Adventure Magazine Cover — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

My Adventures with Your Money One day I was sitting in my office at Reno when I received a telephone message that there was a big fight on over the con- trol of the Miller lease. Mr. Miller and a big Swede who was working for him had barricaded themselves at the mine. They threatened death to any one who ap- proached. We had, for a day or two, been hungering and thirsting for some live news of the camp. My journalistic instinct got busy. I queried our Rawhide correspond- ent. He advised that the situation really looked serious and that a genuine scrap threatened. Mr. Miller had installed a good-sized arsenal at the mine and laid in about three days’ provisions. He de- clared that he was prepared to hold out for an indefinite period. I wired our correspondent at Rawhide in- structions to file a story up to 1,000 or 1,500 words. Naturally excitement ran high in the camp. Soon hundreds of people gath- ered at points of vantage along the crest of Hooligan Hill and surrounding uplifts. Every one was expectantly awaiting inter- esting developments. To the casual on- looker it seemed as though possibly a score or more who stood ready to storm the mine might becomeinvolved. Infact,noone could tell how soon hostilities would break loose. Using the telegrams I had received from camp, one of my men dictated a story con- taining the facts and sent it over to the Reno correspondent of the Associated Press. It was put on the wire without a moment’s hesitation. Mr. Miller had formed a rampart about the collar of the shaft. Sacked ore was piled up to a height of about five feet. The gold-laden stuff surrounded the shaft on all sides but one, the exception being to the northwest. There Hooligan Hill slanted upward at an angle of less than twenty de- grees from vertical. It was from this ap- proach that Mr. Miller was forced to guard constantly against attack. He found it necessary, according to our dispatches, to keep a constant vigil in order to preclude the possibility of a surprise. He and his Swede companion alternated in keeping the lookout. Occasionally the fitful soughing of the gasoline engine exhausts from the mining plants on Balloon Hill and Grutt Hill were interspersed by the sharp report of a six-shooter as the besieged parties either actually or mythically observed a threatened approach of the enemy. 769 Although the principals cast in this little mimic war were limited to perhaps less than a score, every incident or detail was provided to make up a very threatening and keenly interesting situation, with sev- eral lives hanging in the balance. There is no doubt that Mr. Miller at least, and per- haps his Swede companion, would have re- sisted any attempt to take “Fort Miller,” as we styled it, even to sacrificing his life, for he was known as a man of action who had been in numerous critical situations without showing the slightest exercise of the primal instinct. The fact that Rawhide was saved from an episode that might have measured up to the tragic importance of a pitched battle and caused the loss of a num- ber of lives was undoubtedly due to the patient willingness of Mr. Miller’s partners and their supporters to satisfy themselves with a siege and to starve out the two men in possession of the mine rather than under- take to rout them. The story went like wildfire and we were besieged for others and for a follow-up on the original story. For three days we kept the yarn alive and the wires burdened with details of the siege and unsuccessful storm- ing of Camp Miller, Hooligan Hill, Nevada. I venture to say that Mr. Hearst, with his well-known facility for serving up hot stuff to a sensation-loving following, never surpassed in this particular the stories that were scattered broadcast over the United States founded upon this interesting episode in the mining development of Rawhide. The story promised to be good for at least a week when we were somewhat sur- prised to hear that Mr. Miller had capit- ulated. It seems that in storing his fort with provender he had supplied only one gallon of whisky and when this ran low, on the second or third day, he attempted, sin- gle-handed, a foraging expedition in search of a further supply of John Barleycorn. During his absence his Swede companion hoisted a flag of truce, and when Miller re- turned to the scene of action he found his mine in the possession of his enemies. Gates, the noted ahs plunger, visited Rawhide twice. He spent his time by day inspecting the numer- ous mine workings, of which there were not less than seventy-five in full blast. At night he was a frequent winner at the CHARLES GATES, son of John W. CoOmicloooks stock-market. CO