or there
was no time in the sixties that they could not have swooped down on
the place, massacred all and buried the little mining town in ashes.

SECURED WORK AGAIN

For a young man to obtain work other than oxen or mule driving, we
were told, was simply impossible. Not being deterred, however, by this
discouraging information we at once started out to secure work. Board
was twenty-five dollars a week in gold, and you had to furnish your
own sleeping quarters, so not to secure work at once would quickly
reduce our wealth. We had called on nearly all of the business
places, when my chum secured a position with a grocer and freighter.
As for myself, I received little encouragement but finally called at a
large restaurant where I was offered work. I told the proprietor it
was a little out of my line, but he told me that if I could not find a
position to suit me, I should walk in at any time, pull off my coat
and go to work, which I did three days later. About the tenth day the
proprietor told me his lease expired and that the man who owned the
building was going to conduct the business. He came in that afternoon,
and I was introduced to him. Before leaving he stepped into the office
and informed me that he wanted a man next to him; or, in other words,
an assistant and that the former proprietor had given me a good
recommend and he thought that I would suit him. He made me a tempting
offer and I accepted. The restaurant was located on Blake street, one
of the then principal business streets of the city, and kept open
until early morning as did the gambling places in the immediate
vicinity. I soon discovered that the new proprietor could neither read
or write and that he conducted one of the largest private club rooms
in the city where gambling was carried on without limit. He paid me a
large salary and allowed me everything my wild nature craved. I had
charge of the entire business as well as his bank account.

The restaurant was the headquarters of nearly all oxen and mule
drivers and also of the miners who came from the mountains in winter,
and were of the toughest type of men of that day. All professional
oxen and mule drivers after making one round trip to the river and
points in the far Western territories were paid off in Denver and many
of them would deposit with me, for safe keeping, a large share of
their dangerously and hard earned dollars. They would then start out
to do the town, now and then taking a chan