FRUITLESS SEARCHES--MET A STREAK OF HARD LUCK--BUT LATER HE STOOD ON
THE SUN-KISSED SUMMIT.
The winter of 1871-2 was spent at Del Norte, and in the following
spring Creede, with a party of prospectors, went to Elizabethtown,
New Mexico. This town was a new one, but was attracting considerable
attention as a placer field. Like a great many other mining camps, the
place was overdone, and unless a man had money to live on, the outlook
was not very cheerful. Finding no work to do the young prospector
staked a placer claim and commenced operations single-handed and
alone, and the end of the third day, cleaned up and found himself
in possession of nine dollars’ worth of gold dust. This gave him
new courage. He worked all the summer; but when winter came on, he
discovered that after paying his living expenses which are always lofty
in a new camp, he had only made fair wages; the most he had made in a
single day was nine dollars.
The winter following found the prospector in Pueblo again, working for
another stake, this time in the employ of Mr. George Gilbert. Early in
the spring of 1873, he took the trail. Upon this occasion, he found
his way to Rosita in Custer County where the famous Bassick Mine was
afterward discovered, and within a few miles of Silver Cliff, which was
destined to attract the attention of so many prospectors, bringing into
the mining world so much shadow and so little shine.
From Rosita he went to the San Juan district and prospected for several
months, returned to the east side of the range, and finally made a
second trip to the San Juan, but found nothing worth the assessment
work.
About this time the Gunnison country began to attract attention and
with other fortune-seekers Creede went there. This trip, like all his
prospecting tours west of the “Great Divide” panned poorly. Never did
he make a discovery of importance on the western slope, and now he made
a trip to Leadville. Here he met with a well-defined streak of hard
luck. After hunting in vain for a fortune, he was taken with pneumonia,
lingered for a long time between life and death, but finally recovered.
If Creede had died then, he would have received, probably, four lines
in the _Herald_, which would have been to the effect that a prospector
had died of pneumonia in his cabin at the head of California Gulch, and
had been dead some time when discovered, as the corpse was cold and the
fire out. He was of no great importance at that time, but since then
he has marched from Monarch to the banks of the Rio Grande, leaving
a silver trail behind him, until at last, standing on the sun-kissed
summit of Bachelor mountain, he can look back along the trail and see
the camp-fires that he lighted with tired hands, trembling in the cold,
burning brightly where the waste places have been made glad by the
building of hundreds of happy homes.
[Illustration: DEATH OF “BOB” FORD
REMOVING THE BODY]
Creede has labored long and faithfully for what he has, never shrinking
from the task the gods seem to have set before him. Almost from his
infancy he has been compelled to do battle with the world alone, and
the writer is proud of the privilege of telling the story of his life,
giving credit where credit is due, and putting the stamp of perfidity
upon the band of stool-pigeons who have camped on his trail for the
purpose of claiming credit for what he did.