Mr. Denny and a mining claim—A wholesale killing averted—Stories of
shooting escapades.
Any one seeing Mr. Denny (the vice-president and biggest stockholder of
our company) now would think him only a quiet man of affairs, yet some
years ago he was known as one of the finest fighting men of New Mexico
or Colorado. While working a prospect he had near Silver City, New
Mexico, he decided to study law, did so successfully, and was called to
the bar; but his ideas of practice were peculiar. He was employed by a
mining company to protect a mining claim that was in litigation and
which the opposing parties were about to take possession of while court
was not in session. He put in an injunction of his own devising; he laid
in a stock of provisions and water, built a barricade of dynamite boxes
in the mouth of the tunnel, took up his position with a Winchester, and
defied the sheriff and posse to oust him till the case could be tried;
and the sheriff, not seeing any way to dissolve the injunction, left him
strictly alone. Later, the court found for his clients. In the same city
he had heard that an Italian named Carrera had made some slanderous
remarks about him. Though this Carrera weighed nearly 200 lbs. and Denny
at that time only about 125 lbs., he went up to the former’s office with
a paper for him to sign, retracting what he had formerly said. Carrera
refused, and Denny beat him till he signed. Then Denny took the document
to the office of the daily paper and asked them to publish Carrera’s
free and full retractation. But as the document had accumulated much
blood during the progress of negotiations, the editor refused to publish
it on the ground that “Carrera did not sign that of his own free will
and volition.” “Sure he did,” said Denny; “I made him.”
Silver City had the reputation of being a camp in which more men were
killed than any other in the United States. On one occasion a young
fellow was shot in a billiard hall and was laid upon one of the tables
to pass away in comfort. He had been what is known as a “grandstander”
all his life (playing to the gallery), and as he lay there dying he
suddenly raised himself on his elbow and said to the assembled crowd,
"Boys, ain’t I dying brave"—a grandstander to the last!
Kingston, New Mexico, was divided into two factions, Denny at the head
of one and a man named Bill Langly at the head of the other. One day
Denny was walking down the street, and happened to be unarmed, when Bill
Langly stepped out of a saloon and emptied his pistol at Denny across
the street. Denny, who was walking towards Bill when he started
shooting, did not increase his pace by the fraction of a second, but
calmly walked on past Langly down to the blacksmith’s shop that Harry
Carter owned at the time. Though Bill was a good shot he had been
drinking, and so missed Denny with all six shots. Just as Harry Carter,
who had heard and seen the shooting, ran out with a Winchester, which he
handed to Denny, the sheriff came and arrested Langly. Denny walked out
into the middle of the road, dropped on his knee, and, just as he was
about to shoot, a woman happened to step into the line of fire; by the
time she moved out of the way Langly and the sheriff had turned the
corner and were out of sight. That woman unconsciously averted a
wholesale killing, for while Denny knelt in the street some of the
opposing faction had him covered from the door of a saloon, and Harry
Carter and some of Denny’s friends were covering these men from the
doorway of the smithy.
Denny does not forget the friends of his days of poverty now that he is
a millionaire, for though Harry Carter has been working here as yard
foreman it is simply of his own wish, because he preferred to feel
independent. But Harry knows that his wife and children are provided
for, no matter what may happen to him. Denny has offered to start him in
business, but he does not care for this. Another friend and old-time
partner is Tom Grand, whom I mentioned before as being down here
prospecting for Denny. He is doing so under the following terms: Denny
pays all expenses, and will put up the money necessary to develop any
mine that is found, and the proceeds will be divided evenly. This also
leaves a man feeling fairly independent, more so than if he were a mere
pensioner.
Grand is a very good friend of mine, and as nice a man as one would wish
to meet anywhere, yet he has the record of having killed three men in
fights and seriously wounded four others; and at one time he was hunted
over the hills of New Mexico by the state militia. He was generally very
quiet, though full of fun, and I never could get him to tell me of any
of his shooting scrapes, but on one occasion I saw even a drunken man
realise that he was a bad man to fool with. A party of us were standing
talking in front of the railway station in Guadalajara when a man we all
knew came along just drunk enough to be aggressive, and began to make
himself objectionable. Tom Grand had just come in from the mountains,
and the clothes he had on were rough and dusty, and this attracted Mr.
Drunk. He walked up to Tom and said, “My heaven, Grand, you look tough”
(_i.e._ rough and dirty). “Yes,” said Tom, putting his face close up to
the other, "and I'm just as tough as I look" (_i.e._ bad customer). The
other understood the play on the words and the look on Tom’s face, and
backed away full of apologies and did not bother us any more.
The life some of these prospectors lead would kill any man who was not
made of iron and had not courage to spare. Tom Grand was telling me of
one experience of his when he was opening up a tunnel one winter all by
himself, forty miles from the nearest habitation. It was 15° F. below
zero, and he could find nothing to burn but sage brush. Any one who
knows or has seen sage brush can imagine what a delightfully cheerful
fire it would make! Then the loneliness would drive most men crazy. On
another occasion Grand, Denny, and another man were up in Colorado
prospecting in the Grand Canyon, when the third man fell over the bluff
to a ledge 150 feet below. They had no means of getting up the body for
burial, and all they could do was to lower a red blanket by strings till
it covered the body; and so they had to leave him, trusting that nothing
would touch the body for fear of the blanket. It is hard to get these
men to talk of the past—they live in the present and the future. Harry
Carter once told me of a narrow escape he had years ago at Kingston, New
Mexico. I was mentioning a case of a policeman and he said, “Why, I had
just such a thing happen to me.” He had got into an argument with a
friend of his who was pretty drunk at the time. The argument waxed warm,
when suddenly this man jerked out his gun and swore he would kill
Carter. Harry was taken by surprise and was unarmed. He was leaning
against the open door, and as he told it to me in his own words, “Right
back of the door at my elbow there was a Winchester rifle leaning
against the wall, which I had noticed as I came in. When the drunken
idiot threw his gun down on me, I remembered it, and it flashed across
my mind that I would jump back, grab the rifle, and take my chances. All
that kept me from doing it was the thought that the darned thing might
be empty, in which case I would have looked like a fool and been killed
sure. I found out later that it was not only loaded but had a cartridge
in the barrel” (he meant he would not have had to work the lever to
throw one in the barrel). “Still, as things turned out, it was just as
well I did not get hold of it. While I was debating what to do, Jack was
getting himself all worked up to the shooting point, and the madder he
got the nearer he came to me, cursing all the time like a trooper. I was
expecting him to shoot any minute, when he stepped too close and I saw
my chance. I made a quick grab for the gun, and, as luck would have it,
my hand slid down the barrel and the hammer fell on the fork here
between the thumb and first finger; that was all that saved me.” “Well,”
I said, as he stopped, “what did you do to him?” "Do to him? why, I
didn’t do anything to him; he was a friend of mine, and would never have
thought of hurting me if he had been sober." After a few minutes’
thought, he said, "Oh yes I did, too—I kept the gun, and it was a fine
Colt’s 45."
One day I was telling Harry Carter of what I had seen in the Silver King
Saloon in San Antonio. He said, "Well, once I saw a thing like that in
Kingston, which at that time was a very small camp, but it turned out
different from what you described. Jim and Ben had trouble down in a
saloon. Jim said to Ben, ‘I’ve got no show because I’m not heeled.’
'Don’t let that bother you,' said Ben; ‘come on up to my cabin and I’ll
heel you.’ So up they went, and, while Jim stayed outside, Ben went in
and brought him out a pistol. They agreed to back off five paces and
then empty their guns. But at the very first shot Jim shot Ben square
between the eyes with the borrowed gun."
Harry Carter left the company last year and went back to California,
where he has bought a ranch and is farming, and I have certainly missed
him, both as a great help in the business, and as a good fellow out of
working hours.
I mentioned that since my arrival in Mexico some of my views had been
changed as regards American business methods. Rather I should say that I
have at last come in contact with American gentlemen in business, and
not the class I had heretofore met. I will now try and describe our
manager in Mexico, Mr. H. Wilkin, and his assistant, Mr. P. H. Harway,
under whom directly I worked for the first six years I was with the
company. Mr. H. Wilkin is a young man, probably two or three years
younger than myself, standing some two inches over six feet in his
socks, with shoulders to correspond, fair hair and blue eyes. He is a
lawyer by profession, and a born diplomat: he would have made a great
success if he had entered the United States Diplomatic Service. I have
seen him take a hostile board of aldermen and have them all agreeing
with him in an hour’s talk. When we had some trouble in Chihuahua I saw
him talk suggestions into the governor’s head in such a way that the
governor really believed that he had originated them himself, and felt
quite proud in consequence. To show his kindness to those under him I
will mention two instances where I was the beneficiary. When in Tampico
I broke down from climate and overwork, and the doctor ordered me off
the job. I was in such a nervous condition that, seeing that I could not
hold down the job, and wishing to make the way clear for the company, I
sent in my resignation. As soon as Mr. Wilkin received my letter he got
on the train, came down to Tampico, and came to see me. He said, “Let me
have your leggings and your horse, then go home, forget the job, forget
you wrote me, and rest. I will take your job off your hands!” This he
did till I was fit to take up the reins again. Later, in Morelia, I had
my room in the hotel looted; besides all my clothes, I lost some of the
company’s money, all in small silver, that I had there for safe keeping
(it is very hard to get change here, so when one gets it one holds on to
it to pay the men). When Mr. Wilkin heard of the robbery he immediately
wrote me to reimburse myself out of company funds for the entire loss,
and so charge it upon the books. These are things a man with any red
blood in his veins does not forget.
Mr. P. H. Harway is also a man well over six feet, about the same age as
the manager, and took his degree as mining engineer. I worked directly
under his orders for the first six years, but he left our company to
take charge of Mr. Denny’s gas company in Mexico city, as vice-president
and general manager. I never think of him without the kindliest feelings
and deep gratitude for the thousands of kindnesses he has shown me
during the years we worked together. At first there was some little
friction before we understood one another’s peculiarities, and before I
appreciated his great business ability. Most heads of jobs take all the
credit to themselves, but Paul Harway, in a report to the directors in
California, gave most of the credit for our good showing to Harry Carter
and myself. This at the time meant $25 per month more salary to each of
us. Paul Harway was the practical man of affairs of the company, and he
and Mr. Wilkin made a team which was bound to force any business ahead,
and we have been much crippled since he left. These two young fellows
represent one of the best traits of American character. They are both
sons of wealthy fathers, yet neither of them would be content to loaf at
home. Paul Harway once said to me, “I want in later life to feel that I
have _done_ something, and made my mark, no matter how small.” If only
all wealthy men’s sons were like that, more especially in England, how
the world would go ahead. But it is more often that the man with push
lacks capital, and the young fellow with capital lacks push. Harry
Carter was fond of telling me that "An Englishman says, ‘Thank God, I
have a father’; while the American and German say, 'Thank God, I have a
son.'"