It was now nearing the time for my half-brother, Tom, to arrive in Leadville.  At certain times, I would go down to Leadville and look around.  Rough men, fully armed, hung around dance halls in full swing.  Prospecting miners from the mountains were showing ore samples.  All were greatly excited.  One afternoon I stood on State Street, opposite a new opera house being built.  The place where I was standing, many gambling houses were near.  All of them had tough records.  A man came up behind me and then stood beside me.  He commenced to speak about new buildings going up all around us.  Then he began to speak about the muddy streets.  He spoke about the muddy streets.  He spoke about Nevada where he came from.  He said the streets there were macademized.  All this time I was looking him over.  I judged him to be about 35 years old.  He did not look like a slicker nor a miner.  While he was speaking, I noticed three young men sitting down on the opposite side of the street.  I could tell by the way they looked over at us, that they were interested, but I could not hear what they said.  As I looked up the street I saw a well dressed man standing.  He had on a high hat and was swing a cane.  I had a feeling that he had been watching us.

Again, I had a feeling that this was another Detroit experience.  But I acted as if I had not seen anything.  All this time the Nevada man was talking.  He asked me what I was doing.  I told him shaft sinking; that my cabin was on Stray Horse Gulch.  By the way, he said, would you mind taking a hand full of circulars and put them up at the half-way house?  You have to pass it on your way.  I'll pay you two dollars for it.  Then I asked him what he was advertising.  He said things that miners like in their cabins--knives and forks, spoons, and jewelry, to send back home.  Then I asked quietly where have you now got this ware?  He jerked his thumb quickly over the shoulder.  Then I said to him, why don't you take those bills to Half-way House yourself and save two dollars?  Well, he said, if I am able to pay two dollars easy money to you, ain't that all right?  I said to him, "No, it isn't."  With that I turned to him.  "You are fooling your time away with me trying to get me back in these dens.  So look for better fishing and get away from me."  He kept looking away from me and he looked scared.  I did get warmed up over what he was trying to do, but he left quickly.

Then suddenly I heard a voice say, "What is the trouble about?"  I turned around to see who it was speaking.  There he stood, the man with the top hat and cane, fully dressed and really sporty and a gambler.  I said to him, "You both know each other and before you could get me away from here, you would have to pick me up and carry me away."  Then he said, "That fellow who was trying to work you, he got worked that way and he now tried to work you to get even."  I walked over to the three men across the street.  They said to me, "He didn't get you."  They must have known him.  "We thought sure he had you."

It was now getting close to the time for my half-brother, Tom, to arrive in Leadville.  One evening when I came in from work, I found him in the cabin.  We exchanged greetings.  After supper was over, we laid our plans.  I told him where I was working and also told him of the conditions of the shaft.  We were working with guns lying around.  Tom thought it best for me to quit.  He said those fellows working below may come up and commence shooting.  The job doesn't pay you enough to work and fight.  Tom and myself walked around for several days and looked at many prospective holes.

I went to California Gulch, investigating to see the miners panning for gold.  I came to a place on the side of the Gulch, a drift driven in the rock twenty feet.  I could see a streak of pure silver in the rock.  This was a rich strike.  We then walked up the Gulch several miles.  The day was fine.  In the month of August, date 14^th.  We continued on to nearly the top of the mountain.  We found some snow and it was packed hard.  I could not form it into snowballs.  It would not hold together.  It structure was like sand particles.  Small flowers were growing near the snow.  The grass was strikingly green.  It was now time for us to return to our cabin.  As we came down the mountain, in many places, the grass looked like a well kept lawn.

In one spot, less than one acre, we found many buffalo heads lying close together as if they had been slaughtered.  The bones were perfectly dry.  I could see buffalo trails all around.  Should you walk on the trail going down it would surely lead you to water.  Those trails were hard beaten paths.  Many thousands of them must have tramped to those grazing spots many years.  A live buffalo was never seen near Leadville for years in 1878-1879, but their trails will remain for years to come.