Our guide told us that the attendance at the School of Mines varies annually with the fluctuations of mining fortunes. In good years when the mines are doing well, the University has between fifty and sixty students of mining engineering. In poor mining years the attendance drops off. He told us some interesting tales of the "good old days" when miners wore two shirts sewed together at the bottom, thus making a sort of bag, and helped themselves liberally to gold while in the diggings.
He said that a miner had been known to pay a mine foreman a thousand dollars for the privilege of working in a rich corner of the mine, with the result that he would be able to make up the price of his privilege within two or three days. He explained that there was a general rule to the effect that a miner should not be stripped for examination except to his shirt; with possible exceptions if he were under very strong suspicion.
I was sorry to come away from Reno. I liked the little town, with the sound of the rushing river coming in at my hotel window, and the feeling of s.p.a.ce and freedom that the high situation gave. Reno is 4500 feet above sea level.
From Reno we drove on to Fallon, a little town where we spent the night.
I took my last look at the high Sierras as we drove across the gra.s.sy plains in leaving Reno. There they were, still snowy, towering above the town. We came along by the river, but left it later for a more or less hilly road across rather barren country. We stopped at a little roadside place where there was a small grocery next to a tiny dwelling, to ask for some luncheon. The groceryman was very dubious and non-committal and referred us to his wife. I had noticed that at our approach she fled to some improvised chicken coops back of the little dwelling. So I tracked her to her lair and found the poor little thing really standing at bay.
She was a small woman, overshadowed by an immense Mexican straw hat. She said to me somewhat defiantly and almost tearfully that she couldn"t possibly do another drop of work. She explained that she had the railroad men to care for when they came in from the road, and that she had two hundred chickens to look after. "I carry all the water for them myself," she said tearfully. I looked around at the hot, dusty little settlement, with no spear of gra.s.s, and felt sorry for her. I told her that we wouldn"t for the world inconvenience her, whereat she softened and told me that if we would drive on to the next settlement we could get some luncheon. Which we did, and a very indifferent luncheon it was.
However, it was spiced by an ardent conversation between T. and a railroad man on the foreign policy of the present Administration. A woman looks on at these encounters, into which men plunge without a moment"s introduction or hesitation, and into which they throw themselves so earnestly, with admiration tinged with awe.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Smelter near Ely, Nevada. 2. Lahontan Dam, Nevada.]
As we drove along the dusty road a short, rather thick snake, its back marked by shining black diamonds, wriggled hurriedly across the road in front of us, escaping to the sage brush. I asked later what this snake was, for I felt certain that it was poisonous. Sure enough, it was a diamond-backed rattle snake. We came soon to another little town where there was a good hotel. Hanging on the wall of the hotel was a painting of the proposed Lahontan Dam and the country which its life-giving streams would touch. We decided, instead of going direct to Fallon, to drive across country to the Dam, making a slight detour. We were very glad that we did so, for we found the young superintendent of the Dam construction, a Brown University man, very courteous indeed. We went to look at the enormous pile of sand and clay which has been banked up day after day and week after week until the Lahontan Dam is the largest earth dam in the world. We saw cement spillways, one on each side of the earth dam proper, their tall steps planned to break the fall of the water at any time of great flood and pressure. We saw the lake itself with its measuring tower and gate already sixty feet under the rising water. Mr. Tillinghast told us that the lake stretches back into the hills and the canyon for twenty miles. We heard of the millions of fertile acres which this water, already beginning to be released in a rushing stream, was to make possible. Some miles back we had seen irrigated country, green and fertile, cut, so to speak, right out of the desert. Alfalfa was growing luxuriantly and was being cured in high green stacks under the sun. Settlers" little cottages were a visible promise of the future, just as they had been in California. We congratulated Mr. Tillinghast on his work, and told him that in days to come he should bring his grandchildren to see the Lahontan Dam, a splendid monument to his work and the work of the men with him.
We saw where he and his a.s.sistant engineer lived with their families.
They had small but comfortable quarters made of houses built of tar paper. Some chicken yards were near, and an improvised tennis court was in front of the little row of houses. Near by was a little schoolhouse for the children of the settlement. Here New England women, city born and bred, were living happily with their children while their husbands built the great Dam. One lady told us that her relatives in Providence commiserated her lot. "But," said she, "the boys are so well and live such a free and happy life in this glorious air that we really dread being moved to another piece of work when the Dam is finished." From Lahontan we picked our way across the desert with its sage brush and its s.p.a.ces, to Fallon.
When we left Fallon we had before us a very trying drive. The country east of Fallon, past Salt Wells Ranch and as far as Sand Springs, was in bad condition because of recent heavy rains. We met heavy wagons drawn by ten, twelve, fourteen, and sometimes sixteen horses and mules, struggling madly and almost hopelessly through the sticky mud. The drivers were cracking their whips, yelling and swearing, and the poor animals" flanks and bellies were thick with mud. The heavy wagons were piled high with bales and boxes. In some instances the horses of one team were being unharnessed to be added to another team where the wagon stuck hopelessly in the mud. A country woman told me later that she had seen the horses of these trucking teams come in at night, their flanks covered with the dried blood which had streamed down from the wounds made by a pitchfork in the hands of a desperate and angry teamster determined to get his team started out of a mud hole.
We had an advantage because of the broad tires of our machine, and got on very well by picking our way across the plain and keeping well to the left of a long stretch filled with salt water holes and with a fairly large salt lake. A new road had been made by travelers, far away from the regular road, which ran close to this small inland sea and which was a hopeless quagmire. The land about us was dreary and desolate and yet had its own charm. Off to the left were immense sand hills blown up by the wind, and barren, rocky hills, the Wind Mountains. We came at last to the little station known as Sand Springs, which is simply a lodging place for the teamsters and their horses for the night. We could look down from the plateau on which the little house and the barns stood, upon the white and clay-colored, desolate s.p.a.ces of the salty valley below. The landlady welcomed us cordially and gave us a plain but hearty lunch. She was a Californian and told me that she and her husband missed the green hills and fields of their own State. She said that they had wonderful salt for curing and packing their winter meats from the lake down in the valley. She said that the salt could be raked up in great heaps, white and coa.r.s.e but with great strength and savor. She was mourning the loss of her cows, which had disappeared. They had been gone a month and she feared that in wandering away on the mountain ranges they had been driven off by "cattle rustlers."
From Sand Springs we drove on through a more hilly country, the road winding along through an open canyon. We pa.s.sed Frenchman"s Flat, where there was a little restaurant and where a Frenchman came out to pa.s.s the time of day. He greeted us very pleasantly and would doubtless have given us a good meal if we had not already had one. We then crossed another great level and pa.s.sed three ranches known as West Gate, Little Gate, and East Gate. We were coming into a much more fertile country, a high valley with mountains rising on either side. Ahead of us, marked by its tall cottonwood trees, was Alpine Ranch, a part of the big Williams estate and our destination for the night. It was very cheering to drive through the paddock, cross a bubbling little stream, and come up alongside the long, low, pleasant ranch house.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. On the Lincoln Highway. 2. Ranch House at East Gate, Nov. 3. Road Scene near Rawlins, Wyoming.]
We had had as traveling companion from Fallon, across the Salt Flats and through the hills, a young commercial man from San Francisco driving his Ford car through to Utah. We were both glad to make the journey across the desert in company, hoping to be of mutual a.s.sistance in case of any accident to our cars. Mr. N. now proposed to take supper at Alpine Ranch and to travel by night in order to gain time. We warned him that he might get into trouble, but he a.s.sured us that he often traveled at night and enjoyed the stillness and the freedom to speed along. We found Mr. and Mrs. Dudley of the ranch hospitable and willing to give us bed and board. It is very pleasant for those who are willing to forego luxuries to stop at farm houses and ranch houses, to take the fare and sleep upon the beds given them, and to enjoy the talk of the people and the contact with real ranch life.
We had a delightful evening with the Dudleys. We ate our supper at a long table filled with ranchmen, and took part in an animated conversation on the merits of the present Administration. We ate from a red tablecloth, but that did not trouble us. After supper, in the soft evening air, we had a talk with the family as to the advantages of the government ownership of railways. A woman from a nearby town took an earnest share in the conversation and showed herself well acquainted with the arguments for and against such ownership. The master of the ranch told us something of his difficulty in keeping men steadily at work on the ranch. He said that they came and went constantly in spite of good pay, steady work, and kindly treatment. He said that it was very difficult to get a man to stay more than two years. He would bring his roll of bedding, as is Western custom, take his place in the bunk house and at the table and in the fields for a time, but he could not be persuaded to stay long. The wandering habit had too strong a grip upon him.
We went out into the ample paddock to see the mules and horses roving comfortably about. Two of the wild horses of the plains had recently been captured and brought in. Both were going through a course of discipline which the ranchman a.s.sured us would have to be made more severe later on. One was a beautiful young mare with her colt following her closely. She had a heavy yoke bar hanging by a sort of collar from her neck, and so arranged as to clog and trip her if she attempted to run. She was peacefully wandering about, but snorted with fear as we came near her. Her master a.s.sured us that she could easily be tamed, and that she was not to be driven or saddled, but was to be used as a bell mare. That is, she was to be the leader of the herd let out on the plains. The ranchman explained that a company of horses will not leave a mare with a young colt, consequently she is used to keep them from straying away long distances. The other horse was a fine animal but much less docile of spirit. "I feel sorry for him," said his master; "he has got a lot to go through with, but he must learn; there is no other way for him." The animal had both his fore legs and hind legs "hand" cuffed, only a short chain being used on the shackles. He was in this way so hobbled that he had to move by little leaps forward, first his fore feet, then his hind feet. By this clumsy hopping he managed to get about. "He must first learn to accept this and then we will go on with his education," said his master. He looked very wild and untamed of spirit, poor fellow, and made frantic efforts to rush away as we came near him. But he had already found out that his cruel chains were inexorable.
We walked out into the lovely valley and toward the purple hills that rose above it. One can never tire of the evenings and the mornings of the great Western plains and table lands. Nowhere else have I seen such wonderful sunsets; glorious in crimsons, purples, violets, rose lavenders, ashes of roses, and finally soft greys. Nowhere have I seen lovelier dawns, the air so crystal clear, the morning light so full of rose and lavender mysteries, the whole day so full of wide and happy promise.
Mr. N. had insisted on going on after supper at the ranch. We had seen him disappear down the valley, his machine finally hidden in acres of grey-green sage brush.
The next morning we drove on, pa.s.sing at the end of the valley through a short but rough canyon, with rocky walls to the left and right. There we saw a board sign marking "Water 100 feet down." Doubtless this was a boon to travelers in the old days. Once through the canyon, we came out into another wide valley, lonely and s.p.a.cious. As we drove along, we saw ahead of us what seemed to be a small motor car by the roadside.
"I believe that"s N"s car!" said T. As we came up to it we saw that the two left wheels were hopelessly down in a deep rut. Mr. N. had stuck his card in the windshield of the car, and had written on it, "Gone for some boards; wait until I come back." Soon we saw him coming across the desert with some loose boards in his arms. We found that the poor fellow had been there from ten o"clock the night before until ten o"clock in the morning, the hour of our pa.s.sing. He had been bowling along comfortably and somewhat sleepily the previous night, when suddenly his car b.u.mped into a muddy rut from which he found it impossible to extricate the machine. He told us that he had worked frantically and futilely until about midnight. Then he put out his lights, wrapped himself up as best he could, and slept until seven. He said that utter stillness and darkness were about him. "Not even a jack rabbit pa.s.sed."
At seven he again began to struggle with his car. He had the sure hope that we would come along sooner or later. He had calculated that we would arrive about eleven. When we found him he had just gone to a deserted, falling ranch house to find a few boards to be used as levers. He and T., taking our machine, now drove to the ranch house and brought back a goodly supply of boards and some heavier pieces of timber which they had torn from the dropping fences. The boards they put in the rut in front of the wheels in order that they might get a grip when once they started. The heavier timbers they used as levers. And so by dint of hard work and by the help of two young men who pa.s.sed in their motor half an hour after our arrival, the front wheel was pried out of the sticky mud, and the car was once more gotten on firm ground. It was past one o"clock when we climbed up the bare road to the high town of Austin and went to the International Hotel for our luncheon. What with lack of sleep and his long fast Mr. N. was quite worn out. A good luncheon prepared by a j.a.panese cook and served by a natty and very debonair j.a.panese waiter put us all in better trim.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Cattle on Nevada Desert. 2. Deserted Mining Town in Nevada. 3. Mining town Cemetery in Nevada. 4. In the Nevada Desert.]
Two miles beyond Austin we were 9000 feet above sea level. As we reached this height we could, looking back, see Austin below us. We also had a fine view of the desert mountains. Here I began to understand the conformation of the Nevada country. We were pa.s.sing from one great valley into another, hour after hour. When I looked on the map of Nevada, I found a series of short mountain ranges. I could see what we were doing in our travel. We were descending into a valley, crossing its immense width, coming up on to a more or less lofty pa.s.s, usually bare, and descending into another valley. It was very fascinating, this rising and falling with always the new vista of a new valley just opening before us.
But now came tribulations. Mr. N. had evidently wrenched his machine in his struggle to free it the night before. He began to have trouble, and traveled more and more haltingly a little way behind us. T. felt a personal responsibility for him and we were continually stopping to wait for him. Finally we halted at the head of a pa.s.s before plunging down what turned out to be a long descent. We had just climbed up from a wide valley and could see nothing of our fellow traveler on the slope behind us. T. left the car and went back; and while I waited, looking off at the mountains, two women reached my hilltop, the older one driving the Ford car in which they were traveling. They looked like women of the plains, perfectly able to take care of themselves and to meet emergencies. They had food supplies with them, and two dogs as fellow pa.s.sengers. The one, a fox terrier, was tied in a box in the tonneau and looked very unhappy. The other, a spaniel, was running back and forth on the rear seat and whining with anxiety to get out. His mistress told me that he was one of the greatest hunters in Nevada, and that he was anxious to go off in the sage brush on a grand chase. Just here the two men came up the hill with Mr. N."s Ford car, weary and exhausted from going over its machinery and struggling to get it moving. The women warned us that in the valley at the foot of the hill was a very bad mud hole which we must inevitably negotiate. They said that a stream from the mountains had in a recent freshet overflowed the plain and reduced both the road and the adjoining country to the state of a swamp. They a.s.sured us that we simply must go through the mud hole and that we were bound to get stuck in it. They cheered us, however, by telling us that a nearby settler had a st.u.r.dy draught horse and that he would in all probability pull us out for the sum of $2.00 a motor car. We thanked them for their warning and drove down the long hill into the next valley.
I had been interested while waiting for Mr. N."s machine to come up, to see the beautiful cactus blossoms growing close to the ground on both sides of the road. They were of a rich yellow and a rich magenta color, single petaled and really beautiful. I saw them growing all along through the desert. In some places they made broad patches of color.
Coming on to another wide valley stretching away for eighty miles and more, we saw the mud hole before us and carefully examined the sides of the road to see if we could not make a detour. The spongy, muddy soil a.s.sured us that it was hopeless, and that what the women had told us was only too true. In the meantime the settler, working with his wife and baby near at hand in his newly cleared field, kept an eye on us. But he did not come to our rescue until we called him. The Ford, being the machine of lighter weight, started first through the mud hole. Its wheels sank immediately and no turning on of power could push it forward. We then shouted to the settler. He came across the field with his big horse, and as he drew near we saw that he was a tall, good looking man with an open and kindly face. I was secretly glad that the poor fellow who had so recently cast his lot in this lonely and immense valley had a chance to earn some ready money. After a little pleasant d.i.c.kering he agreed to pull the machines out for $1.00 apiece. The splendid big horse was harnessed to the machine and at the word he threw his weight against his traces and philosophically pulled away, while Mr.
N. at the same instant turned on his power. The machine easily came out of the mud and was soon on dry ground. T. drove our machine forward, was instantly imbedded in the mud and was pulled out in the same way. It was interesting to see how the big horse threw his weight into the pulling at just the proper moment and relaxed as he felt the machine settle on the firm ground. His master told us that the animal had come with their little caravan from Colorado, seven hundred and twenty miles, without turning a hair, while the other horse sickened and died.
This man had only his few supplies and the little tent in which they were living, together with a bit of the rich land already cleared and planted to a crop. He said that he had never seen richer land than this from which the sage brush had been pulled up and burned off. A thin muddy stream trickled across the road from the hills and was used both for irrigation and for drinking purposes. "But when you come back next year, I shall have a well down," said the brave homesteader. "And, by George, if the County Commissioners won"t put in a bridge across this mud hole, I"ll put one across myself! Just come back and see a year from now!" We waved him goodbye and went on our way across the lone valley and up another divide. The valley was Monitor Valley, he told us. I can see him standing there in the lovely light of the late afternoon sun, he and his wife and their baby boy waving us farewell. I should like to pa.s.s that way again and to see whether he has replaced his tent by a little house and whether his virgin fields are green with a crop.
Some day, I suppose, those wide, far-stretching acres will be dotted with houses and barns and stacks of alfalfa. It is difficult to convey the impression that these vast valleys with the hills in the distance, and with the rich coloring of the sunrise and the sunset, make upon one.
They are lonely and yet they are not lonely. They are full of life. We saw hundreds of prairie dogs. Day after day they scuttled across our pathway, often narrowly escaping. Sometimes they sat on their hind legs by their burrows, waiting as long as they dared until the noise of the machine frightened them into their holes. Sometimes a whole village of them would watch us until we drew near, and then frantically disappear.
Sometimes we saw a coyote, usually in the early morning or the late afternoon. We once saw one whose curiosity was so great that he halted perhaps fifty yards away, and looked at us from this safe distance as we pa.s.sed. Once we saw a rabbit breathing his last near the roadside, his soft eyes filled with a look of far away consciousness and pain. And once we saw a beautiful antelope leaping and bounding over the sage brush so lightly that he looked in the distance like a phantom animal made of thistle down.
I can completely understand how the desert casts its spell over cattlemen and sheepmen so that they love it and its freedom and are continually drawn back to it. The mystery and glory of the desert plains have their devotees just as really as the mystery and glory of the great city have their worshippers who never wish to be far from its lights.
The many stops of the day had made us very late and it was in darkness that we came through the canyon which makes a long gateway to the town of Eureka. There was something fearsome about those dark rocks, whose mysteries we had never seen by daylight, rising on each side of us, and about the deep chasm that lay in shadow down at the left of the road. We were glad indeed when the lights of our lamps flashed on the stakes with their familiar red, white, and blue markings, the friendly signs of our beloved Lincoln Highway. It was nearly nine o"clock when we came into Eureka, and drew up at the dim lights of Brown"s Hotel. Brown"s Hotel seemed to be mostly a bar room and lounging place; at least that was the impression made upon me by the glimpse I caught of the lighted room downstairs as I stood on the wooden porch. But we were shown upstairs to a very comfortable, old fashioned, high ceilinged room with heavy walnut furniture of the style of forty years ago. An aged ingrain carpet was on the floor, and a wreath of wax flowers such as our grandmothers rejoiced in, hung, set in a deep frame, on the wall. I thought to myself that these were relics of departed glories and of a day when there was money to furnish the old hostel in the taste then in vogue. A dim oil lamp a.s.sisted our toilet and we went downstairs and out into the town to a restaurant kept by an Italian and his wife. It was the only place where we could get food at that time of night. Eureka is a most forlorn little town, perched high and dry, just as if the waves of traffic and of commercial life had ebbed away and left it far up on the beach forever.
They told us that it was once a big and prosperous town. But like Mariposa in California, the mining interests have been transferred to other localities and the town is left lonely. As we walked along its silent and dimly lighted main street, we saw the quaint wooden porches in front of the shops and houses, some high, some low, making an uneven sidewalk. Practically all of the shops were closed, only the saloons being open.
The Italian had named his restaurant The Venezia in honor of his native city. It was a bright, comfortable little room, the kitchen at the back of it lightly screened from the dining room. It adjoined his hotel, quite a large building, where he proudly told us he had twenty-two beds.
His wife, a stout, bright-eyed woman, cheerfully took our order. "I am poor," she said smilingly, "so I cook when other people ask me. If I rich I cook when I feel like it." A savory smell arose from her frying pan, and we were soon eating excellent and generous slices of ham, drinking very respectable tea, and enjoying some good bread and b.u.t.ter.
It was a most refreshing supper after a long and somewhat trying day. We expressed our appreciation to our Italian friends and paid the very modest reckoning.
CHAPTER VIII
The next morning we had breakfast at Brown"s Hotel. The landlord called my attention to a robin who was building her nest in a tree in front of the hotel; the only tree that I recall seeing on the bare, bald, yellow village street.
In our long ride of the day before, we had come through Edwards Creek Valley, the Smith Creek Valley, the Reese River Valley, the Antelope Valley, the Monitor Valley, and other great valleys of whose names I was not sure. We had seen the Clan Alpine Mountains from Alpine ranch, the Toyabee National Range, and other ranges whose names were too many and too local for me to be sure of them. And I had read of 275,000 acres that had been placed on the market in Elko County alone. I had read in the Elko paper that "For years, there was a popular prejudice in the East that Nevada was one grand glorious desert, the land worthless, and that nothing could be grown out here. But in later years the public back East has been shown that such is not the case, but on the contrary, we have the richest land in Elko County to be found anywhere in the United States, and that the crops here are the best and almost anything can be grown in Elko County."
Having seen the rich land of our brave homesteader in Monitor Valley, I was ready to believe this outburst of local pride.
It was the 23rd of June when the landlord of Brown"s Hotel waved his farewell to us and we drove on. All day we were among the hills, not seeing them on far distant horizons, but continually climbing and descending among them. Twenty-three miles from Eureka we saw a wooded mountain, quite different from the bald grey hills we had seen the day before. Short, scrubby green trees, somewhat like our New Jersey junipers, grew on the mountain sides and gave this appearance of foliage and greenness. We saw many of them in our day"s ride. When we reached Six Mile House, having pa.s.sed Fourteen Mile House, we asked the ranchman"s wife to give us some luncheon. She said that she could not accommodate us, having but few supplies on hand. She advised us to go on to Hamilton and said that she would telephone to the Hamilton House that we were coming. In accordance with her directions we took a turn to the right shortly after leaving Six Mile House and climbed up through a narrow, rocky canyon road. Finally, within a mile or so of Hamilton, when we had one more hill to climb, we came upon a mora.s.s made by the bursting of a water pipe. We could not go around it and we dared not attempt to go through it, no friendly settler with a powerful horse being in sight. So we turned carefully about, went down the rocky road to the fork where we had turned off, and took the other branch of the fork. Then we climbed up another mountain road until we reached the summit of the pa.s.s, 8115 feet. From here we had a grand view of the mountains and we also met the high ridge road from Hamilton. We pressed on down the hill past a deserted ranch house to Moorman"s Ranch, a hospitable looking house by the roadside. At Moorman"s Ranch we found an unforgettable hospitality. Our host and hostess were Missourians, and to our question as to whether they could give us any luncheon at 2 o"clock, they gave us a most satisfactory answer. Mrs. Moorman soon had a laden table ready for us, and we sat down to fried bacon and eggs, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, preserved cherries, stewed prunes, milk, tea, and pie. How refreshing it all was! And how pleasant was the soft Southern accent of our hostess which she had not lost in the years on the plains.
Moorman"s Ranch is a large ranch with grazing rights in the hills near by. The adjoining ranch with its recently deserted ranch house is now a part of Moorman"s Ranch, and there is a large acreage for the cattle. We learned that the wretched coyotes come down from the hills and steal the young calves at every opportunity. Only a few days before, a cow had gone to drink leaving her new born calf for a few minutes. When she came back, the little animal had been struck down by a waiting coyote. We learned too that the mountain lions come down from the hills and sometimes attack the young colts and kill them.
It was with sincere regret that we bade goodbye to Captain and Mrs.
Moorman. May their ranch flourish from year to year!
Shortly after leaving the ranch and in crossing another wide valley, we saw a herd of several hundred wild horses feeding on the great plain--a beautiful sight. They were grazing in a rich part of the plain where the gra.s.s looked thick and lush.
I must own to having an impression that the trail across Nevada could be marked by whiskey bottles if by no other signs. All along our road across the great State we saw the bottles where they had been thrown in the sand and dust by pa.s.sers-by.
Many times I thought of the "Forty-niners," as we saw the sign, "Overland Trail." In coming along the Lincoln Highway, we are simply traversing the old overland road along which the prairie schooners of the pioneers pa.s.sed. How much heart-ache, heart-break, and hope deferred this old trail has seen! I think of it as we bowl along so comfortably over the somewhat rough but yet very pa.s.sable road. I can appreciate now the touching story in a San Francisco paper of an old lady who came to the rear platform of a fine overland train after pa.s.sing a certain village station, and threw out some flowers upon the plain. Near here, she told her friends, her little baby had been buried in the desert forty years before, as she and her husband toiled with their little caravan along the trail. The years had pa.s.sed and they were prosperous and old in California. And now as she went East on the swift and beautiful train she threw out her tribute to the little grave somewhere in the great desert.
As we drew near Ely, the famous copper city, we pa.s.sed the huge mountain of earth which forms the wealth of the Ely mines. The Lincoln Highway signs take one to the right on a short detour in order that one may see this mountain of ore, which is being cut away by immense steam shovels, tier above tier. Returning to the main road, we drove on through a canyon and so came into the bright little town of Ely which has many evidences of prosperity. We found the Northern Hotel, European in plan, most comfortable. Next door was an excellent cafe where we had a supper of which a New York restaurant need not have been ashamed. Leaving Ely on the morning of June 24th, we drove through Steptoe Valley for some forty miles. Where we turned off from the valley it still stretched on for another forty miles. It looked as if it might go on to the world"s end. Just out of Ely we pa.s.sed through McGill and visited the immense smelting works. There we saw the "concentrators," interesting machines to shake down the heavy grains of copper from the lighter grains of sand and earth. These big, slanting boards keep up a continual shake, shake, shake while a thin stream of water pours over them. They are a little less slanting than the board of a woman"s washtub would be, and yet they lie somewhat like a washboard. The shaking of the board and the action of the water combine to roll down the heavy grains of copper. It seems a simple process, and yet the regulation of the board"s motion and the angle of its slant are calculated to a nicety. There were hundreds of these "concentrators" at work separating the copper from its native earth. We saw also the great smelting furnaces and realized how it must have been possible for the men who prepared the furnace for the burning of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be burned to death themselves.
What a fearful heat rolled out as one of the furnace doors was opened and a molten stream of white-hot slag was raked into the gutter below!
And how the copper glowed as we saw it in its enormous melting caldron!
For the first time I saw a traveling crane at work. A characteristic sign was near it in both English and Greek. It read, "Keep away from crane. Keep clear and stand from under."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Ely, Nevada. 2. Homesteader"s Ranch near Lahontan Dam.
3. Copper Mine at Ely. 4. Ely, Nev.]