we live on? If your family doesn’t approve of -me, what can you do?” - -“I think Father knows how I feel—he’ll help us. He said something the -other day about sending me out to see about some mining property he’s -part owner of at Central City, Colorado. We’ll go West and make our -fortune overnight in gold. People are doing it all the time out there!” - -Love and adventure all at once! - -It seemed as if my whole life were blossoming into one great golden -sunburst that evening. For some time I had been gazing across the broad -waters of Lake Winnebago and picturing the world beyond. The more I -thought about it, the more I knew I didn’t want to settle down in -Oshkosh. I wanted to try my wings—with Harvey! But I still didn’t say -anything to him as we sat there. - -“Let’s just be secretly engaged for a while,” Harvey went on, “until you -get used to the idea. And maybe Mother will change—.” - -Romance began for me then, warming gradually each day into a brighter -and more glowing emotion. It was several months before I even told Mama -what I was planning. I kept right on seeing other men meanwhile. But -more and more I knew girls were saying catty things behind my back, -insinuating I was fast. Several older women had cut me dead ever since -the skating contest, and I was beginning to be not only restive, but -rebellious. - -“It’ll certainly show them all up if I marry Harvey!” I said to Mama, -with a toss of my head. - -The Doe family was very much respected in Oshkosh. Harvey’s father, W. -H. Doe, was so important in the community that one of the new fire -houses and steamers, located at 134 High Street was named after him—the -W. H. Doe Steamer. The snobbish girls who said I was just the common -daughter of an Irish tailor would certainly have to eat their words if I -were Mrs. W. H. Doe, Jr. - -“Pay no attention to them, Bessie,” Mama said. “They’re just jealous of -your looks—and wish they could attract men as easily as you do.” - -But, little by little, they _were_ bothering me, and more wholly and -longingly I was falling in love with Harvey. He was very sympathetic -with all my pet foibles, and was the only man I ever met who encouraged -me to develop my acting ability. He said that naturally anyone as -beautiful and talented as I had the right to be seen by many people. -That would only be possible if I were on the stage. - -“Only I love you and need you much more than audiences who haven’t yet -had a chance to know you!” he would add, with a beseeching, tremulous -smile. - -But I wanted more time and it was not until spring, 1877, that we -actually announced our engagement. When we finally told our plans, the -Does were very bitter. They said things about me, and even added to -remarks made in the town—at least Mrs. Doe did. Mr. Doe did not feel -that way, but he probably felt he couldn’t contradict his wife and -relatives. - -Mama made a glorious trousseau and spent much more money than she should -have, which made Papa either complain disagreeably, or brood in long -sulky silences. I kept telling him Harvey and I would make such a -splendid fortune in Colorado that in no time I could pay him back. But -Papa was getting old, and this didn’t cheer him up a bit. My younger -brothers and sister, however, especially Claudia, were thrilled at the -prospect of picking gold nuggets off the ground or from the creek beds! -Their eyes would get as big as silver dollars while I talked to them of -the marvelous life Harvey and I were going to lead out West. - -I had always thought the morning of my wedding day would be the happiest -of my life, but somehow this wasn’t. I couldn’t tell why. As I jumped -out of bed and ran to the window to see what the day was like I had a -brief feeling of foreboding. Quickly I shook it off and made myself -think: - -“Ridiculous! You’re worried because Mrs. Doe has been so difficult and -at the last minute may not come to the wedding at all—or make a scene in -front of all the guests.” - -Soon my chin was up, and I was light-hearted and gay again, planning -ahead for the golden future that was to be Harvey’s and mine—dreaming -those fairy-tale dreams of a happy bride who is setting out on the -hopeful path of marriage with the man she loves devotedly. - -The rest of that day, June 27, 1877, went smoothly enough. I was -twenty-two and Harvey was twenty-three. We were married by Father James -O’Malley at St. Peter’s Church. My brother-in-law, Andrew Haben, was -mayor of Oshkosh that year and both our families were so well-known that -crowds were standing in the street and the church was overflowing. We -had a small reception afterward. Mrs. Doe was cold and taciturn and -repressed, but at least she was not openly rude to me or any of my -family. Mr. Doe was obviously happy, but whether because of our marriage -or because Harvey was going to Central City to carry on with his mining -interests I couldn’t tell. - -Harvey’s shy eyes were alight and full of ecstatic unbelief every time I -looked at him. Mama was pleased and exuberant, playing the benevolent -hostess. I was triumphant, young and extravagantly hopeful. It was thus -I became Mrs. William H. Doe, Jr. - -As we left to go to the station I took a last, reflective look at -Oshkosh, “The Sawdust City.” Factories and mills burst with the rattle -and clang of industry. Across the two wagon bridges of the city moved -streams of traffic. Here in the bustle and excitement of a frontier town -I had been cradled. But now it was frontier no longer—and I was eager to -follow that exciting horizon Westward. Although I was sorry to leave my -family and home, I was breathless to be off. - -“Darling, now our life is really beginning,” Harvey whispered to me as -we stood on the little open back platform of the train pulling away from -the station. - -I leaned against him for support, and thrilled to the thought. We waved -handkerchiefs to our family and friends as long as we could see them, -shaking the rice from our clothes at the same time. Finally, laughing -merrily when Oshkosh was no more than a blur in the distance, we turned -into the train and took our seats in the coach. - -Outside the rolling, hilly country of Wisconsin was abloom. Green grassy -fields and waving marshes were flying past—or at least we thought of our -speed as flying. The little train really made not much more than fifteen -miles an hour, I imagine. But it seemed to me, who had never ridden on a -train before, that we were literally hurtling through space. - -“I love you, my sweet, beautiful little bride!” Harvey whispered -passionately, pressing my hand and looking adoringly into my eyes. His -words were like a song, sung to the rhythm and bounce of wheels along -the tracks—an urgent, earthy obligato. - -“And I love you, darling Harvey.” - -Our honeymoon had begun—the world was fair, and all life lay before us—I -couldn’t possibly describe the intoxication of that moment! - -After an arduous trip, steaming endlessly, it seemed, across prairie -lands of the Great American Desert, we arrived in Colorado. My first -glimpse of the Rockies, viewed from the train window one morning, did -something to me I was never to get over. All the adjectives in the -language have been used to describe that sight, by explorers, by learned -travelers, by writers, and by humble people keeping diaries. And still -it was an experience so important in my own life that I, too, must try. - -People have said they “rise up” suddenly—and so they do. But to me, on -that bright, crisp morning, they seemed to have been let down from the -sky, like a gigantic backdrop on the stage of the world, their colors of -grey and red and startling white painted on by a Master Hand. They -looked unreal, like an experience from another world, but at the same -time an experience of such magnitude and importance that I must bow in -worship before their granite strength and snow-white purity. - -“Aren’t they gorgeous?” Harvey asked. - -“They’re more than gorgeous,” I answered reverently, then silently -prayed to their rugged magnificence that, to the end, the power the -sight of them gave me might never wane. - -Some premonition told me in that moment my prayer would be heeded. I -could not suspect what those mountains would do in the shaping of my -life, but I was sure they would shape it. And so they did. I was never -again to be away from their influence, and only for brief periods away -from their sight. I loved them instinctively that day—and I never lost -that love—strange though it may seem for a girl brought up beside the -water. - -“They are our future” I added to Harvey, my voice trembling with -excitement. - -“Yes!” - -My future, yes—but not our future. Still, I could not know that, then, -nor even guess it. But deep in my bones, I felt their power. - -Denver in those days was a turbulent, thriving community, the trading -and outfitting center of all the dramatic mining activities of the -state. It had grown into a town of over thirty thousand population. -Pioneers struck it rich in the hills, but they brought their wealth to -Denver to spend. - -And spend it they did! I had never been in a hotel like the American -House. Every sort of cosmopolitan figure dotted its elegant lobby, -carpeted in red. These glamorous people smiled at me and invited my -husband into the bar. Five years before, the Grand Duke Alexis had been -entertained in the sumptuous dining-room of the hotel, transformed for -the occasion into a ballroom, and the hosts were all the great names of -Colorado. The belles of Central City (where I was now bound) had come -down from the mountains by stagecoach for the event. This was high -adventure, colorful pageantry—and I was a part of it. This was a new -world, where European royalty and English nobility moved perfectly -naturally. Those dreams I had dreamed on the shores of Lake Winnebago, -at home in Oshkosh, were actually coming true. - -Meanwhile, during our fortnight’s honeymoon, Harvey was studying miners’ -tools and equipment in the stores of Larimer Street and getting ready to -meet his father in Blackhawk for the mile’s drive to Central City. When -we started for Colorado’s great gold camps, I was tremendously stirred -and elated. I had been listening avidly to the many tales of untold -fortunes already made from the district’s famous “blossom rock.” I was -sure that ours was the next treasure tale that would come out of Central -City to be told over the massive bars of Larimer Street—the story of how -clever Harvey Doe had presented his beautiful bride with a gold mine -that would make her a millionaire only a few months after they were -married! - -The train that bore us westward toward James Peak puffed along in a -steep canon beside the gushing waters of Clear Creek, a creek no longer -clear, but green-grey in color because of the tailings from the -new-fangled mills that had been introduced to treat the ore. I was -disappointed in the looks of that water and I wondered if there were to -be other disappointments for me ahead, in those great mountains. But I -put the thought aside and went back to the vision of myself as an -elegant social leader in Denver— - -How soon would these mountains answer my prayers—or would they answer at -all? - - - - - _Chapter Two_ - - -The miners in the Central City district were changing shifts at noon. In -the midst of the turmoil Harvey and I got off the train at Blackhawk and -caught the stage for the mile’s ride up Gregory Gulch after being handed -a note from Mr. Doe directing us to a boarding house where rooms were -awaiting. As the miners scuffed along the dusty road in their heavy -boots, swinging lunch pails, they drifted into groups. From nearly every -one of these burst song, each group lending an air to the intermingled -medley. I was able to follow some of the melodies, which were of such a -haunting quality I leaned forward and tapped the driver on the back. - -“What are those men singing?” I asked. - -“Cornish songs. The miners are all Cousin Jacks hereabouts—that is, that -ain’t Irish. That’s why you see so much good stonework in them retaining -walls and buildings around here. When we git into Central, look up at -our school ’n ’Piscopal Church. Built by Cornishmen, or Cousin Jacks, as -we calls ’em. They brought the knack from the old country.” - -“But how do they have such splendid voices?” - -“Oh, them’s natural. Real musical people—and then all the high-class -people gets them into singin’ societies and sech. Last March a group put -on ‘The Bohemian Girl’ and now we’re goin’ to build the only Opry House -in Colorado for jest sech goin’s-on. When we don’t have shows goin’ -through, we have some sort of doin’s of our own. We’re the -up-and-comin’est camp in the West. Got some hankerin’ for higher -things.” - -I looked about me again after I heard this. It sounded odd to me that a -mining camp should be interested in culture but it also seemed -encouraging. I was thrilled to think they were building an opera house -and that the town specialized in amateur theatricals. I felt certain I -had come to the right place. Besides winning love and riches in this -strange setting, I would also get my long-cherished wish to go on the -stage! - -The setting was certainly strange enough to my eyes accustomed, as I -was, to flat, rolling country. The towns of Blackhawk, Mountain City, -Central City, Dogtown, and Nevadaville were all huddled on top of each -other in the narrow bottom of stark, treeless gulches in the most -puzzling jigsaw fashion, but totaling nearly 6,000 people. Mines, ore -dumps, mills, shafthouses, blacksmith shops, livery stables, railroad -trestles, cottages and fine residences were perched at crazy angles, -some on stilts, and scrambled together with no semblance of order while -they emitted an assortment of screeching, throbbing and pounding noises. - -The only corner that had any form at all was the junction of Lawrence -St., Main St. and Eureka St. in the business section of Central City. -Lawrence and Eureka were really continuations of the same street but -Main came uphill at a funny slant from where Spring and Nevada Gulches -met so that on one corner, a saloon, the building had to be shaped like -a slice of pie and across from it, the First National Bank building had -a corner considerably wider than a right angle. - -The air of the business buildings, despite their odd architectural -lines, was very substantial since, as the driver explained, they had all -been rebuilt in brick and stone just three years before, after Central -had had two disastrous fires in 1873 and 1874. I knew the tragedy of -fire in pioneer communities and sighed, remembering how Papa had lost -his money. This part of Central was more prepossessing than what we had -driven through. The rest was too battered from eighteen years’ careless -usage in men’s frenzy to tear the gold from the many lodes that crossed -Gregory Gulch—the Bobtail, Gregory, Bates and other famous producers. - -The driver pointed out our boarding house on the other side of town up -Roworth St., behind where the railway station would be when they -completed the switchback track that they were now building to climb the -500 feet rise from Blackhawk to Central. Harvey and I started to gather -up our valises and carry-alls. We told the express office to hold our -trunk until we knew our plans more definitely and trudged off. We met -Colonel Doe coming down the hill to meet us. - -“Hello, there, you newlyweds,” he called. “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you -at Blackhawk but I can’t drive our buggy in these hills until I get a -brake put on it.” - -Colonel Doe had a tall, commanding presence and he looked particularly -well against this mammoth country. He was always very bluff and genial -and he seemed to suit these boisterous, breezy surroundings. He laughed -now at the joke on himself. - -“I thought I was being so smart to ship our two-seated buggy out here to -save money. But the blasted thing’s no danged good without a brake! -After we have dinner, which is all ready at the boarding house, we’ll -drive to a blacksmith shop and get it fixed up. Then we’ll go see the -mine.” - -So that’s what we did. We drove to the blacksmith shop of John R. -Morgan, a Welshman who told my father-in-law he had settled in Wisconsin -when he first came over from Wales. Later he had moved farther West. In -turn, Colonel Doe told Morgan how he had lived in Central the first -years of its existence and how after selling out, had gone back to -Wisconsin where he was in the legislature in 1866 and had lived there -ever since. While the buggy was being outfitted, the older men had a -pleasant time exchanging comparisons of the two places. - -Harvey and I, meanwhile, talked to Mr. Morgan’s son, Evan. He was a -handsome nineteen-year-old lad who helped around the shop, shoeing heavy -ore teams while his father completed more complicated iron-work -commissions. He was quite stocky and strong and later did our work for -the mine, shoeing horses and making ore buckets. Their shop was on -Spring Street, just a stone’s throw from the Chinese alley whose joss -sticks had started Central’s worst conflagration. He was very affable, -had a good Welsh voice and sang me a few Celtic airs when I spoke of the -Cornishmen I had heard singing earlier. - -After the buggy was equipped for mountain travel, we set off for our -mine. I could hardly wait I was so excited. We bumped and scratched -along up the stiff pull of Nevada Street to Dogtown, turning out -frequently to let four-horse ore wagons pass, and then we tacked back -along Quartz Hill to the shafthouse. And there it was—the Fourth of July -mine! - -I’ll never forget how elated and excited I was, inspecting the mine that -day, little knowing what sorrow it was to bring. The mine was half -Colonel Doe’s and half Benoni C. Waterman’s. They had bought it in 1871 -but very little work had been done on it. Father Doe’s idea was to lease -the Waterman half on a two-year agreement and sink the shaft 200 feet -deeper, timbering it well. Then if the Fourth of July opened up the ore -he expected, Harvey could buy out the Waterman interest for $10,000 the -first year or $15,000 the second. If the ore didn’t materialize after -the two years were up, then Waterman was free to sell his one-half -interest anytime he wanted. Colonel Doe would give all profits on his -share to Harvey and if he made good, would deed it outright to us in a -year. - -Everything sounded glorious to me. I clapped my hands and hugged my -bulky father-in-law in appreciation. - -“Oh, you’re just too wonderful!” I cried. “I know your gift is going to -make Harvey and me rich. Then I can help poor Mama and Papa out of all -their troubles in bringing up such a large family. You’re a dear.” - -The summer eased smoothly along. Harvey and I rented a little cottage on -Spring Street to live in and while I was busy getting settled, I began -to learn the spell of Colorado’s gaunt, tremendous mountains. By the -middle of August, the lawyers had completed the agreement between Father -Doe and Mr. Waterman and we had waved our benefactor off home to Oshkosh -from the station at Blackhawk. I wanted Harvey to record the agreement -immediately as a crew was already working at the mine. But after Father -Doe left, I began to find out what Harvey was really like—his shyness -was just weakness. He was lazy and procrastinating and he thought -because he was a Doe that everything should be done for him. - -He was not as big as his father in height or in character. Father Doe -had lived in Central with his wife during the Civil War years and owned -a large parcel of mining claims in both Nevadaville and Central City, a -mill and a large residence in Prosser Gulch, and a boarding house nearby -for the miners. He invested $5,000 and made so much profit, particularly -from the Gunnell and Wood mines in Prosser Gulch, up at the head of -Eureka Street, that he was able to retire rich in June, 1865, after the -War was over. He made a trip to New York and closed with the Sierra -Madre Investment Co., taking payment partly in cash and partly in -ownership with the company. After that, he returned home to Oshkosh and -occupied himself with lumber lands in Wisconsin. But he made occasional -trips back to Central as superintendent of the Sierra Madre Co. He was a -good business man and very civic in his interests. - -But not so with his son. Three weeks later, I, myself, had to fetch out -the buggy, hitch up the team, and drive Harvey to the Court House to -have the agreement recorded. That day was September 6, 1877, and I -remember what a peculiar sensation it gave me watching Harvey write his -legal name, W. H. Doe, Jr. He and his signature seemed suddenly just a -tenuous shadow of his father, a shadow having no existence if the body -that casts it, moves away. - -“Oh, this isn’t like me!” I thought, shaking my curls in disapproval of -my doubt. “I’m really very confident—not morbid. I just _know_ Colorado -will be good to me.” - -We stepped out again into the September briskness and I urged him to -hurry with sinking and timbering the shaft as per agreement. - -“You want to get a lot of work done before the snow flies,” I urged. - -He seemed wavering but I handed him the reins and urged him on toward -the mine. - -“I’m sure everything will be all right, dear,” I added. - -At the bottom of the street we kissed and I stood there watching my -young husband as he drove off up the road toward Nevadaville. All around -were crowds of men intent on their business, driving heavy ore-wagons -whose teams lurched with the weight and whose brakes screeched on the -steep grades. Others were loading ore cars with waste and dumping them -off the end of little tracks laid out on high hillocks jutting -precariously into the blue sky. The steady rhythm of pumps and the whir -of steam hoists resounded from each hill. You could even hear the narrow -gauge railroad whistle at Blackhawk shrieking its demoniac energy while -bringing in machinery, huge and unwieldy, for the hoists of mine shafts, -for the stamp mills crunching ore, and a hundred other purposes. Near -its track at many points were sluice boxes carrying water back to the -creek after being denuded of its placer wealth. Everywhere were serious -men busy making money. Gold was king! - -The main street was crowded with women going to market on foot, carpet -bags or carry-alls slung on their arm for supplies, some of them leading -burros to pack their purchases. Most of the bars were open and men, off -work at the mines, idled in and out or lounged briefly in the strangely -bright Colorado sunshine of this mild day. Others were to be seen on -doorsteps, chewing tobacco, chatting or whittling on an old wheel spoke. -The banks were open for business and cashiers from the mines were taking -in gold dust, nuggets and retorts to be weighed. It did not seem -possible that among all this hustle and industry there would be no place -for us. - -“Hello, there, Baby! Want a ride?” - -I raised my eyes. Two dashing young men, quite well dressed, expensive -Stetsons on their heads, were in a gig that trotted past. They looked -like mining engineers or mill managers. I couldn’t help smiling at their -handsome, good-humored appearance, and one of them swept off his Stetson -and bowed low. The other, with the reins, pulled up the horse. - -“You’re much too pretty and young to be standing alone on a street -corner,” he said. - -“And you’re too fresh! I’ve just been seeing my husband off to his mine, -thank you,” I replied as I flounced around and started up the hill with -a great show of indignation and temper. Actually, I was quite flattered. - -“When did you come to camp?” he called, paying no attention to my -attitude and slapping his horse with the reins to follow along beside me -on the board walk. - -I did not reply but kept on climbing steadily as fast as I could go up -Spring Street, puffing for wind in the high altitude. - -“Oh, leave her alone, Slim—she’s a nice girl. Come on, I want to get -down to the post office.” - -“Hell, all right. Well, good-bye, Baby—you better tell your husband to -watch out or big bad men will be after you.” - -I was really furious now. I could see he didn’t believe I was a married -woman. He took me for just a common girl of the streets. Turning around, -I stamped my foot and started to yell at him when the other one said: - -“No offense, ma’am. Slim, here, hasn’t seen a girl like you in so long -he’s forgotten his manners.” - -They wheeled their horse and started off down toward Main Street, -leaving me still gasping on the walk. I had been insulted. I wanted to -cry, to cry for the shame of it! But as their trim backs receded in the -swift-wheeling gig, I told myself this was what I had come -for—adventure. And here it was. I ended by trudging on up hill with a -smile flickering at the corners of my mouth. - -But the smile was not to remain long. When Harvey returned that night he -was dirty and tired and discouraged. He had taken a lot of samples from -the sump of the shaft to the assay office. But a man he had gone to for -advice in Nevadaville hadn’t thought the samples worth bothering to pay -for assaying. - -“You might keep on sinking your shaft and strike a better vein. But -these quartz lodes you got down there now are too low grade to work,” -had been his verdict. - -What to do now? My heart flew into my throat. We had had only the money -that Harvey’s father had left us to get started on. In a few more weeks -with running a crew at the mine, our capital would be used up and if the -ore were no good, we would have nothing to live on. But if we did try to -keep on we might strike high-grade ten feet beyond—just like so many -bonanza kings. That’s what I wanted to do and suggested we borrow money -at the bank. - -“I’ll help you, Harvey, I’m strong.” - -Our little house on Spring Street was not very well tended because for -six months, besides being wife and housekeeper, I donned miner’s clothes -to run the horse-pulled hoist in our mine. We each worked a crew on -separate shafts. For several months we had rich ore, then the vein went -“in cap.” We kept on sinking, but all to no avail. We still didn’t -strike high-grade ore and the shaft caved from faulty timbering. - -“I guess I better get a job in one of the big mines,” Harvey suggested. - -Me, the wife of a common miner—working for a few dollars a day! The idea -struck horror to my soul. - -“Certainly not!” I replied. “I won’t have it.” - -“Well, what else is there to do? We can’t go home. Father would be mad -and Mother won’t have you in the house.” - -“Your mother—with her airs. I’m just as good as she is any day!” - -“I’ll thank you not to insult my mother.” - -Words tumbled on words like blows. Harvey and I were in the midst of our -first serious quarrel. The higher our tempers rose, the more bitter our -choice of barbs to hurt each other. I hated the idea of having married a -man who would give up. I thought I had married a clever man. Instead, I -had married a weakling. I said all this and more. - -“I’ve been brought up by self-respecting people who only spend what -they’ve got,” Harvey replied heatedly. “We haven’t got the money to -fulfill the agreement of timbering in a ‘good, substantial, workmanlike -manner’—and besides, it’s too long a gamble. I don’t know enough about -carpentry and mining. It’s better for me to learn what I’m about first -by taking a steady job. Then, when I know more, and maybe have saved up -some money of our own, we can try developing the mine.” - -I thought this plan was cowardly and stupid. Maybe development would be -a long gamble, but all mining was a gamble—even life was a gamble—and -only those who had the courage to play could win. - -But not Harvey Doe. He got a job mucking in the Bobtail Tunnel. We gave -up our little house on Spring St. and moved down to Blackhawk, the -milling and smelting center, partly to be close to the Bobtail and -partly because Blackhawk being less good socially, was cheaper. We lived -in two rooms of a red brick building on Gregory Street (which today has -Philip Rohling painted on the door). The building was close to one -erected by Sandelowsky, Pelton & Co., prosperous dry goods and clothing -merchants of Central, who decided to open a branch store in Blackhawk in -1878. They occupied the corner space on the station end of Gregory -Street. In our building, a store was on each side of the center stairs -and living rooms occupied the second floor. I was hardly more than a -bride—yet look to what I had descended! - -One bright ray of hope remained—and I tried to keep thinking of it. -Since I was sure after Harvey’s inefficiency, Father Doe would never -deed us over his share of the Fourth of July, I had persuaded Harvey to -buy some claims. I still clung to my dream of riches from out of the -earth and when the Does had sent us $250 at Christmas, in January, 1878, -we spent $50 for a claim on the Stonewall Lode in Prosser Gulch and $165 -for three lodes on Quartz Hill not far from the Fourth of July and -adjoining the English-Kansas mine. These were the Troy, Troy No. 2 and -Muscatine Lodes. I had great belief in that property—fortunes were being -made everyday from Quartz Hill—and if we could just develop our mine, we -would, too! - -Loneliness and poverty was my lot in the meantime. I had no friends and -I used to take walks around Blackhawk to amuse myself. There was a -Cousin Jennie, a Mrs. Richards, who liked to garden and occasionally I -would go to see her. She would always pick me a bouquet of flowers for -our room because she said I was so beautiful that posies suited me. - -“You are like a seraph—an angel!” I can remember her saying. - -To help while away the time I began a scrap-book. Things that interested -me I would cut out and paste in its leaves. Left alone so much, I turned -to my day-dreaming more and more, and watched for poetry, cartoons and -other informative subjects to put in my book. I also read the fashion -magazines and clipped pictures from them, especially members of royalty -and society figures dressed up—I don’t know why, since it looked as if I -was never again to have enough money for pretty, chic clothes. - -“Everything is so different from what I expected,” was the thought that -kept running through my unhappy mind. - -Although Harvey and I were living in such close quarters, we seemed to -grow further away from each other. When he was on a shift that went to -work at seven in the morning he would come home in the afternoon so -tired, being unused to hard work, that all he would do in the evening -was read a book or write home. He spent hours composing long letters to -his mother. I resented these letters very much, but I tried not to say -anything while awaiting the day when he had saved enough money to start -development again. - -Later, he was on a shift that went to work at night and I hardly saw -him. He would come home long after I had gone to bed. Meanwhile, I had -nothing to occupy my time, as I did not especially like any of the women -in the rooming house. For amusement, I would make long visits, looking -at the bolts of cloth and other wares in Sandelowsky-Pelton, the store -on our street. That’s how I came to know Jacob Sandelowsky who had been -with the firm since 1866. When I met him, he was a bachelor, medium tall -and twenty-six years old. Whenever he was in the Blackhawk store, he -paid me extravagant compliments and we would talk about the clothing -business as I had learned it from Papa’s experience with McCourt and -Cameron, later Cameron and McCourt, as Papa became poorer. Occasionally, -he made me gifts, particularly dainty shoes which he brought down from -the Central City store. - -Then Harvey lost his job at the Bobtail. I don’t know why. But I had -already learned how unreliable he was and I suppose his bosses did, too. -Because he had been the only boy in the family to grow up, his mother -and four sisters spoiled him to such a degree that he was never able to -succeed at anything. Soon he was becoming a drifter, drifting from one -job to another and later from one camp to another, the women of the -family helping him out if he was too close to starving. But they weren’t -helping him now because of their dislike of me—and we were very hungry! - -I not only had the natural appetite of a healthy young woman but, as I -had found I was going to have a baby, I craved additional food for the -new life. At first, the news of my condition seemed to make things -better. I wrote to Father Doe and he replied that his lumber mill had -just burned down in Oshkosh. He would wind up his affairs in Oshkosh and -move the family to Central. He wanted to be near his grandchild and he -would straighten out Harvey’s affairs. - -Harvey’s affairs certainly were tangled although he kept the whole truth -from his father and from me for a long time. It turned out that besides -the money he owed the First National Bank, a sum that later, with -accumulating interest, amounted to over a thousand dollars, he had also -secretly been employing a Peter Richardson to repair the badly timbered -shaft of the Fourth of July that Harvey had botched. Peter Richardson -had never been paid for his work nor for a new hoist he had installed -and in May, 1878, obtained a judgment against Harvey for $485 plus court -costs. The Newell Brothers also had a $48 bill against him for grain and -hay for our team, run up before we had had to sell the horses. He was -afraid to say anything about these bills to his father. - -I was becoming desperate. My own family were too poor to appeal to and I -was far too proud to want anyone in Oshkosh except Father Doe to guess -at the truth of how my marriage had turned out. I turned more and more -to Jake for comfort and every kind of sustenance. - -Harvey began to spend his time in bars, not that he drank much, just a -few beers. But hanging around and talking to the customers gave him -ample opportunity to feel sorry for himself and to tell people his -troubles. I hated him for his weakness—I always detested any kind of -blubbering. Soon we were quarreling regularly. - -Although he got a few odd jobs and sometimes earned enough money for -food, it was never enough to pay our rent and we were forced to move -about a lot in Blackhawk and Central. That year and the next were two of -the most discouraging I ever spent. I was constantly blue and dejected -in spirit and frightened for the future of my baby. To try to help out, -I put on miner’s clothes and attempted to do some work starting to sink -a shaft on the Troy Lode next to the English-Kansas that Harvey had -bought from the Hinds brothers. I really was in no condition to do this -work but I knew that many of the mines on Quartz Hill, very close by, -were steady lucrative producers and our claim seemed the one hope. - -“Hello, there!” I heard one day, called out from a teamster driving an -ore wagon down from the Patch mines up above. “What do you think you’re -doing? You’re Baby Doe, aren’t you?” - -That’s how I met Lincoln Allebaugh, “Link” as he was always called. He -was a slim, fine-boned fifteen year old boy who, despite his age and -small frame, could drive an ore wagon because of his knack with horses -and excellent driving hands. He sometimes had trouble setting the brake -and, after we knew him better, he would get Harvey to go along and apply -his stocky strength. Link had been born in Blackhawk and lived there all -his life. He knew who I was from seeing me in Jake’s store and hearing -Harvey call me by one of my family nicknames—Baby, which was also the -one the miners in camp had spontaneously adopted. - -“You’re too little to do heavy work like that,” Link said. “You better -let me give you a lift home.” - -I felt the truth of what he had said in my bones. Suddenly, I was very -tired, a new feeling for me and not a sensation I liked. While Link -loaded my pick and shovel in with the ore, I climbed up on the high -front seat. - -From that day, one calamity followed another. My only friend was Jake -and soon Harvey and I were quarreling about him, too. The year before in -March, when Harvey had been working night shift, Jake had wanted to take -me to the opening of the Opera House. The amateur players staged a gala -two nights, putting on a concert the first night and two plays, “School” -and “Cool as a Cucumber,” on the second. Special trains had been run -from Denver and the cream of society of the two most important towns in -Colorado, Denver and Central, had attended, their festive gowns being -reported in the _Rocky Mt. News_ and the _Central City Register_ the -next day. It had been a thrilling occasion. - -But Harvey had been indignant when I had suggested that I might go with -Jake. - -“No respectable married woman would think of doing a thing like that!” -he had said hotly. - -So I had watched the event, longingly, standing on a boardwalk across -the street and yearning to be one of the gay throng, to be wearing a -beautiful evening dress or even better, to be one of the amateur -actresses from Central City playing on the stage. But I had been a good -wife and obeyed Harvey—I had not gone. - -Now it was different and I was defiant. Harvey could not support me and -Jake had given us too many groceries and presents of merchandise not to -admit the friendship openly. - -“I’d be dead—starved to death—if it wasn’t for Jake. He’s helped us out -over and over again when you didn’t have a dime. I won’t let you say -things against him!” - -Harvey was surly but said nothing more and soon took his bad temper out -to dramatize in a saloon. But the next quarrel was the end. He -insinuated that my baby wasn’t his and I picked up a specimen of Fourth -of July ore that we kept on the table and threw it at him with all the -strength I could muster. The rock hit him on the neck, scratching him -badly, and, as he felt the injured spot and the trickle of blood, he -blurted out, - -“Why, you common Irish hussy!” - -He glared at me briefly, turned in awkward anger and stamped out the -door. I did not see him again for months. I heard later that he had -hitched a ride on a freight train out of camp. - -When I told Jake what had happened, he said, - -“Never mind, Baby, I’ll see you through—and what you need now is some -gayety to forget about your troubles. Let’s go to the Shoo-Fly tonight.” - -The suggestion shocked me and I peered at my friend suspiciously but he -only shrugged his shoulders and asked laconically: - -“What difference does it make?” - -I could see his point. If I went to the Shoo-Fly who was to know or -care? My husband didn’t value me enough to stay and protect me and he -had been the first to unjustly impugn my good name. - -The Shoo-Fly was Central’s one flashy variety hall. It was in a brick -building on Nevada St. (and still stands, beside a dignified residence -shaded by a fine tall spruce tree in its front yard). It housed a -reception room, bar, a dance hall, and a stage. Several private rooms -for gambling and bedrooms were toward the back. Its entrance was off the -street, up a long flight of wooden steps hung on the side of the -building. These steps led to the rear of the second floor and into the -reception room. There was also another entrance down from Pine Street, -darker and less conspicuous. - -The whole lay-out emphasized discretion but was the crimson spot of the -town, dedicated to the flattery of weakness. Unattached men, of whom -there were a great many in the camp, liked to come to this favorite -rendezvous of sensational women. No nice, married lady would be seen -there. But, so far, had any matron of gentility extended me the -slightest kindness? If I met any in the streets they regarded me with a -distrustful air, and passed on. It was their men who wanted to meet me. - -“All right!” I determined. “I’ll go.” - -I was terribly depressed and perhaps Jake was right that I needed -cheering up. That night I put on my prettiest blue and pink foulard for -it brought out the unusual blue of my eyes and the soft, fresh tints of -my hair and cheeks. Together, we sallied forth. - -When we turned off Main Street toward the Shoo-Fly stairs, I had one -moment of panic as if I were taking an inevitable step, a step from -which there would be no return, something like Caesar crossing the -Rubicon. But I laughed the moment away—I was twenty-four years old, -pretty and gay, and my friends said I had Irish wit. Surely life should -give me more than a drab boarding house and the charity of one Jewish -friend? I tossed my curls and stepped on. - -Once inside, Jake ordered champagne. He enjoyed watching the dancing -girls in the variety show and indulging in a little gambling. Later he -brought several well-known men to join us at our table. It was fun to be -laughing and talking with several new acquaintances. - -“So you’re Baby Doe!” one of the merry men with bold eyes reflected. “I -hear the manager of my mill tried to pick you up in the street one day, -and you snubbed him!” He laughed as though greatly amused. - -“I am Mrs. Harvey Doe, if you please. My husband is out of town on -business.” - -“Well, you’re Baby Doe to all the miners in camp! They all know you—your -beauty’s enough to advertise you, even if you didn’t spend so danged -much time walking all over the place. They’ve also told me how -unfriendly you are.” - -“I’m not unfriendly. I’m delighted to meet people if they are properly -introduced—” - -“What are you doing here then? This is no place for a nice girl.” - -“I know it. But I’m so lonely that my good friend, Mr. Sandelowsky, -offered to watch out for me if I came.” - -Baby Doe I was from that night on—and nearly every night I was at the -Shoo-Fly under Jake’s protection. It was lively and gay and I made lots -of friends among the men and girls who frequented the place. As I got to -know these sporting girls, I liked them much better than the girls I had -known in Oshkosh. They weren’t very well educated, but they had a great -zest for living. Their generosity was genuine—their courage tremendous. -None of the girls at home possessed such qualities. I really felt I -understood them and when they seemed to like me, I knew they really did. -That meant a great deal to a lonely girl. - -“Why don’t you get rid of that mama’s-boy husband of yours? Why, with -your looks, you could get any man you wanted!” one of them said to me. - -Most of the talk at the Shoo-Fly that summer and autumn was about the -sensational rise of silver and Leadville and Horace Tabor. It was like a -fairy tale. For years, placer miners at the head of the Arkansas River -had been irritated by peculiar black sand which was very heavy and could -not be separated from the gold easily. A decade passed without their -recognizing its true worth but during the ’70s several miners worked on -secret assays which proved the sand was eroding from carbonates of lead -and silver ore. Quietly they began to look for veins and by 1877, after -several mines had been located, the news was out. - -A mad rush was on and many an odd fluke of luck followed. The veins did -not outcrop on the surface. This made it possible for a prospector to -start sinking a shaft almost anywhere and hit an ore body from a few -feet to three hundred and fifty feet beneath the surface. That fact -created some fantastic and astonishing fortunes. - -Living in this locality for a number of years had been Horace Tabor, a -middle-aged storekeeper. He and his wife were New Englanders who had -come West in the first wild gold rush of ’59 and after failing to make -any money out of mining despite repeated attempts, had dismissed the -gold bug from their heads. They had settled down with their one son, -Maxcy, now grown, to a steady respectable middle-class life at Oro City, -three miles from the site of what was later to be Leadville. - -But silver was to change all that. During July, 1877, Tabor recognized -the excitement in the air and moved his grocery stock and supplies from -Oro City to a fairly large log cabin in Leadville. By January, 1878, -about seventy cabins, shanties and tents made up the camp and during the -next month the inhabitants held a town election in which the -forty-seven-year-old Tabor was chosen mayor. During the next few months -the town grew and prospered and so did Tabor’s store profits. - -One spring day, two German prospectors, August Rische and George Hook, -dropped into the grocery and asked Tabor if he would put up supplies for -them to search for a vein of carbonates. Tabor had grubstaked many a -miner to no avail but he was naturally generous. He probably expected no -better this time, but he made an outlay of some seventeen dollars in -return for an agreement that he was to have a third interest in any mine -they found. Off they went and located a claim on Fryer Hill which they -named the Little Pittsburgh. - -They worked along steadily for some time and when their shaft was but -twenty-six feet deep, they broke through the layer of hard rock they had -been drilling into a body of soft, black, heavy ore. The next day, a -fine May morning, Tabor left the grocery store in charge of Augusta, his -efficient, managerial wife, and with pick and shovel wielded in -vigorous, high anticipation, helped his partners dig and hoist the first -wagon load of ore. The smelter bought it immediately for over $200! - -By July nearly a hundred tons of ore were being hoisted and shipped each -week and the three partners had an income of about fifty thousand -dollars a month. Toward fall, Hook sold out to Tabor and Rische for -$98,000 and Rische later sold out his interest plus some adjoining -claims to Jerome B. Chaffee and David Moffat for over a quarter of a -million dollars. Tabor clung to his share and the talk now was how he -and his new partners had consolidated all their claims on Fryer Hill and -incorporated for twenty million dollars. The fabulous story of silver -and Leadville and Tabor—you heard it every night! - -Everybody at the Shoo-Fly said Central was dying. Prof. N. P. Hill had -taken his family to Denver and moved his smelter from Blackhawk to Argo, -outside Denver. They quoted his opinion that no new strikes would be -made in the district although the established producers might maintain -their output for decades. In any case it would be cheaper hauling ore -downhill to the smelter than coal up. Other top families were deserting -the district. The Frank Halls, J. O. Raynolds and Eben Smiths had -already gone and it was said that the George Randolphs, Henry -Haningtons, Frank Youngs, Joseph Thatchers and Hal Sayres were -contemplating departure. This kind of conversation was very depressing -for me in addition to all my other troubles. - -After that, things happened fast. I don’t know what would have become of -me if it hadn’t been for Jake. - -My baby boy came July 13, 1879, and was still-born. It was Jake who paid -the bills and made all the arrangements. He was a marvelous friend. By -then he was talking about opening a store in Leadville, and he told me -he thought that was where I should go, too, that is, if I no longer -loved Harvey. Rich strikes were being made there every day. - -“Looks to me like he’s deserted you. You have your own future to look -out for now. First, see if you like it over there. Then, if you do, you -can get a divorce for non-support and you’ll be free to build a new life -for yourself. Anyway, let me give you the trip and then decide.” - -My love for Harvey _was_ dead, but I hated to think of the disgrace of -divorce. That ignominy would kill Papa and Mama! - -I had hoped that when Father Doe reached Central, matters would -straighten out. The family moved just at the time that alone and -destitute, I was having the humiliating, heart-rending experience of -giving birth to a dead baby, attended only by a negro mid-wife. If the -baby had lived, maybe my story would have been entirely different; but -without that bond, I could not live down the calumnies that Mrs. Doe -believed. - -Father Doe opened a mining office in Central in 1879 and Harvey turned -up again from wherever he had been to live with his parents. I suspected -that he had spent the time in Oshkosh since Mrs. Doe proved more bitter -about me than she had been before we were married, probably influenced -by Harvey’s lies. Father Doe came to see me several times and gave me -money. He liked and felt sorry for me and tried to offset the contention -of his wife that I had disgraced the Doe name. - -I thought it was Harvey who had disgraced the Doe name by deserting me -when I was pregnant; but for everyone’s sake, that autumn of 1879, -Harvey and I patched up our quarrel and tried to make a go of it again. -A few months later, I thought I saw him go into a bagnio and I -immediately ran across the street to demand: “Who’s disgracing the Doe -name now?” He said he was just collecting a bill ... that he would never -be unfaithful.... But I wasn’t sure.... - -The elder Does decided to move to Idaho Springs, inasmuch as Central was -declining and there seemed to be no way of straightening out Harvey. For -the next five years until he died in 1884, Father Doe was one of the -pillars of the town. In 1880, he was elected to the legislature and in -1881, he was chosen Speaker of the House. He was president of the Idaho -Springs bank and owned two houses, one for revenue. The large bargeboard -trimmed frame house in which they lived was the scene of many a social -function written up in the Clear Creek _Miner_. But after 1880, Father -Doe refused to support Harvey or pay his debts. - -Harvey and I moved to Denver where he ineffectively looked for work. I -sold the last of my furniture and clothes to keep us alive. After we -were divorced, he drifted off. Evan Morgan said he saw him in Gunnison -in 1881 and at the time of Father Doe’s death, he was in Antonito, -Colorado, with Flora, one of his sisters. After the estate was settled, -Mrs. Doe moved back to Oshkosh and Harvey went with her. There, and in -Milwaukee, he lived out his life, running a cigar store and acting as a -hotel detective, and fulfilling the epithet used about him at the -Shoo-Fly, “Mama’s Boy.” - -I could not forget nor forgive the painful, galling humiliation of -having to have our baby alone in a mining camp. Save for Jake -Sandelowsky I had been without friends, without money, and was -disgraced, since my husband’s absence was talked about everywhere. -Harvey’s failure to attend to these primary needs for his own wife and -child I could not forgive—my heart was emptied of his image for years. - -“I think maybe you’re right,” I told Jake before the second break with -Harvey. “I’ve been here in Central City for over two years, and very -unhappy ones. I think a change would do me good.” - -Jake sent me over to Leadville on a visit to see what it was like in -December, 1879. At the time, although he had moved to Leadville already, -he was back in Blackhawk to talk business with Sam Pelton. I traveled by -the Colorado Central narrow gauge from Blackhawk to the Forks and then -up to Georgetown. From there I went by stagecoach, over lofty Argentine -Pass, through Ten Mile Canyon and into the “Cloud City.” The stage coach -ride was fifty-six miles and the fare, ten dollars. In Leadville I -stayed at the then fashionable Clarendon Hotel, built by W. H. Bush, -formerly manager of the Teller House in Central City. It was on Harrison -Avenue, right next door to the newly opened Tabor Opera House. - -Everyone was talking about Tabor and his gifts to Leadville when they -weren’t exclaiming about the silver discoveries on Fryer and Breece -Hills. The air was full of the wildest conversation and buzzing -excitement everywhere you turned, and the camp itself made Central look -like a one-horse town. - -“Oh, I’m sure something marvelous will happen to me here!” I exclaimed -as I surveyed busy Harrison Avenue down its four-block length to the -juncture with Chestnut Street. - -Concord stages, belated because of the recent heavy snows, were rolling -into camp hauled by six-horse teams. Huge freight vans, lumbering -prairie schooners and all sorts of buggies and wheeled vehicles were -toiling up and down the street, separated from the boardwalk by parallel -mounds of snow piled in the gutter three and four feet deep. Everywhere -was noisy activity, even lot jumping and cabin-jumping, since the -population that year had grown from 1,200 to 16,000! - -The boardwalks on each side of the street were filled with a seething -mass of humanity that had sprung from every quarter of the globe and -from every walk of life. Stalwart teamsters jostled bankers from -Chicago. Heavy-hooted grimy miners, fresh from underground workings, -shared a walk with debonair salesmen from Boston. The gambler and -bunco-steerer strolled arm in arm with their freshest victim picked up -in a hotel lobby. - -I had bought “The Tourist Guide to Colorado and Leadville,” written by -Cass Carpenter in May of that year. The pamphlet said that at the time -of writing Leadville had “19 hotels, 41 lodging houses, 82 drinking -saloons, 38 restaurants, 13 wholesale liquor houses ... 10 lumber yards, -7 smelting and reduction works, 2 sampling works for testing ores, 12 -blacksmith shops, 6 livery stables, 6 jewelry stores, 3 undertakers and -21 gambling houses where all sorts of games are played as openly as the -Sunday School sermon is conducted.” - -As I now regarded the town, this description seemed to me to be already -outdated and the camp to be three times as built up as the guide said. - -H. A. W. Tabor, who had been elected Leadville’s first mayor and first -postmaster, had also organized its first bank. The building stood at the -corner of Harrison Avenue and Chestnut, a two-story structure with the -design of a huge silver dollar in the gable. The First National Bank, -the Merchants and Mechanics Bank and the Carbonate National had also -been built. Tabor had already erected a building to house the Tabor Hose -Co. (for which he had given the hose carriage) and the equipment of the -Tabor Light Cavalry, which he had also organized. Two newspaper offices -were already built and a third was preparing to start publishing in -January. - -“What do you think of our camp?” a stranger said to me somewhat later, -accosting me in the lobby of the Clarendon. - -I no longer resented the efforts of men to pick me up. Two years in -Colorado mining camps had taught me some of the carefree friendliness of -the atmosphere. I knew now it wasn’t considered an insult. - -“Oh, it’s wonderful!” I answered, “and has such a beautiful setting.” - -“Yes, those are marvelous peaks over there, Massive and Elbert—it’s a -stunning country. I’ve never seen anything like Colorado. I’m from the -South. The man I bunked with was from Missouri. He was scared of the -wildness and casual shootings we have around here—so he took one look at -that sign over there and beat it home to Missouri to raise some.” - -I peered across the street. A feed and supply store had a high false -front on which was painted in big letters, HAY $40 A TON. - -The idea tickled me and I laughed out loud. As I laughed, a great weight -fell from my shoulders. It seemed as if it had been a long time since I -had really laughed, almost as if my gayety had been boxed in by the ugly -gulches of Blackhawk and crushed in the cramped space of Central. But -here the whole atmosphere was wide and different! - -The man sat down in a rocking chair beside me in the lobby and was soon -entertaining me with the many colorful stories of the camp, of the wild -nights where everyone whooped it up till dawn, in the saloons, in the -variety theatres, in the gambling houses, in the dance halls, in the -bagnios and in the streets, milling from door to door. - -He also told me of the unusual characters of the town, all the way from -the popular Tabor who was Leadville’s leading citizen down to “the -waffle woman” who could be seen any night regularly at twelve o’clock -going from saloon to saloon and from dance house to gambling and other -dens selling hot waffles. He had stopped her once and spoken to her. She -had replied in a cultured voice: - -“My best trade is between two and three in the morning after the -theatres are out. It is not pleasant being out so late among so rough a -class as is found on the streets after midnight and about the saloons. I -have led a pleasanter life. Should I tell you who I am and what I have -been, you would not believe me....” - -His tales fascinated me. But his stories of Tabor and Augusta, Tabor’s -severe New England wife with whom he was not getting along, interested -me more than any others. Tabor, he said, could be seen almost any -evening he was in camp in the lobby or across the street in the Board of -Trade which was the gambling house and saloon that got most of the -after-theatre trade from the Tabor Opera House, opened a month before in -November. Tabor was a splendid poker player and was fond of gambling of -all sorts. Since he had made so much money in the last two years, he had -started playing roulette for enormous stakes. - -“Every night?” I asked. “What does Mrs. Tabor do?” - -“Don’t know—she’s down in Denver. But he’s gone pretty wild lately. She -don’t like it and I guess nags him terrible. So he just stays out of her -way. He likes his liquor and women, too, and naturally that don’t set so -good with her. Wouldn’t with any wife. But he spends a lot of time on -the move nowadays.” - -“What’s he doing in Denver?” - -“Oh, he and his right hand man, Bill Bush, are making real estate -investments mostly. He’s building the Tabor block at 16th and Larimer -Streets—costing two hundred thousand dollars—of stone quarried in Ohio. -Expects it to be finished in March. And he bought the Henry P. Brown -house on Broadway last winter for a residence. Paid $40,000 for it.” - -“He must be a very great man.” - -“Some says he is and some says he isn’t. I’ve played poker with him a -time or two and he’s right smart at that game. But some of the folks -around here say he’s too fond of show and throwin’ his money around. I -reckon the Republican politicians trimmed him a heap of money a year ago -before they gave him the lieutenant governorship!” - -“My, I would love to meet him,” I remarked, thinking that never had a -description of any man so captured my imagination. “How old is he?” - -“Must be right close to fifty. He was one of the early prospectors out -here—came in an ox-wagon across the plains in ’59. Mrs. Tabor was the -first woman in the Jackson Diggings. That’s where Idaho Springs is now. -He had a claim jumped at Payne’s Bar and never done anything about it. -An awful easy-going sort of fellow.” - -Our conversation ran along like this for some time and was continued -again in the afternoon. That evening my new friend suggested he take me -next door to the Opera House where Jack Langrishe’s stock company, -brought from New York a month ago, was playing “Two Orphans.” He seemed -such a pleasant companion and so well-informed on this particular camp -and mining in general that I accepted his suggestion with alacrity. - -“Thank you very much. I should be delighted and won’t you let me -introduce myself? I’m Mrs. Doe.” - -“Not the famous beauty of Central! Most of us miners have already heard -about you.” - -He then introduced himself. But since he is still alive I won’t give him -away after all these years. We always remained good friends, although on -a rather formal basis and never called each other by our first names. In -the course of the evening, I asked his opinion about the quartz lodes of -Nevadaville, still having in mind that something could be done with -Harvey’s mine. - -“Most of my Colorado mining’s been done down in La Plata and San Juan -counties. I wouldn’t be much help. But my advice to you is to hang on to -it and maybe work it on shares with some man in the spring when the snow -breaks.” - -“A new vista for me!” was my reaction. I had always thought of myself as -a married woman but now I began to think in terms of a career—I didn’t -know what. Jake Sands (as he now called himself in order to shorten his -name) wanted me to go into business with him when he opened his new -clothing store. But in this glamorous, adventurous world it seemed as if -that would be too tame a life for a girl whose exotic name had already -spread from one mining camp to another. - -(I don’t mind saying that I was flattered at my new friend’s having -heard of me—and I am sure that if I hadn’t already fallen in love with -Leadville, this tribute alone would have persuaded me to change camps.) - -When I returned to Central, my mind was made up. I had gone away with a -bruised soul, confused and hurt and undecided. My church did not -sanction divorce and it was a dreadful wrench to face what such a step -would mean. - -But the romance of Colorado mining had caught me forever in its mesh—I -would never be happy again away from these mountains and away from the -gay, tantalizing feeling that tomorrow anything might happen. And did! - -Jake Sands was very pleased to see me returning in such good spirits. He -helped me from the train at Blackhawk, a smile in the corners of his -dark, handsome eyes. - -“You look your bright self again. What have you decided—are you going to -follow me and desert the Little Kingdom of Gilpin?” - -“I think I am, Jake. But wait until I see what mail I have from home and -what about Harvey. Then we’ll decide.” - -Christmas letters and gifts had come from all my family, a lovely -handsome mohair jacket from Mama, but no word from Harvey in Denver. -During the holiday season, I wanted to feel charitable and kind so I put -off making any plans. Jake and I celebrated together with his friends at -the Shoo-Fly and we had enough jollity and parties to forget my -unpleasant domestic situation. I knew that Jake’s interest in me was -more than just sympathy but he did not broach any word or demand any -favors. He was consideration, itself. - -When the New Year had passed, I went to Idaho Springs to see the elder -Does. Then I went to Denver to find Harvey and tell him I wanted a -divorce. He was drinking and we quarrelled again. In response to my -request, he said he thought in some ways our marriage had been a -mistake. Perhaps if his mother and I hadn’t had such religious and other -differences, we might have worked it out together. But as it was, -couldn’t we try again? And he would make me a gift of our Troy Lode mine -in which I still believed. Shortly after, he gave me the deed on the -back of which he had written in a firm, legible hand: - - -“I, W. H. Doe, Jr., give up all my rights and title to my claims in the -above said property to my wife, Mrs. W. H. Doe, formerly Lizzie B. -McCourt of Oshkosh, Wis. - (Signed) W. H. Doe, Jr. - Jan. 29, 1880.” - - -I still wanted a divorce in my heart and, during the winter, inquired -about the possibilities of getting one in Arapahoe County. My intention -was to sue on the grounds of non-support. But Harvey kept nagging me -and, on the night of March 2, wanted to make up. By then, I was so -exasperated with his shilly-shallying and so impatient to be free so I -could go to Leadville, that I said every cruel thing I could think of. -We had a frightful quarrel and he shouted that to spite me, this time he -really was going to a sporting house. - -“You wouldn’t dare!” I snorted. “You aren’t that much of a man.” - -He turned on his heel and rushed out of our tiny rooms. I hurried on to -the street after him and, at the same time as following Harvey, looked -for a policeman. As luck would have it, I found one, Edward Newman, just -around the corner. We saw Harvey go into Lizzie Preston’s at 1943 Market -and we followed him in. There, we got the evidence that I needed for a -quick divorce. The decree was granted March 19 and I was ready for a -fresh start. - -Meanwhile, Jake had been living in Leadville. The night before his -going, he had said to me: - -“Baby, I have not been without ulterior motive these past months in -trying to get you to move on. I hope you will come to Leadville and our -friendship can go on the same as ever. That’s the place for a girl like -you! We might even think of marriage.” - -I was not in love with Jake, nor did I think I ever should be. But he -had been the grandest friend a girl could hope for. I pressed his hand -and said with an affectionate smile: - -“Perhaps. We’ll see.” - -By the time I reached Leadville, Jake was well established in his -clothing business at 312 Harrison Avenue, which was the left-hand front -store in the Tabor Opera House. They called this store Sands, Pelton & -Co. Jake arranged for me to stay at a boarding house while he lived at -303 Harrison Avenue across the street from his business. - -But I suppose once a gambler, always a gambler. Jake never indulged in -excessive gambling but the spirit of it was in his blood. He loved to -spend an evening, after a hard day’s work in the store, satisfying this -taste. Instead of the lone Shoo-Fly, there were plenty of places he -could go—by now—between forty and sixty alight every night, if you -counted the side houses as well as the licensed places. - -Pap Wyman’s was the most notorious. It stood at State and Harrison. I -had been told that every man in camp went there to see the sights, if -not to enter into all the activities which under one roof combined -liquor-selling, gambling, dancing and woman’s oldest profession. The -girls wore short skirts with bare arms and shoulders and besides being -eager to dance, would encourage men to join them in the “green rooms,” a -custom taken over from the variety theatres. These were small wine rooms -where for every bottle of champagne that a man ordered, the girl’s card -was punched for a dollar commission. - -Frequently, late at night or early in the morning, a “madam” and her -retinue of girls from one of the “parlor” houses would swoop into -Wyman’s to join in the festivities. The dance hall girls were said to -envy these “ladies” very much. Their expensive dresses and opulent -jewelry, especially as displayed on the madam who was usually a jolly -coarse peroxide blonde of forty or fifty, were far beyond their -attainments. To be truthful, these sporting women were the aristocracy -of the camp since nice married women whose husbands had not found -bonanzas, spent the day in backbreaking work at washtubs or over hot -stoves and were too tired in the evening to do anything but sleep. - -One night Jake had gone over to Wyman’s to gamble and I was left to -entertain myself. Feeling hungry toward the middle of the evening and -being fond of oysters, I crossed Harrison Avenue to the old Saddle Rock -Cafe which stood a block down from the Clarendon hotel and Tabor Opera -house. When I entered and was shown to a table, the place was rather -quiet. - -“Intermission yet at the Opera House?” the waiter asked. - -“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m not attending tonight. I’ve already -seen this bill ... ‘The Marble Heart’.” - -“Guess not,” he said. “We always get a lively bunch in here then.” - -I was well aware of this fact. It was one of the reasons I had come. The -motley cosmopolitan and rough-neck crowds of Leadville had never ceased -to delight me. I could sit for hours in a hotel lobby or a restaurant -and ask for no further entertainment than to watch the people. - -Just as I finished ordering, the cafe started to fill up and coming in -the entrance, I recognized Mr. Tabor with his theatre manager, Bill -Bush. - -The Silver King! - -His tall back had been pointed out to me on the street and in the -Clarendon hotel lobby by Jake but I had never before seen him face to -face. Both men glanced directly at me where I sat alone at my table, and -I saw Mr. Tabor turn toward Mr. Bush to say something. My heart skipped -a beat and my oyster fork trembled in my hand. - -“The great man of Colorado is talking about me!” ran the thought, -vaulting and jubilant, through my mind. - -Bush and Tabor were winding up a number of their Leadville affairs, I -knew from the papers, because they had leased the Windsor Hotel on -Larimer Street in Denver and were planning on opening it as soon as they -had completed furnishing the building, probably in June. Tabor’s -Leadville paper, The Herald, kept the camp well informed of their doings -and as I was always an avid reader of every item that bore the Tabor -name, I felt almost as if I already knew him. - -He was over six feet tall with large regular features and a drooping -moustache. Dark in coloring, at this time his hair had begun to recede a -bit on his forehead and was turning grey at the temples. Always very -well and conspicuously dressed, his personality seemed to fill any room -he stepped into. His generosity and hospitality immediately attracted a -crowd about him and he would start buying drinks and cracking jokes with -everyone. - -“That’s the kind of man I could love,” I thought to myself as I bent -over my oysters. “A man who loves life and lives to the full!” - -At that moment, the waiter tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a -note. Scrawled on the back of a theatre program in a refined hand ran -the message: - - -“Won’t you join us at our table? - William H. Bush.” - - -The blood rushed into my face and I felt hot and cold. Mr. Bush had been -proprietor of the Teller House until a little over a year ago and I had -met him with Father Doe when he had taken Harvey and me there for meals. -Mr. Bush probably knew my whole humiliating story.... - -Glancing up, my eyes met Mr. Tabor’s piercing dark ones across the -intervening tables and I knew in an instant that I was falling in love. -Love at first sight. Love that was to last fifty-five years without a -single unfaithful thought. Almost in a trance, I gathered up my braided -gabardine coat and carriage boots to move over to their table. - -“Governor Tabor, meet Mrs. Doe who’s come from Central to live in -Leadville.” - -I put my hand in Mr. Tabor’s large one and it seemed to me as if I never -wanted to withdraw it. What was he thinking at that moment, I wondered? -Was he feeling the electric magnetism in the touch of my hand as I was -in his? Or was I just another one of the women that Augusta Tabor would -carp about? - -“Sit down, Mrs. Doe, and order anything you want on the menu. No point -in going back to the show when we can sit here and entertain as pretty a -young woman as you, is there Bill? Here’s a little lady we’ll have to -get to know.” - - - - - _Chapter Three_ - - -Leadville, the Saddle Rock Cafe, and the gay, boisterous mining and -promoting crowd about me all swam dizzily away from my consciousness as -I dropped down in a chair between the great silver king, Horace Tabor, -and his manager, Bill Bush. I was in love! That was all I knew. - -I was in love with a married man. I, a divorced woman, whose future with -Jake was merely a nebulous suggestion. Yet here I was, beside the man I -had dreamed of for so long— - -“Surely, Bill, we should have champagne on this auspicious occasion?” -Mr. Tabor went on. - -The evening passed in one of those heavenly hazes in which afterward you -want to remember every word, every glance, every happening, yet nothing -remains but a roseate glow. We stayed there at the table, laughing and -talking and drinking. Mostly we gossiped about people in Central City -that Mr. Tabor and I knew of in common—Judge Belford, George Randolph -and so on—or else about the operating conditions at the various mines -there that I had heard talked about. - -But there was one person whose name I never spoke—Jacob Sands. I -wondered how much Bill Bush knew—or what he thought he knew. But nothing -of this was hinted by either of us. - -When the performance across Harrison Avenue at the Tabor Opera House was -finished, Bill Bush excused himself, saying: - -“I have some accounts to go over before I turn in—see you in the -morning, Governor.” - -Then the greatest man in Colorado leaned toward me and said: - -“Now tell me about yourself.” - -I gasped and began in little gurgles, but it was very easy talking to -him. Little by little, I told him the whole story of my life as I have -recounted it here—the high hopes of my marriage, my great reverence and -love of the Colorado mountains, my excitement over the mining world, and -finally, since his piercing eyes were not piercing when they looked at -me, but soft and mellow and understanding, I told him, rather tearfully -about Harvey and Jake, and why I was in Leadville. - -“So you don’t want to marry Jake Sands—but think you ought to because of -the money he’s spent helping you out?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, I tell you what. I’ve got plenty of money, more’n I know what to -do with. Let me give you enough to pay this fellow back and carry you -along for a while, Something’s bound to turn up.” - -This dazzling offer resounded in my ears like the explosion of dynamite. - -“Why, Governor Tabor, I couldn’t let you do that!” - -“Why not? Look on it as a grubstake. I’ve grubstaked hundreds of people -in my day. Most of ’em came to nothing but some of ’em turned out lucky. -I’m a great believer in the Tabor Luck—and this just might be another -lucky grubstake for me. No telling.” - -“But I never met you before this evening!” - -“What’s that got to do with it? I never saw Hook or Rische before one -morning they walked in the old Tabor store and asked me for a grubstake. -And then they found the Little Pittsburgh. Meant millions for me!” - -“But this grubstake can’t mean millions—I’ll never be able to repay it -to you—” - -“Not in money, perhaps. But I’m not looking for money anymore. I want -other things out of life, too. You take this grubstake and forget it.” - -He took a pencil from his pocket and wrote out a draft for five thousand -dollars. - -“You give this to Bill Bush in the morning and he’ll see that you’re all -fixed up.” - -As I stared at the sum on the slip of paper, I couldn’t believe my eyes. -I gulped and glanced up, awe-struck. - -“You’ll need some clothes and things, too,” he explained in a sort of an -aside, and then turning to the waiter, called out “Another bottle of -champagne, here!” - -The merriest night of my life was on. Nobody in Leadville in those days -went to bed until nearly dawn. I had been supposed to meet Jake at -midnight in the lobby of the Clarendon for a late supper, but in the -giddy exhilaration of the evening, I had forgotten all about it. It was -way past midnight, now. There was nothing to do—Jake had been a -marvelous friend, so marvelous that I never could think of him again -without a little twinge of conscience—but I was in love! You can’t -explain it—yet if you are in love, nothing else seems important. -Everything else but your state of heart is out of focus. I would never -have met Horace Tabor if it hadn’t been for Jake. Yet at that moment, I -never wanted to see Jake Sands again. - -And I seldom did. Although we often crossed on the streets of Leadville -briefly, until he moved to Aspen in 1888, we were only casual friends. -In Aspen, I was later told, he opened another store, married, and bought -a house that still stands. - -The next morning, after a conference with Bill Bush and Horace Tabor, -they decided the best thing to do was to write him an explanatory -letter. - -“But, Governor Tabor,” I said, “Don’t you think I ought to see him? He’s -been such a good friend—I think I ought to talk to him. It would be -kinder.” - -“No, I don’t think so. His feelings are bound to be hurt in any case. -The quicker, the easier for him in the long run—you can tell him that in -your letter. He’s a tenant of mine and a nice fellow. Later on, after -you’ve written the letter, we will ask him to dinner some night.” - -I pondered a long time over the writing of it, and stressed how deeply -appreciative I was. I said I had decided not to marry him and I enclosed -a thousand dollars which was more than enough to pay off my -indebtedness. Even the enclosure of the money I tried to make especially -kind. - -“Now, Bill, you take this around personally and square Mrs. Doe off -right with him,” Horace Tabor said. “We don’t want to have any hurt -feelings around that last. We all want to be friends.” - -He leaned over and patted my hand in reassurance of my act. But I needed -no reassurance once the act was accomplished. My heart was dancing -wildly! - -History books will tell you the story of my love affair after that. Jake -refused the money but did accept the gift of a diamond ring. Tabor moved -me from the small room that I had into a suite at the Clarendon, and we -became sweethearts. - -For me, it was like suddenly walking into the door of heaven. This great -man was the idol of whom I had dreamed and whom I had hoped Harvey Doe -might copy. In those bleak months in Central City, I had avidly searched -out reports of his accomplishments in the newspapers and memorized every -word. - -After the bonanza strike in the Little Pittsburgh, everything Tabor -touched had turned to sparkling silver and untold riches. By the end of -1879, the total yield from the consolidated company was four million -dollars and Tabor had sold his interest in this group of mines for a -million dollars. - -Late in the year before, in partnership with Marshall Field of Chicago, -he bought the Chrysolite along with some auxiliary claims. Not long -after, these mines had yielded three million dollars and Tabor -eventually sold out his share for a million and a half. At the time, -they told a story around Leadville about the Chrysolite that was written -up in verse and printed on a broadside. They said that “Chicken Bill” -Lovell, a clever swindler, had “high-graded” some ore from the -Pittsburgh and “salted” the Chrysolite, then a barren hole, owned by -Lovell. When Lovell showed his spurious mine to Tabor, the new silver -king bought the holding for nine hundred dollars and shortly after put a -crew to work. The miners discovered the deception and asked Tabor what -to do. - -“Keep on sinking,” was his command. - -Ten feet more and they broke into a three million treasure chest of -carbonate ore! - -It was also in 1879 that he had bought the Matchless for over a hundred -and seventeen thousand dollars and had purchased a half interest in the -First National Bank in Denver. During the last year, he started -expanding his investments far and wide—towards an iron mine on Breece -Hill, gold mines in the San Juans, silver mines in Aspen, placer mines -in Park county, smelters, irrigating canals, toll roads, railroads, -copper land in Texas, grazing lands in Southern Colorado, a huge land -concession in Honduras, and real estate in Leadville, Denver and -Chicago. - - [Illustration: LIZZIE M’COURT’S GIRLHOOD HOME IN OSHKOSH - - _Baby Doe was a fat adolescent of sixteen years when this photo was - taken in Oshkosh in 1871. She is standing on the verandah, first - figure on the left, surrounded by all the members of her family except - Mark who was not born until the next year. Her mother and father are - standing beside Willard, held on the rocking horse. Her favorite - little sister, Claudia, is seated on the steps, and Philip and Peter - are standing at the right. Mr. George Cameron, her father’s partner, - is posed in the buggy. This fine house, 20 Division Street, burned in - 1874._] - - [Illustration: MRS. HARVEY DOE - - _The Oshkosh Times reported that the wedding of Lizzie McCourt and - Harvey Doe at St. Peter’s was so crowded that people were standing - outside. This photo was taken by A. E. Rinehart in Denver in 1880 at - 1637 Larimer Street after their marriage had failed and Baby Doe - wanted a divorce._] - - [Illustration: CLEAN-UP AFTER A FLASH FLOOD IN BLACKHAWK - - _After Harvey Doe messed up the management of his father’s Fourth of - July mine at Central City, the young couple took rooms in the brick - building above the white circled windows. The trains to Central City - chugged over the trestle almost at their bedside. The building, - unused, still stands; also Jacob Sands’ store, which is just off the - photo to the left._] - - [Illustration: HARVEY DOE - - _Taken in the late 1890s, this photo came from his step-son, Sam - Kingsley of San Diego. Harvey married a widow with three children in - 1893. At the time he was a cigar maker in Oshkosh. Later he became a - hotel detective in Milwaukee. He died in 1921 and lies there with Ida - Doe._] - - [Illustration: LIZZIE MOVED TO LEADVILLE’S CLARENDON HOTEL - - _The Clarendon was built on Harrison Avenue in 1879 by William Bush. - Soon after, Tabor built the opera house to the left and the two were - connected by a catwalk from the top floor. Tabor had rooms and offices - upstairs in the opera house and could pass quickly and privately - across to Baby Doe’s suite. Jacob Sands’ store was the one with white - awnings downstairs in Tabor’s building. Could the caped figure be - Lizzie?_] - - [Illustration: NEW SWEETHEART - - _This photo was taken in Leadville in 1880 and was Tabor’s favorite. - He had a frame made for it of the finest minted silver from the - Matchless mine and kept the photo on his dressing table. In the ’90s, - he borrowed money on his treasure to buy groceries, but died before it - was redeemed._] - - [Illustration: AUGUSTA] - - [Illustration: BABY DOE] - - [Illustration: HORACE - THE TABOR TRIANGLE - - _When Tabor was forty-seven years old, he struck it rich. He wanted to - have a good time, give parties, gain public office, and live in the - grand manner. Augusta, his austere New England wife, disapproved; but - when gay, smiling Baby Doe applauded a triangle was expertly drawn._] - - [Illustration: THE WINDSOR HOTEL IN DENVER - - _The most elegant hostelry of the Rocky Mountain region opened its - doors in June, 1880, furnished and run by Tabor and Bush. Very soon - its red plush lobby was the gathering place of all the elite and it - was not long afterward that Tabor decided to install Baby Doe in one - of its suites. She moved from Leadville and took up life close to her - lover. Except for the porte-cocheres, the Windsor looked the same - until 1958._] - - [Illustration: GOLD CHAIRS - - _Central City’s Teller House is now the proud owner of these chairs - and jewel box that once belonged in Baby Doe’s suite at the Windsor. - Her diamond necklace contained stones that were said to be Isabella’s - and was imported from Spain, costing $75,000._] - - [Illustration: THE TABOR GRAND THEATRE ON OPENING DAY - - _In September, 1881, Denver had grown to a city of over thirty-five - thousand population and it welcomed this handsome and lavish addition - to its business buildings with a deep gratitude and much publicity._] - - [Illustration: DENVER’S GIFT TO TABOR - - _A ceremony took place the opening night, presenting this watch-fob to - Tabor. It represents an ore bucket of nuggets, leading by gold ladders - up to the Tabor Store at Oro, the Tabor Block, and last to the Tabor - Grand Theatre; the whole depicting the recipient’s climb to fame and - fortune. On the reverse side, were the date, monograms in enamel and - legends, “Presented by the citizens of Denver to H. A. W. Tabor” and - “Labor Omnia Vincet.” After Baby Doe was found dead, this gold - ornament appeared among her things, rolled up in rags. Although she - had sold most of her jewels to fulfill Tabor’s wish that she hang on - to the Matchless, she saved the talisman._] - - [Illustration: GRANDEUR - - _Cherry wood from Japan and mahogany from Honduras made the interior - of the Tabor subject matter for copious columns of newsprint. The - shimmering, expensive crystal chandelier has not yet been hung in this - photo; nor the chairs yet placed in the ornate boxes. On opening night - they were filled with the cream of Denver society, and reporters’ - pencils were busy recording the bustles and bangles that made each - gown chic or very distinctive._] - - [Illustration: SCANDAL - - _Box A was empty on the opening night because Augusta was not invited - by her husband. Tongues wagged freely about a Dresden figure, heavily - veiled, at the rear. After Baby Doe married Tabor, the box was always - decorated with white lilies when she was to be present. The box also - bore a large silver plaque, inscribed with the name TABOR._] - - [Illustration: GLAMOROUS WEDDING - - _When Baby Doe married Tabor, March, 1883, no expense was spared to - make the occasion memorable. A room of the Willard Hotel in - Washington, D. C., was decorated for supper. The centerpiece was six - feet high—a wedding bell of white roses, surmounted by a heart of red - roses and pierced by an arrow of violets, shot from a Cupid’s bow of - heliotrope. Other elaborate decorations garlanded the rest of the - room. The bride wore a $7,000 outfit of real lace lingerie, and a - brocaded satin gown, trimmed in marabou. President Arthur, senators - and congressmen attended the ceremony but their wives did not, - refusing to forgive the illicit affair and banning the Tabors from - society. The gown is now in the State Museum._] - - [Illustration: THE BRIDE’S BEAUTY WAS CELEBRATED AFAR - - _Her reddish gold hair, of which she had masses, was worn in a large - chignon at the nape of her neck until about a year before she married - Tabor. She frizzed the front hair for a fluffy effect; but later she - wore the back hair high and had the whole elaborately curled. Many men - succumbed to her charm and looks; among them, Carl Nollenberger, - popular Leadville saloon keeper, who had a beer tray made, portraying - her dainty profile. Her earlier photos have naturally arching - eyebrows; but later she pencilled these blacker and straighter. She - preferred color; the black is mourning for her father who died May, - 1883. By then, she had also had her ears pierced._] - - [Illustration: Another portrait.] - - [Illustration: The wedding dress.] - - [Illustration: Another portrait.] - - [Illustration: Another portrait.] - - [Illustration: BABY DOE TABOR’S DREAM HOUSES - - _The second house that Tabor bought was on the south side of 13th and - ran from Grant to Sherman. Shown are Tabor with his favorite horse and - Baby Doe beside a disputed statue. Three of the scandalous nude - figures can be seen, too, at the left by the spruce tree and in the - center of the pool. The interior shows a playing fountain, crystal - chandelier, heavy walnut furniture, oriental rugs and hangings, oil - paintings, mirrors, a loaded buffet, silver pitcher and every sort of - bric-a-brac, dear to those of the Victorian era._] - - [Illustration: Interior view.] - - [Illustration: THE FIRST BORN - - _No baby had such lavish belongings and such wide attention as Lillie - Tabor, who was born in July, 1884. Her christening outfit cost - $15,000. Her mother, who was fond of keeping scrapbooks, entered many - clippings about her beautiful baby. The right-hand page contains three - clippings from January, 1887, describing the visit of the artist, - Thomas Nast, to Denver and his sketching the baby for Harper’s Bazaar. - When Lillie was eighteen, she ran away to McCourt relatives in - Chicago. Later she married her cousin, John Last, and settled in - Milwaukee. Her daughters, Caroline and Jane, resided there for some - years after Lillie’s death in 1946, concealing their Tabor descent._] - - [Illustration: Scrapbook.] - - [Illustration: SILVER DOLLAR - - _Baby Doe lost her second baby, a boy; and her third child, born in - 1889, was another little girl. She only enjoyed four years of the - rich, petted life that her sister had had. Christened a long string of - names, she used Silver and Silver Dollar the most. Although Lillie - resembled Baby Doe in looks, Silver, who had the nickname of - “Honey-maid,” was closer to her mother. Silver spent most of her - adolescence and young womanhood in Leadville, living with her mother - at assorted cheap locations. She was fond of horses, gay parties, - dancing and excitement._ - - * * * - - _Baby Doe’s favorite daughter tried to be a newspaper woman, a movie - actress, and a novelist with one printed book, “Star of Blood.” But - she failed in all her ventures. Silver Dollar’s end was tragic and - sordid in the extreme. She was scalded to death under very suspicious - circumstances in a rooming house in Chicago’s cheapest district. Not - yet thirty-six years old, she was a perpetual drunk, was addicted to - dope and had lived with many men under several aliases. Her funeral - expenses were paid by Peter McCourt._ - - * * *] - - [Illustration: MEETING “T. R.” - - _Baby Doe’s happiest moment about Silver was this one, recorded on - August 29, 1910, when the ex-president Roosevelt was visiting in - Denver and received a song about his former visit with lyrics signed - by Silver Echo Tabor, age 20, a pretty brunette._] - - [Illustration: THE PROPHETIC CURTAIN AND ITS FATAL WORDS - - _The Tabors lived opulently and showily right up to the moment of the - Silver Panic in 1893 when their fortune came tumbling down. In the - same year, 1895, that Augusta died a wealthy woman in California, they - were bankrupt. Tabor became a day laborer and Baby Doe did the hardest - sort of manual work. Finally Tabor was appointed postmaster of Denver. - The Tabors and their two little girls moved into two rooms at the - Windsor and here they lived until Tabor’s death in 1899. His dying - words to Baby Doe were, “Hang on to the Matchless. It will make - millions again.” But the people of Denver, attending performances in - the Tabor Theatre, looked at the curtain and quoted Kingsley’s sad - couplet:_ - - “So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again, - Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.”] - - [Illustration: THE MATCHLESS MINE BECAME BABY DOE’S HOME - - _For nearly thirty-six years after Tabor’s death, Baby Doe followed - her husband’s injunction. Between leases, and sometimes during leases, - she lived in a small tool cabin beside the shaft and the hoist house. - At the time of the author’s visit, in 1927, the mine looked as above. - This shot is taken looking west, in the direction of Leadville, and a - spur of Fryer Hill is blocking a view of the continental divide. Baby - Doe furnished the cabin (at the left) with plain furniture and - subsisted on cheap edibles. But the cabin was always extremely neat - and her coal and wood in tidy piles. Below is one of the last pictures - taken of her, October 6, 1933, and shows her characteristic clothing. - In winter, she wrapped her feet in burlap._] - - [Illustration: Baby Doe at the Matchless Mine.] - - [Illustration: FORTUNE HUNTERS - - _After Baby Doe’s body was found frozen, March 7, 1935, vandals - entered her cabin, ransacked her belongings, ripping up the mattress - and overturning everything, while they tried to find a fortune they - imagined she had hidden. But all the effects, that had been preserved - from her glorious days, were with the nuns or in Denver warehouses. - Baby Doe, herself, was neat and tidy._] - - [Illustration: JACOB SANDS’ HOUSE IN ASPEN - - _Baby Doe’s friend bought a cottage at Hunter and Hopkins in 1889 and - later he rented this house on Main Street. Both his residences still - stand and are the delight of the tourists. In 1898, he and his wife - and their children moved to Leadville, then Arizona, and are now lost - to history._] - - [Illustration: THE ETERNAL SNOWS VIEWED FROM FRYER HILL - - _When Baby Doe walked to town by the road that led into Leadville’s - Eighth Street, this was the view that faced her across the Arkansas - Valley. The mountains are miles away but seem close in the rarified - atmosphere. They are Elbert (Colorado’s highest) to the left and - Massive to the right. Below is the Matchless Mine after its partial - restoration in 1953._] - - [Illustration: The Matchless Mine.] - -Now, in the shadow of the Continental Divide, this man, this Croesus, -had become my lover. I just knew those gorgeous mountains would answer -my prayer that first morning I saw them! - -Meanwhile, Mrs. Tabor and Horace were entertaining society in their fine -house in Denver and I only saw him on his visits to Leadville. But these -visits were frequent, because that was the year of the fires in the -Chrysolite mine and the strike that finally turned out all the miners of -the district. Leadville was bedlam in June. Knots of men were loitering -around everywhere, or preventing other miners from entering town, and -the whole temper of the streets very ugly. Strikers and mine-owners both -grew increasingly obstinate. - -The strikers were most virulently angry against Tabor. Everyone went -armed and the tenseness of the situation seemed about to destroy my -new-found happiness. The miners said Tabor had been one of them just a -short time ago, and it was their vote that had put him in political -power. Now he had forgotten. - -“Dirty B——, to turn on us,” I overheard many of the men in the street -muttering. - -Something had to be done. Tabor was one of the property owners to -organize a Committee of Safety. They met with dramatic secrecy in -Tabor’s private rooms in the Opera House, and after drawing up an -agreement similar to that of the Vigilance Committee of early San -Francisco, elected C. C. Davis, the editor of the _Chronicle_, their -leader. Mr. Davis first sounded out Governor Pitkin on declaring martial -law, but he said to call on him only as a last resort. - -Feeling climbed to a higher pitch. Seven committees of local militia -were organized and tempers were now reaching the boiling point. One day -on Harrison Avenue for a distance of eight blocks, eight thousand -striking miners menacingly swaggered back and forth and a like number of -citizens of opposite sympathies paraded with determination as grim as -theirs. The street was jammed. As I looked down, worried and fearful, -from the window of my suite, it seemed as if at any moment, a local war -would break out and the whole camp be destroyed by flames and bloodshed. - -The leading men of the town took this moment to read a proclamation to -the miners. Tabor, Davis and a number of others stepped out on the -balcony of the Tabor Opera House. I hurried into the street to watch the -proceedings, my heart beating wildly with fear. The seething mass of -humanity below these men were all armed and they were mostly good shots. -Tabor standing up so tall and dark and fierce on the balcony would make -an excellent target. - -“Oh, dear God,” I prayed. “Don’t let anything happen!” - -I hardly realized I was praying at the time. But Davis demanded -menacingly that the strike be called off. He told the miners to return -to work, then said that if they would not accede, the citizens would -protect the owners. He said they would bring in other workers to take -their jobs. My fear was so great that I could actually hear my lips -mumbling incoherent, beseeching words. - -A shot rang out! - -The sharp noise seemed to rend my heart in two. I hardly dared take my -eyes from the balcony to glance around for fear of missing a falling -figure among that intrepid group. But Tabor and his friends were -straight and unconcerned. Their belief in law and order made them brave. -The cut-throat mob must have sensed that. No figure fell from their -midst. Whatever the shot was, it had not been fired at them. I sighed -with relief. - -Colonel Bohn of the Committee of Safety was trying to urge a horse he -was mounted on through the mob, and was brandishing a drawn sword to -emphasize his right. It was a very foolish thing to do at a time like -that. - -“Somebody must be trying to shoot the old fool,” the teamster next to me -in the crowd remarked. - -“Maybe a signal for the miners to start firing,” the man with him -offered as a counter-suggestion. - -I was terrified—not for myself—but because of Tabor’s exposed position. -My hands flew to my throat. - -“Oh, don’t say that!” I almost screamed. - -The teamster turned around and stared at me. - -“You’re all right—they won’t shoot you. It’s them damned slave-driving -millionaires they’re after.” - -And Tabor was the one they were after most! But nothing happened. A -policeman pulled Colonel Bohn off his horse and rushed him to the jail -“for disturbing the peace,” although it was more likely for -safe-keeping. Finally, both sides of the fray began to split up in -little groups, then to disperse and go home. The immediate danger was -over. But I knew now what it was like to be in love with a prominent man -in an important political office. It meant helpless fear of an -assassin’s bullet. And fear was a new emotion to me—that’s where love -had brought me. I shuddered and turned inward to the Clarendon. - -Martial law was declared some hours later and slowly the miners went -back to work, having lost their cause. There was covert grumbling in the -saloons and on the streets for some time, but at last, life got back to -normal, and the regular hum of the pumps at all the mines around filled -the night again. - -That July, ex-President Grant came to Leadville for a ten-day visit in -and about the mining country. He came as Tabor’s guest and Tabor, as -lieutenant-governor, headed a committee sent down to meet the general’s -private car. It was coming on the D.&R.G. tracks from Manitou where the -great man and his wife had been taking the waters. The committee -accompanied the presidential party into camp over a road lighted the -last miles with enormous bonfires. I was very thrilled at the idea of -the President actually being in my hotel. After he had toured the mines -and smelters and addressed discharged soldiers from the Civil War, a -banquet was given him at the Clarendon on the last of his three days in -the town proper. - -The luxuriousness of the scene was impressive. The _Leadville Chronicle_ -was printed on white satin to give to the President at the banquet as a -souvenir of his visit. The gift made such a tremendous impression on him -that when he died, he willed it to the Smithsonian Institution in -Washington where it may still be seen. - -Tabor, rather bewildered and shame-faced, came to me afterward in our -suite and said: - -“Darling, I know the President wanted to meet you more than anyone else -in Leadville. I saw him look at you several times—you are always the -most beautiful woman in any gathering. But you know this mining camp and -how it talks. We must be discreet.” - -“Yes, I understand perfectly,”—and I leaned over and kissed his -forehead. He had thrown himself down rather disconsolately in a big -overstuffed chair, and now he gathered me into his lap. We were locked -in each other’s embrace for some minutes. We were happy just to be -together. - -When our relationship first began, I’m sure I was the most in love. But -all through the summer, Tabor had begun to talk to me more and more -seriously. Though he talked mostly about mining matters and about his -political ambitions, he spoke finally about Augusta and me. It was an -enormous experience, touching me to the soul, to watch the unfolding of -the love and trust of the man I adored. - -At first, I had been hardly more than a pretty toy of which he was very -fond. He would lavish all sorts of costly presents on me—jewelry, -clothes, and that rarest and most extravagant tribute in a mining camp -at 10,000 feet altitude, flowers. - -I remember one day he sent up a woman who used to peddle hand-made -underwear across the mountains from camp to camp. She carried her -samples and some of her wares in a large bag she packed on her back. -Tabor sent her up to my suite one day. Then when she had everything in -the way of exquisite lace and embroidered chemises laid out over the -chairs and bed, he joined us and bought me over $350 worth of her goods! - -But now things were different, I didn’t hear so many stories about his -other women. I could feel his love for me growing with the appreciation -he had for my character. - -“You’re always so gay and laughing, Baby,” he would say, “and yet you’re -so brave. Augusta is a damned brave woman, too, but she’s powerful -disagreeable about it.” - -He would sit glum and discouraged for a while, and then add: - -“And I can’t imagine a woman who doesn’t like pretty things! I’ve tried -to buy her all sorts of clothes and jewelry since we’ve had the money. -But she just throws them back in my face and asks me if I’ve lost my -mind.” - -You can hear it said and you can read it in books that I broke up -Governor Tabor’s home, and that he broke up mine. But that is far from -the truth. Both of our marriages had failed before we ever met. - -Augusta Tabor had no capacity for anything but strenuous work and very -plain living. When they moved into their palatial new home, she wouldn’t -live upstairs in the master’s bedroom but moved down in the servants’ -quarters off the kitchen. She said they were plenty good enough for -her—and how could she cook all that way away from the stove? She also -insisted on keeping a cow tethered on the front lawn and milking it, -herself. Tabor was very humiliated by these actions. As -lieutenant-governor of the state, he was very anxious to live in a style -befitting his station. Also, he hoped to be senator. - -But Augusta Tabor laughed at his ideas in a very mean way. Tabor had a -really sweet disposition. He would come to me often to tell me of some -upsetting incident, with a dreadfully hurt look in his eye. Another -trait of Tabor’s that irritated Augusta tremendously was his generosity. -Anybody could touch Tabor for sizable loans with no trouble at all. He -was delighted to help people less fortunate than he. - -He had always been like that, and he was to the day he died. When he was -Leadville’s first postmaster, he made up out of his own pocket the -salaries of some five employees just so that Leadville could have more -efficient service. He gave money to every church in Leadville for their -building fund regardless of the denomination. He gave money for the -Tabor Grand Hotel in Leadville (now the Vendome) in 1884, even after he -moved away. He was the same lovable donor when he moved to Denver. - -He sold the land at the corner of Sixteenth and Arapahoe Streets to the -city of Denver for a postoffice, at a bargain price, and he followed -this gesture up with a hundred and one donations to private and public -charities. - -“Trying to buy your way to popularity,” Augusta would sniff -disparagingly. - -Tabor would wince under her barbs. He gave because he liked people. He -was naturally friendly, and the only times he gave money, hoping for -some definite return, were in political channels. All his other gifts -were spontaneous. But Augusta did not understand this generosity and she -didn’t like it. And what Augusta did not like, she could make -exceedingly clear with her sharp tongue! He never was her husband after -July, 1880. - -Naturally, in these trying circumstances, Tabor turned more and more to -me. Later, that fall, he suggested that he should re-furnish one of the -suites at the Windsor and that I should move to Denver to be closer to -him. Nothing could have thrilled or delighted me more. - -“Oh, darling! I would adore to live at the Windsor,” I cried, throwing -my arms around him. - -The Windsor was the last word in elegance, with a sixty-foot mahogany -bar, a ballroom with elaborate crystal chandeliers, and floor of -parquetry, and a lobby furnished in thick red carpet and -diamond-dust-backed mirrors. It was much more impressive than the old -American House, which had thrilled my girlish heart when I had first -come to Colorado. Here was my dream slowly unfolding before me, almost -exactly as I had first visualized it—to be a queen in the cosmopolitan -circles of Denver! - -Later we departed for Denver separately. I took the Rio Grande and wore -a heavy veil. He took the stagecoach over to South Park and then went on -the rival narrow gauge in David Moffat’s private car. But our reunion at -the Windsor was all the more delightful because of our enforced -separation. After Augusta’s comments on the Leadville strike, Tabor -never spent an evening up on Broadway, but came to me more and more -often. - -“You’re a vulgar boor—I’ve always known that,” she had said, “but at -least I thought you had enough sense not to call a common lynching gang -a Committee of Safety for Law and Order. And getting mixed up with that -silly egotistic rooster, Davis, who used a six-shooter for a gavel! And -forcing Governor Pitkin to declare martial law. Mark you my words, -you’ve lost all the political popularity you’ve been so busy buying by -your recent actions.” - -Tabor was very hurt at this, the more so because there seemed to be an -element of truth in her words. The attitude toward him in Leadville had -changed and Tabor really loved that mining camp—it was always “home” to -him, much more than Denver. And in later years, I felt the same way, -although just then I was eager to conquer fresh fields. - -“Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure she’s wrong—and besides what do you care -about that ugly old mining camp? You’re a big man going to do the -biggest things for the nation. And what if Governor Pitkin doesn’t like -you? Probably next election, you’ll be governor, yourself!” - -Meanwhile, Tabor busied himself with plans for building another opera -house, The Tabor Grand, in Denver. He called in his architects, W. J. -Edbrooke and F. P. Burnham (who had designed the Tabor Block) and -stuffed their pockets with $1,000 notes. - -“Go to Europe and study the theatres of London, Paris, Berlin and -Vienna. Pick up any good ideas they’ve got laying around and improve on -them. I want only the best!” - -Besides the architects, Tabor sent other agents on various missions. He -detailed one man to go to Brussels for carpets, another to France for -brocades and tapestries, a third to Japan for the best cherry wood to -make the interior woodwork, a fourth to Honduras for mahogany for other -trimming. A dozen contracts were drawn up in New York and Chicago for -furnishings and fripperies. The building would be the most expensive -west of the Mississippi. - -About this time, Tabor went back to Leadville on a spree that Bill Bush -was careful to tell me about. Bill had begun to feel jealous of my -influence with Tabor although we were still outwardly very good friends. -He wanted to make me jealous, in turn. - -Tabor borrowed Dave Moffat’s private car and went to Leadville for a -ball that the fast women and sports of the town were giving in the -Wigwam. He told me and, undoubtedly, Augusta, that he had to go up to -Leadville on some mining business and would probably be gone several -days. - -The ball turned out to be an orgy. Everyone drank too much and Tabor was -supposed to have stumbled about with a girl in a gaudy spangled gown -which, a few days before the ball, had been on display in the window of -the Daniels, Fisher and Smith Dry Goods Emporium on Harrison Avenue, -Leadville, bearing a tag marked $500. Bill Bush tried to insinuate that -Tabor had bought it as a gift to another one of his loves. - -“And why shouldn’t he, Bill?” I asked. “I love the man as he is. You -forget I’m not Augusta. If he wants to have a good time among his -friends, I think that’s fine. He knew all of them a long time before he -knew me.” - -But Bill wouldn’t believe I was sincere. He replied: - -“Well, you’re a good actress!” - -Then he added some more juicy details. After the ball, those who could -still walk trooped over to the Odeon Variety Theatre where a new show -started at 3 a.m. Tabor had sat in a box smoking cigars and drinking -champagne. Every time he thought a girl was especially attractive, he -would throw a shower of gold and silver coins over her head. At the -intermission he had invited the actresses into his box and put his arms -about their neat waists. - -After the show ended at five o’clock, he went to the Saddle Rock Cafe, -our favorite restaurant, for breakfast. Then he went back to the -Clarendon, finally, to sleep. He slept all the next day. In the evening -he asked three or four successful mining men to accompany him back to -Denver in the private car. Having slept all day, he sat up all night as -the train climbed over Kenosha Pass, playing poker, using twenty-dollar -gold pieces as chips. - -“And why shouldn’t he? I like a gambling man—someone who isn’t afraid to -take chances—that was one of the worst faults of Harvey Doe.” - -Bill Bush shrugged his shoulders. Presently he laughed off the whole -conversation with: - -“You’re a clever girl, Baby—shrewd as they come! But talking about your -late and not too much lamented husband, where is he and what’s the state -of your divorce? The Governor wants me to find out.” - -“I don’t know where Harvey is but my divorce is final—I got it a year -ago and I am a completely free agent.” - -The year was now 1881. All that spring and summer, Tabor and I were -immersed in the planning and erection of the great building that was to -be a monument to the Tabor name for all time. Tabor had left home -unequivocally in January, but as he was on so many frequent trips to New -York, Chicago or Leadville, where he stayed was really not noticed until -that autumn. - -At the festive opening night of the Tabor Grand Opera House, with Emma -Abbott singing Lucia, Box A of the six fashion boxes was conspicuously -empty. That was the box Tabor had reserved for himself and family. It -was wreathed in flowers and a huge pendant of roses hung above it. He -was on the stage or in the wings waiting for the ceremony of dedication. -Augusta, alone of all elaborately gowned Denver society, did not put in -an appearance. I could hear whispers all around. - -“Look, Mrs. Tabor isn’t here! Probably she’s found out about that -blonde! Wonder if the little hussy’s had the nerve to come....” - -I was there, but veiled and sitting in an inconspicuous seat in the -parquet. I was right where I could see Tabor’s son, Maxcy, in Box H with -Luella Babcock of whom his father had told me he was very fond, and the -sight made me both happy and worried. I was happy to be there on an -occasion so memorable to the great man I loved. But I was worried and -unstrung about what would be the outcome of our love. - -Augusta did know about me, because Bill Bush had been sent to her to try -to negotiate a divorce a short time after Bill had looked up the record -of my proceedings. But Augusta was obdurate. She considered divorce a -lasting disgrace and stigma. She had refused pointblank. And so without -a bid from Tabor that tremendous night of September 5, 1881, she stayed -home. - -The newspapers of Denver devoted pages to the opening and dedication. -Even Eugene Field who ordinarily poked a great deal of unkind fun at -Tabor in his capacity as an editor of the _Denver Tribune_, printed a -complimentary quatrain: - - “The opera house—a union grand - Of capital and labor, - Long will the stately structure stand - A monument to Tabor.” - -The brick and limestone building, five stories high with a corner tower, -was described as modified Egyptian Moresque architecture. It housed -stores and offices besides the theatre proper, and all the necessary -property and dressing rooms. The auditorium had an immense cut-glass -chandelier and a beautiful drop-curtain painted by Robert Hopkin of -Detroit. It showed the ruins of an ancient temple with broken pillars -around a pool, and bore the following inscription by Charles Kingsley: - - “So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again, - Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.” - -Many writers since that day have pointed out the weird prophecy of -Tabor’s fortune hidden in those lines. But no one thought anything of -the curtain that night except that it was dignified and very decorative. -Of course, I had seen the curtain before as I (shrouded in a veil when -there were associates or too many workmen about) had spent much time -with Tabor going over every detail. - -Originally he had planned to have a portrait of Shakespeare hung in the -lobby, but I said: - -“No. Have your own portrait. _You_ are Denver’s benefactor.” - -The next day he had the portrait altered. I also suggested the idea of a -large silver plate with gold letters to be hung on Box A. When the -jeweler delivered it, the block was two feet long and six inches thick, -of solid silver from the Matchless Mine. The name Tabor was in relief -letters of solid gold. I thought it was one of the handsomest things I -ever saw. But I could spend pages on descriptions of the luxuries and -elaborate furnishings of that building—as indeed many writers have -already done before me. - -But after that night, tongues wagged more venomously. Augusta continued -mad and obstinate. It was a very trying situation for Tabor in a -political way, as naturally all this defaming talk would have a bad -effect on his reputation. Often he would come to me with his troubles. -Finally, I suggested: - -“Perhaps, if I moved over to the American House and gave you my suite, -that would at least stop gossip around the Windsor. Nobody much hangs -around the American House, the way they do this lobby.” - -“Baby, you are wonderful. You are the cleverest little woman in the -world! No one knows how much I want to make you my wife. And be able to -show you off to the world as the proud man I really am! And not have to -hide you behind that hideous veil—but what can I do with Augusta? She -won’t talk to me and she won’t listen to Bill Bush. I haven’t given her -any money for months now, just to try to force her to listen to reason.” - -“There must be some way. First, I’ll move. You stay here at the Windsor -and then we’ll see.” - -“It isn’t as if she loved me. She couldn’t, and talk to me the way she -always has. It’s just that she’s a dog in the manger—she doesn’t want me -herself, but, by gad, she’ll see to it that you don’t get me!” - -“Love will find a way,” I said encouragingly. My own heart leaped with -excitement. Tabor had proposed to me before and told me that he loved -me. But I had been afraid to let myself believe entirely in the last -complete fulfillment of my dream. I loved the greatest man in Colorado, -and he loved me. That was almost enough. Now he wanted me to become his -wife! I lifted my mouth to his with new depth and resolution in my soul. - -Sometimes when I would be writing home to Mama trying to describe to her -all the strange glamour and drama and riches of my new life, I would -think of the other side of my existence. That side was not so pretty, -for the daughter who had set out as a bride. Harvey Doe was almost as if -he’d never been—my whole life was Tabor. Naturally, my letters reflected -the truly great love that absorbed me, even if it had to be hidden from -the world. - -But I knew Mama would understand and love me just the same, and Papa -would forgive me when finally Tabor and I were actually married. - -Augusta, however, made the first drastic move. She brought suit for a -property settlement, and publicly dragged the situation into the -limelight. She wanted the courts to compel Tabor to settle $50,000 a -year on her and also to give her the home on Broadway as well as some -adjoining land. - -Her bill of complaint gave a list of his holdings totaling over nine -million dollars and said she believed his income to be around $100,000 a -year. Meanwhile, she said he had contributed nothing to her support -since January, 1881, and she had been compelled to take roomers and -boarders into her home to support herself. This was not true. Bill Bush -had been told to offer her a very substantial settlement if she would -give Tabor a divorce and she already had some money of her own. - -“Now I’m mad!” Tabor said to me that night. “Nobody ever called me a -stingy man till this minute. And by God, that old termagant will find -out I can be stingy!” - -He had that suit quashed with no difficulty as being without the -jurisdiction of the court. But the divorce question was different. The -lawyers were deadlocked for months. Augusta wouldn’t grant the divorce. -In turn, Tabor wouldn’t grant her a penny with or without the divorce. I -rather encouraged him in this last stand, probably foolishly, but I had -seen her hurt him so frequently that when he did turn on her for such an -unjust attack, I told him he should fight back. But this battle only -delayed my own chance for happiness, and, meanwhile, wasn’t doing -Tabor’s political reputation any good. - -“Tabor,” I said to him one evening when he came to call at the American -House, “I have an idea where we might be a little foxier than Augusta -and, if nothing else, frighten her into a different position.” - -“How’s that?” he said glumly—we hardly ever had any fun any more, -feeling we had to hide away from people. Besides, most of the time, -Tabor was stirred up about Augusta’s meanness and obstinacy. - -“Well, with all your influence, couldn’t you get a divorce in some other -county than Arapahoe where you also own property? Maybe it wouldn’t be -entirely valid. But we could act like it was, and get married. If -Augusta knew she was married to a bigamist, maybe she would consider -that a worse disgrace than being a divorcee!” - -Tabor leaped up out of his chair and charmingly whirled me off my feet -and around and around in the room with boyish enthusiasm. - -“Baby, I always told you you were wonderful! I know just the -place—Durango! I own a mine down there, and the judge is a great friend -of mine. I’m sure I can fix it up in no time at all. If we can just keep -it secret from everyone but Augusta—and then just flash the decree under -her nose—and then our marriage certificate—we’ll have her where we want -her!” - -Meantime, all during the year of 1882, subversive political factions -were at work to bring pressure on the legislature of one kind and -another. When President Garfield had been shot in July of the year -before, Chester Arthur succeeded to his position. President Arthur -appointed Senator Henry M. Teller to his cabinet. This left a vacancy in -one of Colorado’s electoral seats. Governor Pitkin appointed a mediocre -politician by the name of George Chilcott to Teller’s place only until -the legislature should convene. - -“Just did that because he wants the office himself and to spite me,” -Tabor explained. - -And I heard this opinion verified frequently by other men. The -legislature was not to meet until January of the next year, 1883, when -they were to elect two senators, one to fill a six-year term, and the -other to the thirty days remaining of Teller’s term. Everyone said that -Tabor would get the six-year term, even though Governor Pitkin wanted it -and had the support of the regular Republican machine. Tabor was so -popular. - -But Augusta ruined all that. The Durango divorce came through without -any hitch in the summer of 1882, and on September 30, Tabor and I met -secretly in St. Louis, having gone by different trains. We met in the -office of Colonel Dyer, a leading attorney, who summoned John M. Young, -a justice of the peace. When we went to the court house to get a -license, Tabor took the recorder, C. W. Irwin, aside and fixed it up -with him that under no circumstances should our license be included on -the list given to the daily press. - -“Secretly divorced and secretly remarried,” Tabor said that night, -elated as a school boy. “That’ll be something for Augusta to swallow -about the man she thinks she can keep tied down! It’s also a good -precaution for those scandal mongers at the senate. If they get too -nosey, we’ll show them we’re really married.” - -I tried to pretend I was as happy as he. But to me, a marriage was only -binding when it had been sanctioned by the church and performed by a -priest. And I knew Papa would only forgive my transgressions on that -basis. I had drifted very far away from much of Father Bonduel’s -teachings but the kernel still remained. I had offended against many of -the Church’s mandates and of God’s. But I still wanted to be safely back -in the fold, living the life of a respectable married woman, devoted to -her husband, her children, and her home. With that picture in my mind, I -could not join as heartily as I should have wished in the champagne -toast Tabor made at a tete-a-tete supper at the old Southern Hotel. - -“Here’s to our wedding day!” he exclaimed with sincere joviality. - -“Yes,” I agreed, and added with the fervor of the wish that was gnawing -at my heart, “here’s to our marriage!” - -The New Year of 1883 dawned with both our heads whirling with hopes and -fears. Hope ran very high that Tabor would soon be going to Washington -for six years and I, with him. Fear besieged us with the thought that -Augusta would prevent all this. But two enormous events happened that -January. - -Augusta sued for divorce and accepted a settlement of their house, the -La Veta Place apartment house, and a quarter of a million dollars worth -of mining stock, including one half interest in the Tam O’Shanter mine -above Aspen. Augusta created a hysterical scene in court, which did -Tabor a lot of damage. When the trial was over and she was asked to sign -the papers, she turned toward the judge and shrilled in a fearful voice, - -“What is my name?” - -“Your name is Tabor, ma’am. Keep the name. It is yours by right.” - -“I will. It is mine till I die. It was good enough for me to take. It is -good enough for me to keep. Judge, I ought to thank you for what you -have done, but I cannot. I am not thankful. But it was the only thing -left for me to do. Judge, I wish you would put in the record, ‘Not -willingly asked for.’” - -Augusta rose and began to sniffle in a horrible manner, making a -spectacle of herself. Before she reached the door, she broke down in -tears and sobbed, “Oh, God, not willingly, not willingly!” - -I was not there but many people ran to tell me about it, particularly -Bill Bush, who dramatized his sympathy very heavily. - -“Well,” I said, not feeling in the least sorry for Augusta, “If she -really did feel that way, why did she go home to Maine and stay so long -that autumn before I met Tabor? That was when she lost him. He had a -chance then to find out there were plenty of other women in the world, -and what’s more important, with better dispositions and nicer looks. -Either she should never have left him or else she should have been twice -as sweet when she got back.” - -Reluctantly, Bill agreed with me—he had to admit the truth. - -But the newspapers were different. They printed scathing editorials -about the whole affair, and intimated that Tabor would be forever damned -politically. - -They weren’t entirely right, but they nearly were. The contest in the -legislature was long and bitter. The balloting went on and on and no one -could break the deadlock between Pitkin and Tabor. All of a sudden the -Pitkin men switched to Bowen, a third candidate, a wealthy mining man -from the southern part of the state whom no one had taken seriously up -to that time. Out of a clear sky he got the six-year term. - -As a sop to Tabor, he was unanimously offered the thirty days remaining -of Teller’s term. Tabor was always a good sport. He accepted the offer -with extraordinary grace under the circumstances, congratulated his -rival, and prepared to leave immediately. That was January 27, 1883, and -by February 3, he was being sworn in at Washington. I have never seen -anyone so delighted and happy as Tabor was, leaving Denver. He was -fifty-two years old but you would have thought he was twelve and had -been given his first pony. I, too, was joyful and expectant. - -“And what a wedding we’ll have, Baby!” he said in parting. “I’ll fix all -the details and send for you to be married just before my term is up. If -all goes well, you’ll have both a priest and a president at your -ceremony! A lover couldn’t do more. - -“But don’t tell anyone anything about my plans, or they may go wrong. -Get your clothes ready. Write to your family very secretly in Oshkosh to -join you in Chicago. I’ll have a private car put on there for you just -about a week before March 4. - -“And you’ll be the most beautiful and talked-of bride in the world. Just -you wait and see.” - - - - - _Chapter Four_ - - -My wedding day! A lavish, historic wedding that was famous around the -world and was to be talked of for years to come—that was the marriage I -had. - -Toward the end of Tabor’s thirty-day stay in the senate in Washington, -he sent for me. In the meantime, I had left Denver and gone back to -Oshkosh to visit my family. Mama was elated with the dazzling good -fortune that had befallen me. She wept with excitement and joy; Papa was -gradually becoming reconciled to the idea of a second marriage provided -the ceremony could be performed by a priest. Tabor wrote he thought he -could arrange this. - -“I’d certainly like to run smack into Mrs. Doe,” Mama sniffed. “Here she -thought you weren’t good enough for Harvey—and now you’re marrying one -of the richest men in the United States and may end up living in the -White House!” - -In some ways, I shared Mama’s spitefulness but I was too absorbed in -anticipation of my jewelled future to spend much time looking backward. -Mama couldn’t understand how Tabor and my love for him had completely -blotted out everything that had gone before. In fact, I don’t think she -understood then that I really was in love with Tabor, a man twenty-four -years my senior. Later, she learned that I was sincere in this great -overwhelming emotion of my life. - -Papa and Mama, two of my sisters, two of my brothers and two -brothers-in-law arrived at the Willard Hotel the last week in February -to be with me. The wedding invitations had quarter-inch silver margins -and engraved superscriptions, also in silver. I addressed them in my own -handwriting, sending them to President Arthur, Secretary of the Interior -and Mrs. Henry M. Teller, Senator and Mrs. Nathaniel P. Hill, -Senator-elect Tom Bowen, Judge and Mrs. James Belford (he was Colorado’s -only congressman at the time), Senator Jerome B. Chaffee and others with -Colorado affiliations. - -I had them delivered personally by a liveried coachman in the rich -victoria which Tabor had engaged for his stay in Washington, and which -I, as Miss McCourt, was now using. - -“I’m sorry, Miss,” the coachman said on his return. “Mrs. Hill said to -give you this.” - -In his hand lay a returned invitation torn vigorously once across. - -I blushed but said nothing. In my mind, I resolved that the day would -come when Denver society would not be able to insult me like that. After -we were married, had traveled in Europe, and were settled in the grand -house that Tabor would buy me, they would feel differently. Just let -Mrs. Hill who had lived so close to me in Blackhawk wait and see! Maybe -her coachman did hire my friend, Link Allebaugh, to drive a wagon filled -with her household goods when she moved to Denver and maybe she had seen -me with Jake in Sandelowsky-Pelton, but times were different now! - -At nine o’clock in the evening of March first, the wedding party -assembled in one of the larger of the Willard’s parlors. I was gowned in -a marabou-trimmed, heavily brocaded white satin dress with real lace -lingerie, an outfit that cost $7,000. I had hoped to wear Tabor’s -wedding present to me, a $75,000 diamond necklace which he was having -made in New York. It had been sold to him as an authentic part of the -jewels Queen Isabella had pawned to outfit Columbus for his voyage to -America. My dress was made very decollete so as to show off the necklace -to the best advantage, but it was not completed in time, so I omitted -jewelry. I wore long white gloves and carried a bouquet of white roses. - -My family was in black since they were in mourning because of the recent -death of my older brother, James. Mama’s and the girls’ black silks were -relieved, however, by ornaments of diamond and onyx which Tabor had -given them. Tabor appeared with Bill Bush and Tom Bowen. - -We stood in front of a table richly draped in cardinal-red cloth. It -held a candelabra with ten lighted tapers that shed a subdued and -religious light over the assemblage. All the men had come, including -President Arthur, but none of their wives. I was hurt and disappointed -at this turn of events but I didn’t let it spoil the sweetness of my -smile nor the graciousness of my behavior to any of them. - -The ceremony, an abbreviated nuptial mass, was performed by the Reverend -P. L. Chapelle of St. Matthew’s. When it was over, Tabor kissed me and -then President Arthur stepped up to offer his congratulations. - -“I have never seen a more beautiful bride,” he exclaimed, shaking my -hand. “May I not beg a rose from your bouquet?” - -Flattered and pleased, I broke off a blossom to fasten in the lapel of -his coat while Mama beamed with pleasure. All of my family pushed up -next. We kissed and embraced, excited and thrilled. It hardly seemed -possible that here we McCourts, all the way from Oshkosh, were about to -sit down to supper with the great ones of the nation! - -After the rest had congratulated us both, folding doors were opened by -the servants and we moved into the next chamber to the supper table. The -centerpiece was six feet high. A great basin of blossoms held a massive -wedding bell of white roses, surmounted by a heart of red roses and -pierced by an arrow of violets, shot from a Cupid’s bow of heliotrope. -At either end of the long table extending the whole length of the -parlor, was a colossal four-leaf clover formed of red roses, white -camelias and blue violets, garlanded with smilax. - -Over a separate table required to support the wedding cake, was a canopy -of flowers with trailing foliage. In each corner of the room was a bower -of japonicas arranged in duplicate form to the boxes of the Tabor Grand -Opera House at home, in Denver. Violets encircled each guest’s place at -table and other flowers garlanded the champagne buckets. - -“It’s like fairyland—or heaven!” Mama whispered to me. - -Supper was very gay. Everyone celebrated the occasion with hilarity and -although President Arthur took his departure at about quarter to eleven, -many of the other guests remained until midnight. It was a truly gala -feast. - -This was the first of March. With the next day, scandal broke in the -papers. Father Chapelle returned the $200 wedding fee that Tabor had -given him and publicly announced that he had been duped by Papa into -marrying two divorced persons. - -“When I asked the bride’s father if he knew of any impediments to the -marriage, he clearly answered he did not,” Father Chapelle was quoted as -explaining. “To say all in a few words, I was shamefully deceived by the -McCourt family.” - -He also threatened to have the marriage declared illicit by carrying the -question to the highest authorities in the Church. Eventually he thought -better of it, after Tabor had sent Bill Brush around to pacify him. But -Washington buzzed with gossip. - -The next day a greater sensation occurred when the newspapers got hold -of the fact that we had been secretly married six months previously in -St. Louis and three months before Tabor’s legal divorce from Augusta. -Both Tabor and I publicly denied this because of the political prestige -we hoped he would yet win. - -“Just malice and envy of a great man,” I told reporters. - -The next day, Tabor’s last day in the Senate, I went and sat in the -ladies’ gallery. I was dressed in one of my most stylish trousseau -costumes, a brown silk dress with a tight-fitting bodice, and I wore a -sparkling necklace, ear-rings and bracelets. I had on my jeweled -waist-girdle in the shape of a serpent, with diamond eyes, ruby tongue -and a long tail of emeralds. So attired I went to watch my husband -during his final session. I could hear whispers going all around the -assembly as I sought a seat and, pretty soon, masculine necks on the -floor began to crane around in order to see me. I was the most talked-of -figure in Washington. My beauty was discussed, my clothes, my jewels, my -spectacular lover and husband, his lavish spending, all the details of -our romance, and of Augusta’s position, our future plans and if the -marriage would last—Washington and the nation talked of nothing else -that week. - -I suppose all of us frail mortals enjoy the limelight and I, as much as -the next. Since only the flattering bits of conversations were repeated -back to me, I was as proud as a peacock and immensely flattered by this -wide-spread attention and admiration. Some of the papers were referring -to me as the Silver Queen and none of them failed to speak of my blonde -beauty. It was enough to turn the head of any twenty-eight-year-old -(although, of course, I said I was twenty-two). - -“I’m so happy I can’t believe it’s all true,” I whispered to Tabor as we -left Washington on a wedding tour to New York. - -“But it’s nothing to the happiness we’re going to have,” he answered, -giving me an affectionate squeeze. “You’ll be the first lady of Colorado -next!” - -When we returned to Denver, Tabor first settled me in a palatial suite -at the Windsor Hotel. He gave a banquet to which he invited two hundred -people. The liquor flowed until dawn and there were many speeches and -toasts to Tabor and his greatness. Just before that, the Bayonne New -Jersey _Statesman_ had carried a banner headline reading “For President -of the United States: Horace A. W. Tabor,” and many people at the -banquet referred to the article very seriously, complimenting us on the -Senator’s future. - -“First lady of Colorado. Hell!” Tabor said. “You’ll be first lady of the -land!” - -I shivered with excitement. It really seemed as if my wonderful husband -would raise me to the most exalted height in the country. I, little -Lizzie McCourt from Oshkosh! - -But meanwhile, weeks began to drag by and no one came to see me. None of -the ladies made party calls (which were absolutely obligatory in those -days) and no one signified the least desire to welcome me as a newcomer -to the ranks of Denver society. I wanted to succeed for myself. But even -more, I wanted to succeed for Tabor as a helpmate. I wanted to be beside -him in his brilliant career. - -Tearfully, I broached the subject to Tabor. - -“Don’t worry, honey. It’s just that they don’t want to come to the -hotel. Wait till we get settled in the home I’ve bought for you—then -they’ll be around.” - -Tabor first bought a fine house at 1647 Welton. It was brick with a -verandah on the first floor and an awning-shaded porch on the second. -But he wanted something more elaborate. In December, 1886, he found it. - -The second house that Tabor bought was one of the most pretentious on -Capitol Hill and cost $54,000. It was on Thirteenth Avenue and its -grounds ran through from Sherman to Grant Avenue. A brown stone wall -about three feet high ran around the lower end of the velvety lawn where -the ground sloped down the hill, and it had two driveways to the -stables. Tabor engaged five gardeners and housemen, two coachmen, and -two footmen. We had three carriages and six horses. - -Two pairs of horses were pure white. One carriage was brown trimmed in -red. Another was dark blue enamel with thin gold striping, and lined -with light blue satin. The last carriage was black, trimmed in white, -and upholstered in white satin. I would order up the carriage and horses -that best suited the costume I was wearing that day. Most often it was -the blue carriage and the four glossy whites, caparisoned in shiny, -brass-ornamented harness, to set off the blue of my eyes should anyone -glance from the sidewalk to look at me. - -Troops of children used to follow along behind my equipage every time -the coach and footmen drove me downtown, exactly as if they were -following a circus parade and would shout out comments on my color -scheme of the day. Naturally the various uniforms of the servants -matched the complete outfit planned around each dress. They were maroon -for the brown carriage, blue for the blue, and black for the black, -although I alternated and switched them for the most startling effect in -relation to my own costume. One of the little girls who used to join the -traipsing throng, later grew up to be one of Colorado’s great women—Anne -Evans (prime mover of the Central City Summer Festival). - -But before the house was ready for occupancy, Tabor heard that General -Sherman was to pay a visit to Leadville. He borrowed Dave Moffat’s -private car, loaded six cases of champagne aboard, and together we set -out on the South Park line for the Clarendon Hotel. - -“Well, this won’t be like the time General Grant came to Leadville!” -Tabor said with a happy sigh. And it wasn’t. - -Tabor met the famous Civil War general in the morning and escorted him -on a tour of the mines. Later, in the evening, General Sherman and his -party joined us at a special table set for us in the hotel while an -orchestra, composed of miners that Tabor had engaged during the course -of the day, played during dinner. Afterward we took the party to the -Tabor Opera House. Our box was decorated in lilies—a custom Tabor always -followed in both Leadville and Denver whenever I was to be in the -audience—and throughout the performance, Tabor saw to it that the -champagne corks kept popping. - -General Sherman enjoyed himself immensely and in saying goodbye, bowed -low over my hand with: - -“The hospitality and beauty of the West amazes me.” - -Then he looked me directly in the eye, with a meaningful twinkle! - -This was the second time that year that I had met men of national -prominence, and on each occasion they had patently liked me. But why -wouldn’t their women accept me? I had done nothing really wrong. I -hadn’t stolen Tabor from Augusta, as they said. She had lost him first -and then I had merely loved him more than she. I could hardly bear this -turn of events. - -Back in Denver, things were worse. Bill Bush and I had been growing more -and more incompatible for a long time and I finally persuaded Tabor to -bring on my younger brother, Peter McCourt, to have as his manager -instead of Bill. This led to a very sensational public quarrel. Tabor -brought suit against Bush for embezzling $2,000. Bush was acquitted and -in reply, he placed a deposition before the Supreme Court, claiming that -Tabor owed him $100,000 for various services rendered. He asked $10,000 -for securing testimony and witnesses for Tabor’s divorce at Durango, and -for persuading Augusta at last to bring suit. He asked a larger sum for -“—aiding him in effecting a marriage with the said Mrs. Doe, commonly -called Baby Doe.” He asked $1,547 for bribes paid to legislators during -the Senatorial election, in sums ranging from $5 to $475, and the whole -bill of particulars was equally dreadful. It was just a vile attack. (In -truth, Bush owed Tabor; and Tabor later got judgment for $19,958.) - -Luckily, the court struck the complaint from the record as indecent and -irrelevant. But the harm had been done. Tabor’s political prestige again -waned. Tabor and Bush never made up this nasty quarrel, although Bush -remained a friend and partner of young Maxcy Tabor, who had sided with -Augusta at the time of the divorce. I had always distrusted Bush and now -hated him. - -“May the devil destroy his soul!” I used to say to Tabor. - -Augusta and I met twice. - -The first time was when I was living at the Windsor Hotel toward the end -of 1881 and before I had moved to the American House. I was very -surprised one afternoon to have the bellboy present a hand-written card -on a salver. It read “Mrs. Augusta L. Tabor” and startled me so that I -never found out what the “L” stood for—Augusta’s maiden name was Pierce. - -In December of 1880 Augusta had bought out Mr. Charles Hall’s interest -in the Windsor Hotel, and she had made a point of coming down and -carefully going over the books with Bill Bush and Maxcy Tabor who was -employed in the office. Personally, I had a feeling that she had done -this not only to make a good investment but to keep a closer eye on -Tabor’s goings and comings. That particular day, he was away on -business, and she undoubtedly knew it. - -I had been reading a new novel by Georgia Craink and my thoughts were -far away. I didn’t want to receive Augusta but I knew it would only make -more trouble if I didn’t. So I told the bellboy to show Mrs. Tabor up. - -It was one of the most uncomfortable interviews I ever had. Augusta kept -sniffling about “Hod” (as she called Horace) and his disgusting taste in -bad women. She talked about two of Horace’s former mistresses—Alice -Morgan, a woman who did a club-swinging act at the Grand Central in -Leadville, and Willie Deville, a common prostitute, whom he had found in -Lizzie Allen’s parlor house in Chicago. Tabor had brought her back to -Denver and set her up lavishly. Later, he had taken Willie on trips to -St. Louis and New York, but terminated his affair with her by a gift of -$5,000, claiming she talked too much. - -“Why do you tell me these things?” I asked Augusta with as much steel as -I could put into my voice. Inwardly, I was furious. - -“To show you that if he tired of them, Hod’s sure to tire of you.” - -“In that case, there’s nothing more to say, Mrs. Tabor. I do not want -your confidences.” - -Then she began to weep again and beg me to give her husband up. She -blabbered in such a confused manner I could not possibly hear the exact -words. I did not want to discuss Horace with her nor anyone else, and -certainly not to talk about anything so intimate as our relationship. I -had to think quickly. - -“I will not give him up, Mrs. Tabor. If he chooses to give me up, then -no doubt he will make me a parting gift, too. But I do not see that that -concerns either of us. I have nothing more to say. Good-afternoon.” - -She left with her ramrod gait and, always after that call, her -bitterness and malice toward me were complete. Perhaps if I had been -able to handle her more tactfully, she would not have been so obstinate -about granting a divorce in the succeeding years. But I consider that -she was very lucky that I didn’t lose my Irish temper completely and -throw things at her. - -The second time was January 16, 1884, when Maxcy married Miss Luella -Babcock. The occasion was formal and Augusta and I behaved accordingly. -I was still a bride and the sensation of the nation. No one in the -country was spending as much on their wardrobe as I was at that time. I -had everything. Beauty, grace and charm were mine, as was a loving -husband who lavished every conceivable extravagant attention on me. It -seemed as if all doors were about to open for me. - -But weeks and months dragged by and no women called. I might have felt -this disappointment more poignantly if I hadn’t been sustained by the -happy knowledge that I was to have a baby in July. Tabor was as excited -as a boy at the prospect, and was making all sorts of elaborate -preparations for the most expensive layette a baby ever had. He planned -a charmingly decorated nursery. The baby was to have every conceivable -attention a doting father could arrange. - -“I hope the baby is a girl,” he would whisper to me fondly. - -And the baby was a girl. She was born July 13, 1884, and we decided to -take her to Oshkosh for her christening. Papa had died the year before, -a couple of months after our marriage, and Mama would appreciate having -us—and her granddaughter! Tabor was so ecstatic that he sent out to at -least a hundred prominent citizens a small package containing a gold -medallion the size of a twenty-five cent piece. On one side was -inscribed - - BABY TABOR - July 13 - 1884 - -On the obverse side was “Compliments of the Tabor Guards, Boulder, -Colorado.” - -Employees of the Matchless mine sent her a gold-lined cup, saucer and -spoon. It seemed as if the baby had been born to every luxury and joy. -My own cup of bliss was overflowing for some time and I forgot all about -the jealous cats and sanctimonious old battle-axes of Denver. I was a -mother! The mother of an exquisite little girl. Tabor and I couldn’t -have been more proud. - -For her christening, she had a real lace and hand-embroidered baby dress -fastened with diamond-and-gold pins, special hand-made booties, and a -tiny jeweled necklace with a diamond locket. The outfit cost over -fifteen thousand dollars. Mama could not have been more elated when she -saw the baby finally dressed and the name of Elizabeth Bonduel Lillie -pronounced over her. - -“Papa would have been so pleased to see you happy and settled down,” she -murmured several times. - -For ten years this happiness lasted. There were minor heartaches along -the stretch of that decade and some of these might have been major -catastrophes if we had allowed ourselves to dwell on them. But we -didn’t. Tabor’s investments spread like a network, everywhere, and the -Matchless mine in Leadville continued to pour out its treasure of ore, -often running as high as $80,000 a month. We had everything that money -could buy. - -But what I learned with hidden sadness in these years is that money -doesn’t buy everything. Tabor poured untold sums into the coffers of the -Republican party in Colorado for which he never got the least -consideration. He wanted the gubernatorial nomination. But consistently -during the ’80s, they took his money and denied him any recognition. - -During this period two private sorrows came to me. One of them disturbed -and vexed me for years. The other was a swift and desperate grief. The -first unhappiness was because I made no real friends and had received no -invitations in Denver. Through Tabor’s prominence in Denver and -Leadville, I met and entertained many men interested in politics. The -famous beauties, Lily Langtry and Lillian Russell, and other well-known -figures of the nineteenth century stage such as Sara Bernhardt, Mme. -Modjeska, John Drew, Augustin Daly, William Gillette, Edwin Booth, and -Otis Skinner frequently played at the Tabor Opera House, and Tabor and I -would entertain them at champagne suppers after their performances. They -always seemed to like me and would ask to see me on our fairly frequent -visits to New York. The excitement of these friendships, knowing the -great artists of my day, proved a great compensation for my early -ambition to go on the stage. But the society women of Denver remained -steadfastly aloof. - -The other sorrow was the loss of my baby son. He was born October 17, -1888, and lived only a few hours. I suppose every mother wants a boy, -and this new chastisement from God made my life almost unbearable. I had -no real place in life except as a good wife and mother and I wanted for -Tabor’s sake to be able to fulfill this place to my very best. Augusta -had borne him a son and I wanted to, too. I cried silently in the nights -about his death, longing for another boy. - -But this was not to be. On December 17, 1889, I had another daughter, -Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar Tabor, whom I nicknamed “Honeymaid.” But -most of her friends as she grew up called her Silver. Lillie, the first -little girl, was blonde like myself, but Silver was dark like Tabor, and -very lovely in appearance. - -By the time she was born, many of Tabor’s mines had fallen off in -output, but the Matchless was still bearing up. Some of Tabor’s other -investments had not turned out as we thought, although we were still -hopeful and felt it was just a question of time. We continued to live on -the same lavish scale; Tabor mortgaged the Tabor Block and the Opera -House until some of the other mines he had bought should begin to pay. - -Silver had nearly as gorgeous clothes and toys and ponies as Lillie did. -But this was not to be for long. However, at that time we had no inkling -of what the future held for us. Tabor made frequent business trips East -and to his mining properties. Mostly I went with him but sometimes I -stayed with the children. His holdings were enormous and he was -expanding in many directions that required his personal attention. He -bought a yacht in New York City with the idea that when the children -were older we would cruise down to Honduras to see his mahogany forests. - -Peter McCourt, my bachelor brother, meanwhile was fast making himself a -secure place in Denver both in the social world and in financial -circles. Since everything he had was due to me, it was particularly -galling that he should be asked everywhere that I was barred. - -One night he was entertaining a group of his friends at poker in our -house. Will Macon, Jack Moseby, Will Townsend, John Kerr and John Good, -all from good families, were there. After the game was over he planned -to serve them an elaborate champagne supper which our servants were in -the habit of preparing whenever Tabor and I entertained. - -I was upstairs alone. Tabor was away on one of his business trips. I got -to brooding about how unfair everyone in Denver had been both to him and -me. They had punished him politically for nothing else than that he had -fallen in love with another woman, and they had cruelly ignored me, -making me suffer over and over again for having given myself to the man -I loved before we were married. No one gave me credit for being a tender -mother and faithful wife. They merely stared at me with their noses in -the air. - -But stare, they did. When I would attend the theatre and sit in Box A -(which Tabor had had re-upholstered in white satin), they would raise -their opera glasses or lorgnettes to study every detail of my costume. -Then they would go away and have their own cheap dressmakers copy my -designs. My clothes and hats were good enough to imitate, but I was not -good enough to be received! - -The more I thought about this, the more furious I grew. I jumped to my -feet and began to pace up and down the floor. - -“It’s all so unjust,” I thought to myself. “The very mothers and sisters -of those bachelors downstairs are making me pay today for something I -did long ago. I didn’t hurt Augusta—why should they hurt me?” - -As I paced, my temper mounted. Finally, in a burst of rage, I ran down -the large oak stairs and into the dining room where the young men were -seated at table, laughing and talking. I stamped my foot. - -“If I’m not good enough for your mothers and sisters to call on, how can -my food be good enough for you to eat?” I demanded at the top of my -voice. My hands trembled with the fury their easy-going faces aroused in -my breast. - -Pete looked up at me, startled at my behavior. It was hardly news, my -not being accepted. The situation had gone on for years. The expression -on his face only infuriated me further. I stamped my foot again. - -“Go on and get out!” I shrieked. “If your women haven’t got enough -manners to call on me, I don’t want you around here eating my food and -drinking my wine.” - -The boys had risen at my sudden entrance. Now, embarrassed by my attack, -they began to put down the morsels of food they still had in their -hands. With heads down, they began shuffling from the room. - -“Well, good night, Pete,” they mumbled. - -After the door had closed on their unceremonious departure, Pete turned -on me: - -“What do you mean by saying I could have my friends over and then -causing a scene like this. Do you want to disgrace me?” - -“Disgrace you! Everything you have in the world is due to Tabor and me. -If you had any gratitude, you’d have your friends invite me to their -parties—not use me to further your own ends!” - -This led to a violent argument and we did not speak for several days. -Eventually, Pete and I talked this all out and we made up our -differences. We were very close, as he was just two years younger than -I. But the day was to come, when we were to part forever. I never -forgave him for not helping Tabor in his hour of need. Of that, more -later. - -I didn’t always lose my temper, however, over these slights. Sometimes I -maintained a real sense of humor. One day one of the coachmen came to me -and said: - -“If you please, ma’am, the maid next door says that one of the reasons -the ladies don’t call is because of all those naked figures on the lawn. -They think they’re indecent.” - -I thanked him with a twinkle in my eye. - -“How absolutely silly!” I thought. - -The figures that stood on our lawn were the very finest masterpieces -cast by the same Parisian bronze foundry that cast the sculpture of -Rodin. They had been especially ordered and shipped from Europe. There -were two sweet little deer that stood by the carriage entrance in front, -and in the corners by the shrubs were Psyche, Nimrod, and Diana, of -Grecian gracefulness. Perhaps these figures were somewhat advanced for a -town that had been a frontier only a few years before, but they -certainly weren’t indecent. - -I sent the coachman down to fetch the costumer and when he arrived, I -commanded: - -“Now make me clothes exactly to fit these figures. I want Nimrod with -red hunting hoots and a derby hat. I want Diana in flowing chiffon and -panties underneath, and I want Psyche in stiff satin.” - -He surveyed me as if I were crazy. - -“The maid next door says her mistress can’t stand these naked -figures—they shock her,” I explained. “These clothes are for the -neighbor’s benefit, not mine.” - -The costumer did as he was bid and in a couple of weeks, my statues were -all fitted out to the Queen’s taste—Queen Victoria’s. But underneath the -banter of my attitude and the humor of my little stunt, there was a -heart that was sore. My husband couldn’t rise as he should and my -children were excluded from the normal place they should hold, because I -and my former actions were frowned on. Any wife and mother must know how -deeply worried I was behind my pertness and bravery. - -Yet suddenly all this didn’t matter. Real tragedy fell on us. The year -1893 arrived and with it the silver panic. Almost overnight, we who had -been the richest people in Colorado were the poorest. It seems -incredible that it should have all happened so quickly, but with one -stroke of President Cleveland’s pen, establishing the demonetization of -silver, all of our mines, and particularly the Matchless, were -worthless. - -Tabor’s other holdings which had sounded so spectacular and so promising -on paper, turned out, many of them, to be literally paper. He had been -duped or cheated by associates and friends for years without either of -us realizing it. Some of his real estate was already mortgaged, and, -when the blow first fell, he mortgaged the rest. Afterward we learned -what a mistake that was. We should have learned to economize -immediately. - -But none of the mining men believed the hard times would last. Ten -Denver banks failed in three days during July and our cash went when -they crashed. Gradually, with no money coming in, we could not meet -payments on the mortgages. The banks wouldn’t loan us any more money and -our property began to fall on the foreclosure block. - -“Take my jewels and sell them, Tabor,” I volunteered. - -“No, the day will come when you’ll wear them again. I’ll make another -fortune. That gold mine I bought near Ward and never developed will help -us out. The world wants gold now—not silver.” - -Before the house was taken from us, the Tabor Block in Denver and all -the Leadville properties fell. What wasn’t taken for mortgages, began to -go for unpaid taxes. When I had married Tabor, he had spent $10,000 a -day during his thirty-day stay in Washington because at that time his -income from the Matchless alone had been $80,000 a month. Yet just ten -years after, we were actually worried about our grocery bill. - -I knew Tabor’s dearest possession, next to the Matchless mine, was the -Tabor Grand Opera House. When the mortgage owners gave notice of -foreclosure on that, I went personally to plead with young Horace -Bennett for an extension of time and leniency. - -“We millionaires must all stick together,” I said. - -He regarded me with cold blue eyes and replied: - -“I am not a millionaire, Mrs. Tabor, and this is a business transaction. -I appreciate how you and Mr. Tabor have sentimental feelings about the -Opera House. But in that case, you shouldn’t have mortgaged it.” - -I could not make him share my belief that Tabor would recoup everything. -In my innermost heart, I knew he would. But here was a new kind of man -in Colorado who did not look at life the way the first-comers did. Those -men were plungers, gay and generous. When they had money, they spent it -and when they didn’t, they had the bravery to start out on new ventures -and make other fortunes. When a friend was down, they loaned him more -than he needed and forgot the loan. That was Tabor. But not these -newcomers who were settling and growing prosperous in Colorado. - -And even my own brother! I went to Pete to save the Opera House for -Tabor. - -“I haven’t the money, and even if I had, you’d only mortgage it over -again for some silly extravagance,” he said. - -I was furious. From that day until he died in 1929 I never forgave him. -When his will was read, he had left a quarter of a million dollars but -he only left me, who had made all his affluence possible, some worthless -carriage stock. He was the most bitter disappointment of my life. - -There was one man who was an exception. He was W. S. Stratton of -Colorado Springs who made many millions in the Independence mine in -Cripple Creek. When he heard of Tabor’s plight, he wrote him a check for -$15,000 to use in developing his Eclipse mine in Boulder County. - -“There’s a true friend,” Tabor remarked with touching humility. It wrung -me to the quick to see him act like this, pathetic and almost beaten. -When he had had money, and even in the days before I knew him and before -he became rich, his generosity and honesty had been proverbial. In -return, the world gave him only deceit and niggardliness—and a cold -shoulder. Many a night I wept with secret rage at the world as much as -sorrow for Tabor. - -Once again I openly lost my temper. Workmen came to our house to turn -off the lights and water because of unpaid bills. Tabor protested -against this humiliation but without success. Finally he turned back -into the house saying: - -“Well, tell your bosses how I feel about it.” - -Gathering up my skirts, I flew into the yard like a wildcat. - -“The idea of your doing this to Tabor! The man who gave Denver its -beautiful Opera House! The man who has done much more for this town than -ever it deserved. He’s invested large sums in your very own business and -helped most of your own officers to political positions. Why, this is an -outrage!” - -“Orders is orders,” they replied belligerently, and went on with their -work. - -“Well, just wait until Congress changes that ridiculous law about silver -and the Matchless is running again! Then you’ll be sorry you acted like -this.” - -I had lived all my grown-up life with miners. I could not believe, even -if the rich vein of our fortune had thinned, that the pay ore would not -widen again a little further on. I had implicit faith in my husband and -his judgment. I have always had implicit faith in the Matchless. But -sometimes it has been hard to make others understand. - -When I had no visible effect on these men, I turned to Tabor and said: -“Well, lets make a game of it.” - -So we giggled while we carried lighted candles from room to room of the -great house, and toted our drinking water from a barrel—water hauled to -the house from the Old Courthouse pump. Somehow I kept our spirits up. -Whenever Tabor was around, it was a game—I insisted on it for his -benefit. But soon the illusion was gone. No game was possible when the -Eclipse mine proved worthless. - -The house was foreclosed. We lived in cheap little rooms in West Denver. -I did all the cooking, washing, ironing and sewing. I worked early in -the morning and late at night to make Tabor presentable to appear -downtown with his business associates, and to have Lillie look nice when -she went to school. During those bleak years of the mid ’90s, our -affairs went consistently from bad to worse. My jewels, except a few -choice pieces, were pawned or sold for necessities. Some times we didn’t -have enough to eat. But I carried my head high, knowing that Tabor luck -was sure and that our fortunes were bound to change. - -Tabor was past sixty-five and suddenly he was an old man. He worked as -an ordinary laborer in Leadville, wheeling slag at the smelter. But he -was not up to the strenuous physical effort. And the pay was only $3.00 -a day. At the other end of town, the Matchless was shut down and her -shafts and drifts were fast filling with water after the stopping of the -pumps. - -Desperation haunted our every move. I could not believe that what I had -laughingly spent for one of the children’s trinkets just a few years ago -would now keep the whole family in groceries for a month. During this -gloomy period, which lasted for five years, my greatest consolation was -Silver. She was four years old when the catastrophes first began to fall -and had no realization of what was happening. But her disposition was -always sweet and hopeful. She was a laughing, affectionate child, and -adored both her father and me. - -“Darling, darling Silver,” I would murmur, tucking her into bed beside -her sister. “What would I ever do without you?” - -When it seemed that none of us could survive the strain any longer and -that really all hope was lost, Senator Ed Wolcott whom I had met in -Central City and who had been both a former friend and a political enemy -of Tabor’s in Leadville and in Denver, came to the rescue. Through his -intercession, he succeeded in getting President McKinley to appoint -Tabor postmaster of Denver. - -“Our luck is back!” I cried, clapping my hands in glee. “It was when you -were postmaster of Leadville that you struck it rich. I’m sure this is a -sign. Pretty soon, you’ll have it all back!” - -We moved into a simple two-room suite, No. 302, in the Windsor Hotel. It -was on the corner above the alley, but with an uplifting view of the -mountains. Tabor went to work for the government. He was very grateful -and pleased with his position, although I thought much more should have -been done for him. Still, he enjoyed the work, and the regular routine -of his job. He settled down into being a quiet wage-earner and family -man. He practiced petty economies to live on $3,500 a year, a sum he had -lost many times on one hand of poker. Now his luncheon was a sandwich at -his desk. But he loved me and the children and he seemed to be really -content, despite the modesty of our circumstances. - -“But you will be the great Tabor again,” I insisted from time to time. I -felt very deeply that his present simple occupation was too mean for the -great builder and benefactor that Tabor had been, a deplorable way to -end his days! It simply could not be. - -He would pat my hand and say: - -“My dear, brave little Baby. So trusting, so constant, so -hard-working—and always so cheerful! Your love has been the most -beautiful thing in my life.” - -I cherished this tribute tenderly and have often thought of it in the -years since. The snobbish society women of Denver had been sure I would -leave Tabor the moment his fortune collapsed. I suppose if I had ever -really been what they thought me, I would have—but they had never given -me credit for the sincerity of my love. When the crash came, I was -thirty-eight years old. My beauty had hardly diminished at all. Several -men sought me out to make clandestine overtures when I was alone in the -cheap rooms in West Denver. But I sealed the knowledge of their visits -and who these men were—one of them had been, some years before, a -supposedly good friend of Tabor’s. My pride was incensed by their -offers. - -“What sort of a wife do you think I am?” I demanded indignantly, and -sent them unceremoniously on their way. - -But now the year was 1899. Tabor had held his job only a year and three -months in April, when he was taken violently ill with appendicitis. I -called in three doctors for advice. They mentioned an operation but were -doubtful of the outcome because of Tabor’s advanced age. Tabor had -always had a marvelous constitution and I felt sure he would pull -through without an operation. Besides, I was afraid of surgery. - -For seven days and nights, I nursed him. I was by his bedside -constantly, never letting myself sleep except in cat-naps during this -long vigil. Often he was in too great pain to speak. Occasionally, the -suffering would let up, and we would talk a little. - -“Never let the Matchless go, if I die, Baby,” he said once. “It will -make millions again when silver comes back.” - -The week dragged endlessly by while worry and strain bore me down with -fatigue. Had I made the right decision? Would Tabor recover? - -On the morning of April 10, the doctors who had come to examine Tabor, -led me gently aside and told me the end was near. Nervous and weak from -loss of sleep and doubt about the decision I had made regarding the -operation, I collapsed. It was not until the afternoon that I knew -anything, because drugs had been administered to me, and I had been -taken into another bedroom. When I came to, the nurse said: - -“Your husband has gone.” - -“Tabor, dead! Never!” I cried. - -I tried all afternoon not to believe what they said, but finally I could -deny the truth no longer. Desperate grief weighed me down oppressively. -I was forty-four years old and my great love affair was over. Never -would I have any further life. What was I to do? - -And almost as if the angels above had heard my harassed question, I -heard Tabor’s words ringing in my ears: - -“Hang on to the Matchless. It will make millions again.” - - - - - _Chapter Five_ - - -Fortunately for my state of mind, Tabor’s death was received with the -prestige due a great man. I think that if his passing had been snubbed -as he himself had been in his last years, I could not have borne my -sorrow. But his going was solemnized as it should have been. - -“Deepest condolences to the widow of Senator Tabor,” arrived from the -governor of Colorado, the mayor of Denver, the legislature, the city -council and every civic and fraternal order in the state. Flowers filled -our hotel suite to overflowing. Telegrams arrived in bundles from all -over the country. It was a magnificent tribute. - -“Oh, Silver! Oh, Lillie!” I cried between my tears and smiles, “Papa -would be so happy if he could but know!” - -Flags were ordered at half mast on federal, state and city buildings. -The body was taken to the Capitol and viewed by thousands. At night the -doors were closed and four soldiers of the state militia stood guard -over the catafalque in the governor’s room. Floral pieces of many -designs were sent by the hundreds to the Capitol as well as to us. A -list of these donors filled more than a column in the newspapers. -Leadville sent a floral piece of roses six feet high and four feet wide, -designed like a cornucopia to symbolize the Tabor Plenty. - -“He would be most pleased with that gift,” I explained to the girls. -“Papa really loved Leadville.” - -At the funeral, services were first held in the Capitol. Then there was -a parade of federal and state soldiers, police and firemen. Four bands -marched in the procession. The cortege filed slowly along Broadway and -turned down Seventeenth St., finally making its way to Sacred Heart -Church at Twenty-eighth and Larimer Sts. Four priests officiated at the -church rites, Father Berry making the principal address. - -Ten thousand people gathered along the line of march and as I peered out -from under my heavy black veil, I wanted to throw a kiss to each and -every one of them. - -“Papa was a truly great man—they have come because they know that,” I -whispered to the girls who were riding in the same carriage with me. And -from somewhere, there began to run through my head the line: “In death a -hero, as in life a friend.” - -I had been weeping off and on for days and this thought brought on a -fresh gust of racking sobs. It seemed as if I just could never regain -control of myself! I was spent with grief. - -The parade re-formed after the church service and made its final march -to Calvary cemetery, a Catholic plot, beyond present Cheeseman Park. -Brief services followed at the grave side where we had gathered in a -knot about the coffin. - -“Oh, Mama, Mama, Mama, don’t let them put Papa down there!” Silver -suddenly shrieked when she saw the body being lowered into the ground. -Silver and Lillie, both became hysterical and had to be led away to a -carriage by the members of my family who were with me. But the girls’ -hysteria was contagious. In a burst of sobs, I rushed to the casket and -threw myself on its floral covering, possessed by some mad notion of -being buried with Tabor. - -“There, there, Mrs. Tabor, you’re overwrought,” the priest soothed while -several people lifted me off. I was calmer as the men began to shovel in -the dirt and finally when the gathering began to disperse and move off -toward the carriages, I mustered enough voice to say: - -“Please leave me alone here. Tell my coachman to wait at the gateway. I -will come a little later.” - -Actually I sat and knelt there for hours. Evening came and the cold -April stars commenced to twinkle in the sky. I prayed and prayed, mostly -incoherent desires, but frequently that Tabor and I should be re-united -in heaven not too long away and I should have strength to carry on -alone. I prayed a little for Tabor, too, but not much. I knew that so -good and generous a man as he really was, despite some of his minor -transgressions, must surely find a safe, restful haven in the Lord’s -eyes. He would be happier than we. - -My premonition was all too true. Happiness was his reward but not ours. - -For about two years, we struggled on in Denver, trying to eke out a -living. Every hour I could take from housework, I spent in an endeavour -to secure capital for re-possessing and improving the Matchless and made -many calls on bankers and business men up and down 17th St. During the -twenty-five years since my arrival as the bride of Harvey Doe, Denver -had grown into the metropolis of the Rocky Mountains region. By 1901, -the town was known as the “Queen City of the Plains” and had a -population of 150,000, a phenomenal growth from the 30,000 of the -pioneer community I had first seen. In this more urban atmosphere, -investors were not drawn to mining the way they had been formerly—they -were turning to reclamation projects, sugar beet factories and tourist -attractions. - -Lillie was a grown girl by now and Silver was just entering adolescence. -They were both lovely looking but Silver was much more the child of -Tabor’s and my great love. Lillie was silent and distant and each year -that she grew older, more contemptuous of my ideas. - -“It’s all rot there being any millions in that hole in the ground,” -Lillie frequently remarked. “Why, that mine was completely worked out -years ago.” - -Such disdain was treason to Silver and me. Our adored Tabor had said it -would bring us millions again as soon as silver came back and we -believed him implicitly. I kept on with my efforts, and persistence -finally told. Claudia McCourt, the one sister who had remained loyal to -me, bought back the Matchless at a sheriff’s sale in July, 1901. Oh, -what a wonderful lucky day that seemed! I knew that Tabor would be -proved right and I hurried home to tell the girls. - -“We’ll move up to Leadville and be right there on the ground to see that -they don’t cheat us or steal any ore. Tabor always said to beware of -‘high-graders.’ You girls will love spending the summer in the -mountains.” - -Silver was thrilled at the prospect and entered into my plans with -ardent enthusiasm. Lillie was very dubious about the whole project, both -opening the mine and living in Leadville. But when the day came for us -to move, she boarded the train with no further comment. We took rooms at -303 Harrison Avenue (the very building where Jake Sands had first -lived—but all that seemed to me now as if it had never been!) and -settled down to become residents of Leadville. - -Silver soon made many friends and entered into the youngsters’ life in -Leadville with a vim. She had a natural sweetness and warmth like her -father’s that attracted people to her immediately. But Lillie spent most -of her time writing letters to her friends in Denver, shut up in a room -away from us. - -“Come,” I said to them one day when we had driven out on Fryer Hill -close to the mine. “You must put on overalls and go down the shaft into -the Matchless the way I do so that when you inherit this bonanza, you’ll -know all about it.” - -Silver was elated at the idea and rushed into the hoist house to look -for miner’s work clothes. But Lillie was rebellious. - -“Then I’m going to run away!” - -Later she secretly arranged for money from her uncle, Peter McCourt in -Denver, for train fare back to Chicago, Illinois, to live with the -McCourt relatives there. After Tabor had settled a substantial sum on -Mama and Papa, at the time of my marriage, I thought my older sisters -should have stayed loyal to me. But when Pete and I broke, they sided -with Pete, although Mama tried to gloss matters over. Soon after, Mama -died and the break was open. - -For my own daughter to desert and go with those traitors to me—it was -unthinkable! I was crushed. - -Yet so it was that Lillie passed from my life. - -After that ugly, unfortunate day, I seldom mentioned her name to anyone -and she rarely communicated with me. It was almost as if I had never -borne her as my baby nor exhibited her with such pride. Those many -matinees when I had carried her in my arms through the foyer of the -Tabor or taken her riding beside me in our handsome carriage on the -streets of Denver so that all should see my darling first-born, had -vanished completely. - -My beautiful fair-haired baby with her exquisite clothes was no more, -those days were like a dream that had passed. The first nine years of -her adoring mother’s lavish attention and the later ten years of -grueling, slaving work to keep her clothed and fed, had alike fallen -away and were as if they had never been. My last sight of her was as she -piled her belongings in the back of a hired buggy and drove off to the -railroad station. - -“Oh, how cruel, how cruel life has been to me!” I moaned as the buggy -pulled away. Closing the door, I started on foot up town, hardly -conscious that I wanted to be able to pray alone in the Church of the -Annunciation on Seventh Street. Lillie’s buggy was disappearing and now -I needed the strength of prayer and the reassurance of the Virgin’s -beatific smile. - -As I knelt alone in the white interior praying ardently, I gazed -heavenward at the imitation frescoes, replicas of classics pasted to the -wall. Slowly courage returned to me. I must still carry on—for Tabor’s -name and for Silver’s future. That thought came to me stronger and -stronger, bathed in the white light of a real revelation. Gradually the -almost trance-like state, that I must have been in for a long time, -subsided and I came back to the sharp realities of life. - -“I wonder who all those saints are?” I mused to myself, again glancing -at the ceiling as I rose to go. I knew very little about spiritual -matters except for occasional readings in the Bible and I determined I -should know more. So before trudging the mile and a half home, I headed -for the library. - -“This will be what you want, I think,” the very nice girl said in answer -to my query, and handed me “The Lives of the Saints.” From that day on, -it was my favorite book. I read and re-read it throughout the years, -supplementing its message with daily chapters from the Bible. - -Meanwhile Silver was my pride and joy. When I got back to our house, I -told her about Lillie’s abrupt departure, trying to remain calm and -self-controlled as I narrated the episode. - -“Good riddance to bad rubbish!” Silver answered impudently and threw her -arms around my neck. “Don’t let her hurt your feelings, Mama. She’ll he -sorry. When I’m a great authoress and you’re a rich society woman in -Denver, she’ll come running back. Then she’ll think differently about -the Tabor name.” - -For some time Silver had had an ambition to write and was already -contributing extra poems to her English work in eighth grade. Now I -hugged her gratefully for her sympathy about Lillie and her -encouragement for the future. She had her father’s coloring and much of -his character. How proud he would have been of her if he could have seen -her at that moment! - -“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re right, Silver. Lillie will be sorry and come -back—and with your talent, you will make the Tabor name once again a -thing of lustre!” - -Slow and silent, in some ways, and quickly and noisily in others, the -years slipped away. I had mortgaged the Matchless again, for development -work, with the expectation that when the shaft was sunk to a slightly -lower level, we would strike high-grade ore. But I was never able to -lease the mine to the right group of men to carry out my idea. - -“Nobody knows anything about mining any more!” I would cry with -exasperation. “All the real miners like Tabor are dead.” - -Through their ignorance and bad management, the mine ate up capital. -Although the leases paid occasionally in rent and royalties, those sums -were only large enough to keep Silver and me supplied with adequate -clothing and food. For a while, we rented a small house in town, once on -Seventh St. and at another period, on Tenth St. But the Matchless never -paid profits sufficient enough to dispel the mortgage. Once more, -foreclosure hung over our heads. - -“Silver,” I said as we sat down to dinner. “We must go down to Denver -and open my safety box. Papa wouldn’t let me sell the very last of my -jewels—but now, we must. I’m sure he would understand. The Matchless -must be saved. Those were his last words.” - -“Oh, Mama! Your beautiful jewelry!” - -“Oh, well, I don’t have any use for it now. And when the Matchless pays -again, I can buy more.” - -Silver and I frequently journeyed to Denver on pleasure trips or -jauntily to pass some of the long cold winters when the mine had to be -shut down. But this trip was a sad occasion. It was no easy matter to -part with those treasures, given to me by my dearly loved husband. But I -was determined they should go. I must keep a stiff upper lip. At the -bank, Silver cried: - -“Oh, not your engagement ring—and not Papa’s watch-fob!” - -My engagement ring was a single pure diamond, an enormous stone, -surrounded by sapphires and set in gold which Tabor had panned himself -in his early days at California Gulch. His watch-fob was a massive piece -of gold artwork presented to him by the citizens of Denver on the -opening night of the Tabor Grand Opera House. Three engraved pictures in -ornament, The Tabor Grand Opera House, the Tabor Block in Denver and the -Tabor Store in Oro in California Gulch, were suspended in links from a -triangle of gold held by a closed fist. On either side of the richly -carved medallions ran mine ladders of gold down to a lacy array of -miner’s tools below the medallions. These, in turn, held a bucket of -golden quartz, filled with gold and silver nuggets. On the reverse side, -were monograms in fine enamel and the legend “Presented by the citizens -of Denver to H. A. W. Tabor,” and “Labor Omnia Vincet.” - -“That must be our talisman, Mama,” Silver suggested. “We must never part -with that.” - -I felt in my bones Silver was right and I ordered those two pieces put -back into the safety deposit box. But the rest of the jewelry went to -pay debts just as the diamonds of Queen Isabella of Spain had -previously. My wedding present! What a sad memory! I never could bear to -go back to that vault—I was afraid I should burst into tears. But Silver -returned in 1911 and brought the two pieces to me at about the time we -decided to make our permanent home in Leadville, living at the Matchless -cabin to save rent. - -“I met Mr. Edgar McMechen coming out and I showed him Papa’s fob,” she -told me. “He thought it was gorgeous and said to be careful of that—that -it was of great historical interest. I told him I wanted you to see it -again—that you needed cheering up—and just to see it, would help you -from getting discouraged and blue.” - -“You are a sweet, thoughtful daughter,” I answered, kissing her. “I will -look at them for inspiration. Then I will give them to the sisters at -St. Vincent’s hospital in Leadville. They are always so kind to us and -will store anything I ask.” - -But it was the year before that, in 1910, that Silver had given me my -greatest happiness about her. In 1908, President Roosevelt had visited -Leadville and Silver had ridden into town to see him. That evening when -she came back to the cabin, she wrote a lyric entitled “Our President -Roosevelt’s Colorado Hunt.” A. S. Lohmann of Denver later set it to -music and we had it published. The _Denver Post_ wrote up her -accomplishment and printed a picture of Silver two columns wide. I was -so pleased! - -Two years later President Roosevelt, although no longer in office, -returned to Colorado and made an address in Denver. Silver was there, -close to the platform, and when the speech was ended, was presented to -him as the author of the Roosevelt song. The ex-president willingly -posed with my daughter and the next day, the Denver newspapers printed -photographs of Silver and President Roosevelt shaking hands. - -“My darling, brilliant daughter!” I exclaimed in natural maternal pride -when I saw the account. “Again a Tabor associates with a president of -the United States—the Tabor luck is coming back!” - -But I was wrong—that was the last day I was to experience great joy. My -dearest treasure, Silver, with her piquant profile and sweet demure -ways, was marked already with the shadow of tragedy. She had grown up -very fond of horses and riding. I could not afford anything for her to -ride but a burro that I used for hauling out ore from the mine. She used -to hang around the livery stable hoping for better things. - -One of the partners was a big man who always wore an enormous white -ten-gallon hat and looked like a Western sheriff. He was a picturesque -figure in a common way. Generously, he fell into the habit of loaning -Silver riding horses, especially a spirited seventeen-hand cream gelding -which would carry her thundering up Harrison Avenue with a speed to -delight her romantic fancy. It was natural that she should be grateful -and linger after the ride, talking horseflesh in a friendly way. - -Nothing untoward about this arrangement occurred to me since the man was -old enough to be a responsible citizen. He had known her from the time -she was a little girl trudging up and down Little Stray Horse Gulch with -a gunny sack over her shoulder, hauling mail and supplies. All the -old-timers made it a point to be kind to her—like Big Jim McDonald who -was running the Monarch mine up above us and frequently gave her a lift -in his buggy, or like Henry Butler, editor of the _Herald-Democrat_, who -loaned her a typewriter and helped her with her writing. I was not even -suspicious until it was too late. - -When the village gossip reached my ears, I fell into a soft moaning but -then quickly denied the idea to my informant as impossible. But when I -was by myself, I moaned aloud. - -For years, my fond hopes had built such castles-in-Spain for Silver—with -her dark prettiness and her unusual talent, no future could be too -roseate for her—and now I was beside myself with worry. The Matchless -had been mortgaged again, this time for $9,000 with an interest rate of -8%, and I was having more trouble with the lessees. There was no money -with which to send Silver away. - -“What course should I take?” I asked myself in desperation. - -Before I could come to any decision, matters gathered to a drastic head. -A few nights later, Silver set off for an Easter Monday hall in a lovely -silk dress I had made her and a fur-trimmed coat (since at 10,000 feet -altitude the spring nights are like icy winter). The party was to be -given for the nice young people of the town. She went with two boys who -were sons of substantial Leadville families. - -But when Silver came in, it was eight-o-clock in the morning and she was -drunk. Her dress was disheveled and she had no coat. The lovely blue -silk dress was torn and dirty. And she was alone! - -“Silver, what on earth has happened?” I cried. But she was too -incoherent for me to make head or tail of her story. Fearful that she -would catch pneumonia from exposure, I stirred up the fire in the stove -and got the temperature of the cabin to the perspiring point. I put her -to bed and she was soon sleeping it off. - -But when I went to town for the mail, the news was all over town—a -sordid story involving a saloon keeper. In a flash, my mind was made up. - -“Write to your Uncle Peter,” I said that evening at supper, “and ask him -for enough money for you to go to Denver and get a job on a newspaper. -There’s no opportunity for your talent in this town and no chance to -meet a man really worthy of you.” - -I was much too proud to appeal to Pete, myself, after our quarrel, but -on several occasions I had permitted Silver to do so. In justice to -Pete, I must admit he always responded—and I always felt he was trying -to make up for the way he acted at the time of Tabor’s collapse. - -Silver left for Denver shortly after. For a while, she made good as a -reporter on the _Denver Times_, and, later, in Chicago she wrote a -novel, “Star of Blood.” But good fortune did not last. When she was out -of money and a job, she wrote to me in Leadville. - -“Mama,” she mused on paper, “I think I will enter a convent. You have -always been very religious and I am turning in that direction more and -more—perhaps that would be a fine solution for my life.” - -I had always pictured Silver with a dazzling, high place before the -world. But when I realized how the world was changing her from the -sweet, pretty little girl she had been to a woman, bruised and at the -mercy of men’s lust, I welcomed the thought of the serenity and -spiritual safety of a convent. I was giving up my life to the Matchless. -It was fitting that my daughter should give up her life to her God. They -were both dedications to a love higher than self. - -“If you don’t hear from me,” she went on, “you will know that I can’t -write—that I’ve taken vows.” - -My breath choked in my throat. I had lost everything—everything in the -world that I prized—my dear husband, money, prominence, all my fineries, -jewelry and the many little luxuries a woman loves, my brother, my -family, my first daughter—and now Silver! It was almost more than one -heart could stand. I cried out in terror. - -“Oh, no, Silver! I can’t lose you.” - -Little by little, I became reconciled to her suggestion. My darling baby -was going away—but she was not really going away. She would be with me -always. - -Shortly after that, she managed to raise enough capital to start and -edit a little paper called the “Silver Dollar Weekly.” But after a few -issues, its financial success was too negligible to carry on. Her -letters said she was giving the project up and going to Chicago. If she -failed there she would enter a convent in the mid-West that Uncle Peter -knew about. - -The years passed slowly by. A few letters came and then only silence. -Imagine my horror one September night in 1925! I had come to Denver to -pass the winter and had stopped at the desk of my cheap little hotel -before going to bed. The clerk surveyed me with a kind of contemptuous -awe and asked: - -“Is that your daughter I seen in the paper tonight was murdered in some -Chicago scandal?” - -“Certainly not,” I flared back. “My daughter is in a convent.” - -I could not afford to buy a newspaper so I hurried to the Denver Public -Library in the Civic Center. What could the story be? Perhaps the clerk -meant Lillie—I never mentioned her name nor even admitted she was my -daughter—but something might have happened to her or her husband that -revealed who she really was. As I clumped into the library, dressed, as -usual, in my black dress, veiled motoring cap headgear and heavy boots, -the clock said a few minutes past nine-thirty. - -“Oh, dear,” I said to the librarian at the desk. “Am I too late to read -tonight’s paper? I know the newspaper files close at half-past nine—” - -She looked up and with some penetration, perhaps recognition, gazed at -me for a brief instant. - -“Yes, the newspaper room is closed. But if you will go in and sit down -in the reference room, I think I can manage to bring you an evening -paper.” - -I thanked her very pleasantly and did as she bade. While I waited, I -absently traced the grain of the heavy walnut with my finger nail, -trying not to show any distress. Soon she quietly laid the paper down in -front of me and stole away. But with that sixth sense you have in a -crisis, out of the back of my head I could feel the librarians watching -me. - -“Silver!” I gasped to myself and wanted to faint. - -But I made myself sit extremely straight and read very quietly, knowing -there were alien eyes observing me. The account told of a young woman, -who had posed under various aliases but lastly as Ruth Norman. She had -been scalded to death under very suspicious circumstances in a rooming -house in the cheapest district in Chicago. She was a perpetual drunk, -was addicted to dope and had lived with many men of the lowest order. -But her doctor knew who she really was. She was Rose Mary Echo Silver -Dollar Tabor, who had signed her songs Silver Echo Tabor and her novel, -Rose Tabor. - -“My darling little Honeymaid!” I wailed inwardly and thought my heart -must break. My eyes blurred with tears so that I could not read. “What a -ghastly tragic end—poor, poor little girl!” - -A strange photograph had been found in her room on which Silver had -written this warning: “In case I am killed, arrest this man.” He was -later identified as a saloon-keeper who had been one of her lovers. But -insufficient evidence was brought out at the coroner’s inquest to attach -definite guilt to him. - -To save Silver’s body from the potter’s field, Peter McCourt was wiring -$200 for the burial of his niece. - -“Damn him!” was my thought. He seemed always, at every blow my life -sustained, to be in a position to make my humiliation more soul-searing. - -Deliberately I read the whole account through a second time. I knew with -profound conviction that every line was true—I could piece together the -whole story step by step. But following that awful downfall, there under -the white-bowled lights of the library, my conscience cried out that I -had failed again-failed, as a mother, more miserably than ever Augusta -could have wished or prophesied. I was bowed down with shame. - -“Don’t let anyone know,” my heart immediately rebelled. “The Tabor pride -does not admit defeat.” - -Gathering up the paper quietly and folding its pink sheets along their -original creases, I took it to the desk and nonchalantly handed the -death-blow back to the girl who had brought it to me. - -“Thank you very much for the paper,” I said. “But that story’s all a -pack of lies. She’s not my daughter—that young woman. I _know_ Silver is -in a convent.” - -Turning on my heel, I walked out, erect and dignified, my miner’s boots -clacking with the conviction of my statement. - -So passed Silver from my life. I don’t know which was sadder or more -humiliating—Silver’s going or Lillie’s. From the viewpoint of the world, -I suppose it was Lillie’s. But from my own, I was devoted to Silver and -believed in her, and her going was the hardest to bear. I knew she had -told me the lie about the convent to protect me from hurt. But in the -end, the hurt was much greater. - -I have never admitted my hurt, even to intimates. Before the world, I -have always preserved the outline of her fabrication. Silver is alive -today. She is in a convent. - -The winter dragged miserably in and I was even poorer. My boots wore out -and I hit upon the scheme of wrapping my legs in gunny sack, like -puttees, held with twine; a habit I have always held to. Only dreams and -memories were left to sustain the poverty and dreariness of my life. Now -I was completely down. - -But catastrophes never come singly and it was also that winter that the -Matchless was again to be foreclosed. During a quarter of a century, the -leases, the legal battles, the disappointments, the troubles and the -finances of that mine had been one long series of involved -ramifications. Each time the clouds would seems to have a silver lining, -it would prove only a figment of my imagination or a mirage of the Cloud -City (Leadville’s nickname). A silver mine in the Cloud City should -certainly have some lining! - -“Why don’t you give up? Let the mine go for the mortgage?” a Denver -banker to whom I appealed for help said to me. “It’s all worked out—and -anyway it’s paid you a small steady income for years.” - -“I should say not!” I replied with vehemence. “I shall never let the -Matchless go—not while there is breath in my body to find a way to fight -for it. The mine is a Golconda.” - -Doubting eyes greeted my statement and the money was refused. I was used -to that—and in the quiet loneliness of my cabin or during my sombre -meditations in church even I, too, occasionally doubted. Yet never would -I let that be known. My great husband, Tabor, could not have spoken -other than truthfully and prophetically from his deathbed and if I was -to live true to his command, I must always believe. - -“I have no reason for living if I do not have faith in the Matchless. No -dear one is left to me. I have only this one legacy of my great love. It -is my mission and my life,” were the thoughts that ran through my head -as I left the banker’s office. But now I had exhausted my last resource. -No future was ahead of me, no work to do and no place to live. The mine -was doomed—and my heart sank to the lowest depths. - -During that entire weekend, I wandered about Denver in a daze, telling -my rosary in first one church and then another. About my neck, instead -of beads, I always wore a long black shoelace knotted intermittently to -form beads and holding a large plain wooden cross. Friends gave me other -rosaries but I clung to my improvised string. - -In some ways, my plain bedraggled habit, my make-shift rosary, my legs -strapped in gunny sack and twine and my grey shawl over the black dress -seemed only a just penance for the clothing extravagances and sins of my -youth. I did not like to explain my attitude to most people—although I -sometimes mentioned my feeling to friends or Fathers who were truly -devout Catholics—but this thought gave me the courage to forget how I -looked. Those rags were a chosen punishment for former vanity. - -“Dear God, help me to save the Matchless,” I prayed on my shoestring -over and over again all day that Sunday. Suddenly as I knelt in St. -Elizabeth’s an inspiration came to me bathed in a white light. Gathering -up my full skirt, I hurried from the church and headed toward the corner -of Ninth and Pennsylvania Sts. and the home of J. K. Mullen. He was a -millionaire miller and a liberal donor to many Catholic charities. - -Outside in the night air it had begun to snow but I plodded on -resolutely. By the time I had reached his dignified old mansion, it was -past nine o’clock and I was afraid I should find no one home. But -summoning a show of boldness, I rang the doorbell. - -For a long time, there was no answer. I was cold and nervous, apart from -my anxiety about the mine. I shifted my weight from one foot to another -trying to make up my mind to ring again. At last I was sure enough to -press the button. This time, after a short wait, the door slowly opened -and revealed Mr. Mullen, himself. - -“Good evening,” I said pleasantly. “I’m Mrs. Tabor and I wondered if I -might see you, although”—and laughed with that same musical laugh that -had charmed so many illustrious men in its day—“it’s a rather odd time -for a call.” - -“Why, certainly, Mrs. Tabor, do come in. I’m all alone. And being Sunday -night, the servants are all out—had to answer the door, myself.” - -He led me into a gloomy spacious room lit only by one reading lamp and -by the flames from the fireplace. - -“It’s a pretty bad night for you to be out,” he remarked. - -“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s nothing to the Leadville blizzards I face all -the time up at the mine. I’m used to a hard life.” - -“Well, you have a lot of courage.” - -“I need it—and it’s taking a lot of courage to come here—but I’m -depending on my cross,”—and I clasped it more tightly in my hand. - -“What do you mean?” - -Hesitantly I began to unfold my story to him. When I spoke of my -loneliness and having only this one trust to live for, he remarked: - -“Yes, I’m going through the same thing. You know, don’t you, that Mrs. -Mullen died last March? My daughters are all married and now I have -nobody who really needs me.” - -“Oh, I’m deeply sorry.” - -We sat silent for some minutes, watching the fire and lost to our own -thoughts. Finally Mr. Mullen urged me to go on. When I had finished my -plea, he suddenly exclaimed: - -“I will redeem that mortgage!” - -Striding over to his desk, he sat down and wrote a check for $14,000 -with the same impulsive generosity as W. S. Stratton had written his for -$15,000 to Tabor in 1895. - -“Oh, Mr. Mullen,” I cried. “You are an angel!” - -“Your story appealed to me, Mrs. Tabor, appealed to me very strongly. I -think you deserve to keep the management of the Matchless.” - -My life and my mission were saved by a message straight from God! - -Following up this action, in 1928, the J. K. Mullen estate created the -Shorego Mining Co. and technically foreclosed the Matchless. But their -action was to prevent other depredations and to preserve me from -unfortunate business dealings. The Matchless has been really mine. - -With the coming of the depression, gradually the owners and lessees -abandoned the mines on Fryer Hill and the Matchless among them. -Immediately after the pumps were stopped, the mines began to fill with -water. Since many of the drifts are interlocking, today, in order to -work the Matchless, not only its own shafts and drifts would have to be -pumped dry but almost all of Fryer Hill, too. It has been a discouraging -time, disappointments mounting one upon another. - -I have had no income. Yet with my pride, I have never accepted charity. -Where the least aspect of condescension could be imagined, I have -returned gifts and refused offers of aid. But when I have been sure that -people were genuinely friendly or would not speak about their -generosity, I have let them help me, I have also received many donations -through fan mail of late years—bills for $5, or $10 or even larger. -These have come because of renewed interest in the Tabor name brought -about by newspaper stories or by the book and movie, “Silver Dollar.” - -I read the book. - -“It’s all a pack of lies,” I told anyone who asked me about it. But the -story as a whole was more nearly right than I would care to admit -especially considering its sneering tone. Of course, there are many -inaccuracies like referring to Tabor as “Haw” (which no one ever called -him in real life) and some straight geographical and historical -untruths, such as having the Arkansas flow in Clear Creek Valley and -talking of Central City as a collection of shanties when it is all brick -or stone. The author was most unkind to me and talked about my guarding -the mine with a shotgun, when in actuality I have never owned a shotgun -that worked. It is true that I do not like strangers and I have several -ways of dealing with them. If someone knocks, I peek out the corner of -the window (which was once shaded by coarse lace, then burlap and -finally newspapers), lifting just a tiny flap so as to show only one -eye. If they see me and recognize me, I say I’m taking a bath—and I have -been known to give that same answer all day long to a series of callers! - -Sometimes I alter my voice and say, “Mrs. Tabor is downtown—I am the -night watchman,” (as I did when Sue Bonnie was making her first efforts -to meet me) and sometimes I just sit as quiet as a mossy stone, -pretending the cabin is uninhabited. - -Nevertheless, the author of “Silver Dollar” did me a real service in -bringing me many unseen friends and correspondents all across the United -States. Carloads of people flock up Little Stray Horse Gulch each -summer, seeking a glimpse of me, so many cars that I have renamed that -road My Boulevard! - -But I never speak to them or admit them to my cabin except, -occasionally, when they come properly escorted by a Leadville friend. -And when I go to town, I frequent the alleys as much as possible, my -figure dressed in my long, black skirt and coat, my legs shrouded in -burlap and twine and my face hidden by the perennial auto-cap with its -visor and draping veil. I, who used to vaunt my public appearances in -the streets by the most elegant dresses, matched by gay floating-ruffled -parasols and by my liveried brougham and team, now skulk along beside -the garbage cans and refuse. - -When the movie “Silver Dollar” had its premiere in Denver late in 1932, -the management approached me with an offer of cash and my expenses to -Denver to be present. “No, I will not go,” I replied firmly. “I can’t -leave the mine.” (Actually I couldn’t bear to see myself and all that I -hold dear maligned.) - -“I don’t suppose you’d let us have some ore, then, from the Matchless? -We want to have an historical exhibition in the foyer of everything we -can get that relates to the Tabor mine.” - -“Certainly,” I replied. “I’d be delighted. That’s quite different. Tabor -was a great miner and the Matchless is Colorado’s most famous -mine—naturally people will be interested.” - -I, myself, escorted the men out on the dump and helped them pick up a -gunny sack full of the richest bits of ore we could find. When they had -filled their sack, I waved them pleasantly on their way. - -“Don’t believe all you see,” I said. “I’m not half as bad as in the -book.” - -A couple of years later the motion picture came to Buena Vista and my -friends, Joe Dewar and Lucille Frazier, asked me to motor down with them -to see it. They were to keep our going a secret, I would wear a veil, -dress differently than usual, and sit in the back of the theater so that -no one would recognize me. - -“That’s a date, then,” Joe said. “We’ll be up for you Thursday evening.” - -But when Thursday arrived, I did not have the courage to go through with -the plan. Here was I, a lonely, poverty-stricken old woman with only a -sacred trust left to me out of all the world, a trust that most people -spoke of as an ‘obsession’ or a ‘fixation.’ Yet now I must go to see -what the world thought of me as a national beauty, a scandalous -home-wrecker and a luxury-loving doll. I could not face it. If I had -sinned, I had paid a sufficiently high price for my sins without -deliberately giving myself further heartache. I sent down a message to -the village that I could not go. - -Meanwhile, shortly after the premiere of the movie in Denver, I saw -Father Horgan approaching with two men. When anybody knocked at my -cabin, I always peeked out of the window to see who was there before -admitting them. As I raised the burlap curtain sewed in heavy stitches -of twine and recognized him, I asked: - -“Whom have you got with you?” - -“Two lawyers from Denver who want to talk to you about signing a paper—a -business matter.” - -“Very well,” I said. “Since you brought them—you know I don’t like -strangers. But I’ll see them for your sake.” - -They entered and sat down in my humble quarters. I always kept the cabin -very neat with a small shrine fastened to the far wall, my boxes, table -and bed arranged around the room and the stove near the lean-to. It was -December and very cold. They unfastened their coats and broached their -offer by saying: - -“How would you like to make $50,000?” - -“You want to lease the Matchless?” - -“No. We think your character has been damaged in the motion picture -founded on your life and that you should sue for libel.” - -“But I haven’t seen the movie—I can’t testify to that—” - -“Well, we have. And legally you have a very strong case.” - -So legally I had a very strong case? I knew something about -litigation—my whole association with Tabor had been involved in law -suits. Most of them, to be sure, were suits about mining claims but -there was also the secret Durango divorce suit and the legal battle with -Bill Bush. No good had ever come out of all that except fees to the -lawyers—neither of us had gained anything in money or in reputation. - -“But I do not need $50,000,” I replied. “The Matchless will soon make -many times that sum. But thank you very much indeed for your kindness -and interest.” - -I turned to Father Horgan and introduced a discussion of religious -matters with him. Shortly, however, the lawyers cut in again. - -“But you could certainly use $50,000 extra. And all you have to do is -put your name on this line.” - -They held out a paper already drawn up with an agreement for them to go -ahead and sue in my name. - -“But I’m not interested in the law. I’m interested in mining. To enter -into such a business with you, I would have to learn many new things and -I’m only interested in the price of silver, in high-grade ores and such -like matters.” - -“You don’t have to learn anything. Leave it all to us. We’ll tend to -everything.” - -“God will look after me. I put my trust in Him—not in men.” - -Each time they returned to the issue of obtaining my signature, I -circumvented them in some such manner for I knew what that suit meant. -It meant scandal. It meant the opposing side’s digging back in the past -and finding the name of Jacob Sands. There was not enough money in the -world to pay me for besmirching the Tabor name, rightly or wrongly. But -I did not hint at my real reasons for refusing. I merely turned to -Father Horgan and asked him about another religious topic. - -At last they became discouraged and took their departure. When I had -said good-bye and closed the door, I stealthily opened it again, just a -crack curiously wondering if I could hear any of their conversation. I -only caught one comment as they went over the hill. One of the lawyers -was saying to Father Horgan: - -“Well, either that woman is the craziest woman in Colorado—or else she’s -the smartest!” - -I closed the door and laughed merrily aloud. - -“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “Well, I’m neither.” - -I was an old woman, living on stale bread that I bought twelve loaves at -a time and plate boil which I bought in dollar lots. Plate boil is a -brisquet part of the beef, like suet, and very, very cheap, at the same -time that it generates heat. Lucille Frazier once asked me how I could -bear to live on such a diet. - -“Oh, I find it delectable,” I answered, “really delectable.” - -That statement was not entirely true. But my dainty palate that used to -have champagne and oysters whenever it wanted, had changed so much with -the hardships of life that it no longer craved delicacies. My tongue had -lost its taste for many sweetmeats and actually found this meagre -unappetizing fare satisfying—and certainly more satisfying than to -accept charity! - -The Zaitz grocery kept me during these depression years in the necessary -groceries at a very cheap rate or on credit. In addition, their delivery -boys would often give me a lift from town to the cabin, sometimes -breaking a trail through the snow for me. - -When I was sick, never anything more than a cold, I would doctor myself -with turpentine and lard, my favorite remedy for any ailment. And so I -managed. If I did not have enough coal or wood to heat the cabin, I -would go to bed for warmth. My Leadville friends generally kept an eye -out for me and helped me surreptitiously through the worst crises. In -these last years, there are many more friends than I could name. - -So I have lived on—‘existed on’ would be a more correct statement. I -have been lonely, blue, often cold and starving in the winters, and -beset by many torments. But I have been sustained by a great faith and a -great love. I have lived with courage and a cheery smile for my friends. -As I look out over the abandoned shaft-houses and dumps of the fabulous -Fryer Hill ruins, over the partially deserted town of Leadville to the -glorious beauty of Colorado’s highest mountains, I know that I have -surely expiated my last sin and that I have fulfilled the trust my dear -Tabor put in me when he said: - -“Hang on to the Matchless.” - - - - - _Farewell_ - - -The last day anyone saw Mrs. Tabor alive was February 20, 1935. On that -morning, she broke her way through deep snow around the Robert E. Lee -mine which adjoined the Matchless on Fryer Hill, and walked the mile or -more into the town of Leadville. Her old black dress was horribly torn -and the twine and gunny sack wrappings on her feet were dripping wet -because she had repeatedly fallen through the lowest snow crust into the -melting freshets of running water beneath. The Zaitz delivery truck ran -her home and let her out in Little Stray Horse Gulch beyond the -abandoned railroad trestle (now gone), as close to the Matchless as it -was possible to get. She walked off through the snow, carrying her bag -of groceries and waving good-bye to the delivery boy, Elmer Kutzlub (now -the owner of his own grocery store in Leadville). - -Nothing more was known of her for two weeks although Sue Bonnie observed -smoke issuing from her stack during some few days of that time. Then a -fresh blizzard blew up, blotting out all vision for three days. When the -storm cleared, Sue Bonnie, seeing from her own cabin on the outskirts of -Leadville that Mrs. Tabor’s stack was smokeless, became worried. She -tried to reach her friend through the heavy fall of new snow but was not -strong enough to make it. Sue had to wait until she could obtain help -from Tom French to break a trail. - -When they reached the cabin, all was silence. They broke a window and -forced an entry. Mrs. Tabor’s body, in the shape of a cross, was frozen -stiff on the floor. - -After the couple found Mrs. Tabor’s emaciated form and her death was -broadcast to the world, fourteen trunks of her earlier belongings turned -up in a Denver warehouse and in the basement of St. Vincent’s hospital -in Leadville. But there was no other estate. - -Burial posed a problem, both the question of place and the matter of -expenses. But unsolicited donations poured into Leadville, sufficient to -present a solution on both counts. The J. K. Mullen heirs, particularly -the Oscar Malos, aided munificently. An interesting sidelight, during -those days of indecision, was a bit of information given by Jim Corbett, -the mortician, who said there were almost no grey hairs on her head. -This corroborated Mrs. Tabor’s claim that the one element of beauty left -to her toward the end was her hair; for that reason she always wore the -horrid motoring cap to hide it, punishing herself for the past. - -Some weeks later, Baby Doe’s body was shipped to Denver and buried in -Mt. Olivet cemetery beside that of Horace Tabor who, in the meantime, -had been moved from the now abandoned Calvary plot. At long last, after -thirty-five years vigil, peace and reunion with her adored Tabor had -come to Baby Doe’s troubled soul. - -And there, she rests today. On the edge of the plains where, a few miles -beyond, the rampart of the Rockies bulks protectingly against the fair -blue sky, little Lizzie McCourt of Oshkosh has found her final defense. - -Despite the dazzling chapters and the story’s consistent flamboyance, -hers is a tragic tale. Although she epitomized a roistering era and a -swashbuckling way of life made possible by the mining frontier of -Colorado, the granite gloom of those powerful mountains has forever -lowered the curtain on her dramatic period and on the valiant, if -mistaken, spirit of Baby Doe Tabor. In relegating both, and their final -evaluation, to the pages of history, the lines inscribed on the stage -drop of the Tabor Opera House recur, ever again, emphasizing their fatal -prophecy: - - So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again, - Ancient and holy things fade like a dream. - - - Postscript to Seventh Edition: - -Twelve years ago the first edition of this booklet appeared—on June 26, -1950. Five thousand copies sold in four months, and a second edition -appeared before the end of the year. Since that time the editions have -consisted of ten thousand copies each. The original edition was in the -nature of a real gamble. In my mind the Tabor story had already received -more than adequate attention in three books and countless articles, not -to mention many fictional treatments and one movie. My work seemed -rather supernumerary. - -But this booklet had two virtues. In the other histories Baby Doe had -been given the brush-off; as a floosy, when young, and a freak, when -old. The other authors gave their sympathy to Augusta, and their -research was not too painstaking. My booklet was based on what reporters -call “leg-work.” It was slow but it led me to an entirely different view -of the second Mrs. Tabor and to a closer approximation of the probable -truth. The general public liked my two contributions. - -Among certain sectors, however, I was very much criticized for daring to -defend Baby Doe and for writing fictional passages in this booklet for -which I still have no proof. But oddly enough in some instances -documentation later turned up for scenes that began as invention. - -In 1956 the late John Latouche was chosen to write the libretto for an -opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe. He read all available treatments of the -Tabors but preferred this booklet (as he said in Theatre Arts magazine). -His lyric telling of the story follows fairly closely the same line and -found audiences across the United States and in Europe, where the opera -has had a number of productions. - -During the intervening years I have received fan mail from as far away -as Yokohama, Japan, and Stuttgart, Germany, and the booklet continues to -have wide appeal. It had been my intention to write a definitive -large-size book on Baby Doe but I am not certain if there is sufficient -interest for such a work. I should be glad to have the opinion of -current readers. - - Caroline Bancroft, 1962 - - - - - _Acknowledgments_ - - - (reprinted from the fourth, fifth and sixth editions) - - - For Research Aid: - -Father F. M. McKeogh of St. Peter’s, Oshkosh, James E. Lundsted of the -Oshkosh Public Museum, and J. E. Boell of the State Historical Society -at Madison have supplied masses of Wisconsin data. Their courtesy and -unusual interest in running down many obscure points in the last three -years have amplified and verified my knowledge of the Doe and McCourt -families. In Denver, The Western History Department of the Denver Public -Library—Ina T. Aulls, Alys Freeze and Opal Harber—have suffered with me -intermittently for the eighteen years that I have been working on the -Tabor Story, lending aid and enlightenment. At the Colorado Historical -Society, Agnes Wright Spring and Dolores Renze have been phenomenally -generous and helpful. - - - For Criticism: - -Marian Castle, author of “The Golden Fury,” has made pertinent -suggestions for clarifying captions and improving the general style. - - - For Proofreading: - -Mrs. J. Alvin Fitzell has graciously read and re-read galley sheets in -order to catch errors. - - - For Photographs: - -Fred Mazzulla, collector of Western Americana, has been a beaver of -industry and ingenuity in locating unusual prints and in making gifts of -copies. The Western History Department has supplied the great majority -of prints used; generously donating these in return for my gift of many -originals. Frances Shea, Dolores Renze and Edgar C. McMechen of the -Colorado Historical Society provided ten views from the Tabor and W. H. -Jackson collections. Samuel F. McRae, Lenore Fitzell, Mary Hohnbaum, -Ralph Batschelet, Gene Hawkins, Florence Greenleaf and the Central City -Opera House Association have all contributed in large and small ways to -the final lay-out. - - C. B.—1953 - - - - - _By the Same Author_ - - - Colorful Colorado: Its Dramatic History: “... a remarkable feat of - condensation ... ought to be a copy in your car’s glove locker.” - Robert Perkin in the _Rocky Mountain News_. - - Historic Central City: “We could do with more such stories of - Colorado’s fabled past.” - Marian Castle in _The Denver Post_. - - Famous Aspen: “It’s all here ... Aspenites should be grateful.” - Luke Short in _The Aspen Times_. - - Denver’s Lively Past: “With zest and frankness the author emphasizes - the dramatic, lusty, bizarre and spicy happenings.” - Agnes Wright Spring in _The Denver Post_ - - Tabor’s Matchless Mine and Lusty Leadville: “Seventh in her series of - Bancroft Booklets retelling segments of Colorado’s history They are - popularly written, color-packed little pamphlets, an it’s a pleasure - to commend them to native and tourist alike.” Robert Perkin in the - _Rocky Mountain News_. - - Augusta Tabor: Her Side of the Scandal: “Miss Bancroft with bold - strokes has provided the answers to ... Mr. Tabor’s philanderings.” - Agnes Wright Spring in _Colorado Magazine_. - - The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown: “Caroline Bancroft’s booklets an brighter, - better-illustrated and cheaper than formal histories of Colorado.... - The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown was a delightful person, and I wish I had - known her.” - John J. Lipsey in the _Colorado Springs Free Press_. - - The Brown Palace in Denver: “Miss Bancroft has a sure touch and this - new title adds another wide-selling item to her list.” - Don Bloch in _Roundup_. - - Glenwood’s Early Glamor: “Another triumph for Miss Bancroft—and for - Colorado.” - Jack Quinn in the _Cripple Creek Gold Rush_. - - Lost Gold Mines and Buried Treasure: “Caroline Bancroft has gathered - an intriguing lot of local lore.” - Cervi’s _Rocky Mountain Journal_. - - Unique Ghost Towns and Mountain Spots: “The new Bancroft numbers are - the best yet ... and pictures are excellent.” - Stanton Peckham in _The Denver Post_. - - - (_See back cover for prices_) - - - COLORFUL COLORADO: ITS DRAMATIC HISTORY - -The whole magnificent sweep of the state’s history in a sprightly -condensation, with 111 photos (31 in full color). $2.00. - - - UNIQUE GHOST TOWNS AND MOUNTAIN SPOTS - -Forty-two of Colorado’s romance-packed high-country towns have their -stories told with old and new photos, history and maps. $2.00. - - - THE UNSINKABLE MRS. BROWN - -The rollicking story of an ignorant Leadville waitress who reached the -top of Newport society as a _Titanic_ heroine. Illustrated. $1.00. - - - LOST GOLD MINES AND BURIED TREASURE - -Thirty romantic and fabled tales of Colorado’s misplaced wealth inspire -the reader to go search. Illustrated. $1.25. - - - AUGUSTA TABOR: HER SIDE OF THE SCANDAL - -The infamous quarrel of the 1880’s is told from the viewpoint of the -outspoken first wife. Illustrated. 75¢. - - - TABOR’S MATCHLESS MINE AND LUSTY LEADVILLE - -Colorado’s most publicized mine was just one facet of the extraordinary -history of the lusty camp where it operated. Illustrated. 75¢. - - - HISTORIC CENTRAL CITY - -Colorado’s first big gold camp lived to become a Summer Opera and Play -Festival town. Illustrated. 85¢. - - - FAMOUS ASPEN - -Today the silver-studded slopes of an early-day bonanza town have turned -into a scenic summer and ski resort. Illustrated. $1.00. - - - DENVER’S LIVELY PAST - -A wild frontier town, built on a jumped claim and promoting a red-light -district, became a popular tourist spot. Illustrated. $1.00. - - - THE BROWN PALACE IN DENVER - -No hotel had more turn-of-the-century glamor, nor has seen such plush -love-affairs, murders and bizarre doings. Illustrated. 75¢. - - - GLENWOOD’S EARLY GLAMOR - -Society polo games, presidential bear hunts, and miraculous healing hot -springs made this town unique. Illustrated. 75¢. - - (_Add 10 cents for mailing one copy; 15 cents for more than one_) - - Also available are two popular books published by Alan Swallow: - Gulch of Gold (_full-size history of Central City_) _at $6.20, - postpaid_. - Colorful Colorado (_cloth-bound with bibliography and index_) _at - $3.65_. - - BANCROFT BOOKLETS - 1081 Downing Street, Denver 18, Colorado - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - ---Silently corrected obvious typographical errors; non-standard - spellings and dialect were not changed. - ---Added roman-numeral page numbers to the “illustration” pages. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SILVER QUEEN*** - - -******* This file should be named 52398-0.txt or 52398-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/2/3/9/52398 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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