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Short Stories & Tall Tales
“THE SKELETON BAR GOLD MINING CO. (LIMITED)”
Vincent J. Maranto
Every small town in the west contains at least a half dozen adventurous and gold thirsty individuals---come from the ends of the earth maybe---who, on the slightest provocation will abandon their businesses, pool their hard earned savings and brave any danger in an expedition that promises quick and large returns.
The imagination, once inoculated with the virus of sudden and immense riches, usurp every function of rationalism, and the victim, deprived of judgment, will listen with a marvelous faith to stories incredulous to any save a crazy person. To be cocksure, where there is grave uncertainty; to discount impossibilities, to reach conclusions to variance with calm reason and cold logic, are mental conditions for the ardent reception of such a story as was presented to four young men in the town of Pony, Montana one rainy day in the spring of 1896.
H. E. Gardnier was a young attorney, with an office over the undertaker’s shop, owned by an albino, whose right eye looked east, while his left gazed on a fixed point somewhere in the Northwest. The man; or his business was a necessity in the town for occasionally someone died, even in the pure ozone of this mountainous climate. But, he was generally regarded as a “hoodoo”, which may have accounted for the small number of briefs and the few cases, coming to the law office upstairs.
Gardnier’s office was accessible from the street by a rickety stairway, which threatened to wobble in the alley when anyone attempted to ascend. Because he was genial, social and schemry, his friends instead of forsaking him, took out accident insurance policies, and made his office a place of general resort. They were gathered here on this particular Friday night in April, 1896. George Walthran from Texas, Charles Wagley from New Hampshire, Charles Hurley from Wisconsin and the habitual of the office, who claimed Kansas for home and mother, H. E. (Ed) Gardnier, Esquire.
The “body snatcher” as the boys unfeelingly called the undertaker, had employed an overgrown, tawny, narrow-eyed kid from Idaho to work for him a few days in the shop. This lad, in investigating his employers business had discovered the young attorney upstairs and an intimacy spring up, from out of which, the lawyer abstracted confidential secrets, which became the exciting cause of the organization of the “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co. (Limited).”
The important secret obtained by Gardnier was the existence of a bar on one of the forks of the Salmon River in Idaho, where gold was as plentiful as pebbles on the street. No living man knew of this except the kid and his father. The boy had a map, showing the exact location. He and his father had been chased into the locality by a sheriff’s posse, on the suspicion of having stolen some horses. This minor confession strengthened the more important one in the mind of Gardnier. Criminals usually confess to their lawyers, even before their ministers, and lawyers accept the confidence as a striking illustration of “not altogether bad.” He had formed a solitary skeleton on the bar, showing that some poor prospector had formed this place, and died in sight of all the wealth that weary years of toil had struggled for. The story was weird, uncanny, realistic and more than probably true.
The proposition was presented to Gardnier’s friends and discussed in detail. Whenever an objection was raised in regard to the probable truth of the revelation by one of the friends, Gardnier was prompt with the map, the skeleton and the sheriff’s posse episode. The fact was accepted---the company organized---and two of the four, with the boy guide were to proceed to the valley of gold.
The expedition involved the purchase of five horses and a mule; the raising of three hundred dollars and a six weeks trip over mountains, across rivers and through canyons; the most dangerous and inaccessible on the continent. How the expedition turned out is best told in a letter written in camp on the banks of the Snake River to the boys who remained behind.
June 6, 1896
Dear Charley,
This is in keeping with my promise. The locusts of disappointment have again entered Fancy’s garden, eaten up the crop and left the husks for desire to starve on. ‘Twas ever thus and loss of other things, but should the trivial things we chased after in this little world of little men forever elude us, its struggle will probably add vigor to our souls, which will mean strength when we are up against the “real thing” in that other world, which so many doubt exists.
Like a wandering Arab, I am seated on a roll of blankets in one corner of the little tent, shifting anew, as the water finds a new inlet. It’s raining; a steady, solemn, prodigious downpour. The river is running, its banks full, close to our bivouac, and the unfortunate lad, whose “will of the wisp” imagination caused this search for hidden riches, sits like a hearten “Chinaman”, mending his pantaloons opposite my throne. His bottle of strychnine, his traps, his rifle and his reputation are all, all gone, and tomorrow he too will be a thing of the past as far as the “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co. (Limited)” is concerned.
Idaho is a picturesque and awfully made country. Her mountains rise abruptly and hide their summits in the eternal blue; beautiful and grand to contemplate, but a sore tribulation to the travel over.
We failed to find the “Skeleton Bar placer diggings”, where pebbles of gold lie thick as the autumn leaves. We failed to find the landmarks which point the way. We failed in ever essential feature of this ill-starved trip. We know we live, but I sometime doubt we learn.
A detailed description of our hazardous journey must be deferred until the first quarterly meeting of the stock holders, which will be upon our return, in Ed’s office, over the coffin factory. I can’t help but realize the “eternal fitness” of things when I dwell on the name, “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co.”, originating in a place where lost souls linger around the last tenement they possess on earth. A sequel to the history of incubation; is the loss of the brown mare and the little mule.
Improper packing caused a tent spike to work into the withers of the mare about four inches deep, and we had to abandon her; while the little mule, packed to the limit missed his footing on a mountain trail and went, God knows where. The last we saw of him, he was rolling over and over, down, down among the jagged rocks and scrubby brush toward the bottom of the canyon, where the Salmon River spurts and roars and foams.
Our guide began by getting lazy, then ugly. We jollied and pitted him for a while and finally deemed it wise to disarm him. This we did by stealing his strychnine and managing to loose his rile. We slept on our own weapons and after being shadowed for two days by a sheriff’s posse for horse thieves, we held a council of war, at which, we tried and convicted and passed sentence upon Jim. Of course, he wasn’t present at the trial, but we had a “heart to heart” talk with him soon after, and he “fessed up”. He said his objective was to get a horse and saddle, get out in the Oregon territory and give us the slip. He was not sure about the locality of the placer ground. We have kept him until now, but tomorrow morning we will part; however sad that parting be.
Avarice is a potent factor in developing the material things of earth; but the man whose only desire for gold is a longing to be on an equal footing with the human hog, who has corralled the earth and its opportunities, can hardly be accused of avariciousness. This is the consolation which comes to us, even as the conviction settles upon worn body and tired mind; that idiots see things which do not exist. But, experiences of this kind are not altogether wasted. The unseen forces of nature rally to the mind, who dares to venture forth. The rushing torrent, the rocky gorge, the snow-capped mountain peak; lend to the soul an inspiration, and a strength, that plodding never feel or know.
We are camped on the site of a former rendezvous for outlaws, who were active here a few years ago. Here they laid in wait for a boat load of Chinese, who were going down the river with three years accumulation of gold dust. Visions of the “Flowery Kingdom” with a crown for each; were doubtless chasing through the heads of these celestials when they were arrested by the outlaws.
They were subjected to a mock trial for an imaginary offense, their argosy sequestered and sentence of death passed upon them. This sentence was carried into effect by tying the hands and feet of each man, putting them in a boat and sending them over the falls a mile below. The above story was told us by a remarkable woman who has been living in the vicinity since 1862.
Mabel O’Ferry, is rather tall with regular features and luxuriant snow white hair. She was elegantly dressed, had a massive gold chain around her neck that was white as alabaster. Her conversation was charming and seductive. She became extremely cordial after finding we were acquainted with a certain ex-governor, whom she said was her brother. Her statement is certainly true for the related facts of which we were cognizant and the resemblance is most striking.
An old, old story written in her life; briefly told, a wayward girl, disavowed by family, drifted into the wilderness of this west and the wilds of sin, a friend of outlaws, an adventurer, altogether good and lovely save for the band of society which forced her down with the undertow for a time. This is the skeleton in a prominent closet. It hasn’t much relation to the “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co. (Limited)” but, “there are stranger things in heaven and earth Horatio, than dreamt of in our philosophy”.
Why should story writers put imagination upon the rack for impossible heroines and untruthful plot, when a life, stranger than fiction ever dreamed, lives with such a history accessible to courteous and intelligent investigations. Neither you nor I condone the inherently evil or the positively vicious, yet gentle breeding and refined, gone a little wrong, are more interesting than inane mediocrity, inoculated with forms of prosperity, which it cannot tell the reason thereof.
Pardon the digression from the object of our expedition and proper subject of this communication. Discomfort hath its pathetic side, hence the reference to incidents that tell of broken hopes and blighted lives. Even we are not alone in trouble and disappointment.
There is probably a skeleton somewhere on the head waters of the Salmon River. Unquestionably, there is some gold there. Men have died and coyotes eaten them for gold, but the ingenious story of our narrow-eyed slim friend “Jim”, is not written in the book of truth. We were thirty-one days going in. At least half of that time was agony. We lost our mule, horse and part of the outfit. By actual count, seventeen narrow escapes from fatal mishaps. It occurs to me this is worse luck than the Apostle Paul had up to the time he fought the lions in the Roman amphitheater yet, the energy, the enterprise, the pluck and I may say, bravery of the “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co. (Limited)”, are all fully established. Credulity alone has suffered a setback.
Yours affectionately,
Walthran
When Walthran and Hurley, the members of the Co. who had made the trip into Idaho returned, they were met at the depot by Gardnier, who had a look of new wisdom on his countenance.
“Boys”, he said, “say nothing, look wise and appear mysterious”. I have some new evidence on the existence of the mine, and people are beginning to inquire for stock. “Meet me in my office a six o’clock tonight”.
At the time appointed we were all there. Gardnier seemed to anticipate that he might have some prejudices to overcome and had prepared for such. On his table was a bottle filled from an ancient vintage, to which our attention was at first directed. He then produced a handful of clean gold nuggets which he affirmed came from “Skeleton Bar.”
“In the name of God, Ed”, said Walthran, “what kind of a game are you steering us up against now”. “Never mind the game”, said Gardnier, “just listen to me.”
“That boy was a scoundrel.” He never intended that five persons should share in the division of that “bar”. I have irrefutable evidence of its existence, and this gold, pointing to the small pile he had laid on the table, came from nowhere else. “I have found the boy’s father, an old drifter, who isn’t long for this terrestrial sphere.”
No one present seemed to want to interrupt him, so after a pause and a look the back stairs in a carefully cunning way, he proceeded.
The old man was looking for the boy. I had just got your letter and was feeling pretty sore, when he dropped into my office. I told him that if his boy happened around here, I would make it my business to see that he landed in the penitentiary. A pained expression came to the face of this old man, which appealed sympathetically to me. I changed my vehement style and sitting quietly beside him read in a subdued voice portions of your letter. When I paused and looked into the old man’s face there were tears in his eyes; yes, by George, actual tears.
He straightened up a little, wiped his eyes and drew a paper form his pocket. “Here, he said”, is the true map of that gold bar, here is gold that came from it, laying the pile of nuggets on the table
We were in that country together and I have been looking for Jim, intending to return. But now since the boy has proven recreant to his old father’s teachings, I will cut him loose. You and your friends shall still be in, on positively the riches piece of ground ever discovered.
I will be the pilot. I can go as straight to the spot as a rifle ball travels. We were a little bit hurried the time we found it, but with plenty of time and good equipment, there can be no disappointment. “Keep these nuggets until we reach the place; just to show you I am sincere”.
The story again began to look plausible, the presence of native gold, with a new map, showing a different fork in the Salmon River, suggested a strong probability of truth. The Co. again became enthusiastic and began to formulate plans for another trip. With hope revised and visions of wealth floating in their imagination, they drank from the dark bottle, shook hand all around, and in the final “goodnight”, agreed to meet on the morrow.
Walthran had lingered in the office after the others had gone. Something in Gardnier’s manner had indicated this to him, and he was not surprised to hear the kindly phrase, “be seated”, when the door had closed. “See here Walthran”, said Gardnier, “I have selected you for a bit of good news because you are reasonable.” These other fellows are headstrong and might spoil a dandy proposition I have, did they know of it, you can keep mum and no harm will be done. There is a fellow here from Boston with a barrel of money looking for mining investments. I had him in here today and sprang our proposition on him. Of course, I only offered to sell him a small interest, enough to pay our expenses. He is a perfect hog and wants all he can buy. I finally agreed to secure for him one share. I am afraid of the other boys, so I thought if you would sell him one-half of your interest for “One Thousand Dollars”, I would sell him half of mine for a like amount. He would then have as much as the others and we can be fortified in the event of any mishap. “I can get him to pay the expense for our next trip in consideration for the securing of this interest”.
Such reasoning, to one who had imperiled his life already in a fruitless quest for the desired treasure, was seduction and convincing. A deed was made to Gardnier for one-half of a fifth interest, as he alone was to deal with the man from Boston. Walthran went to his domicile feeling a little guilty in relation to his partners, but reasoning that this was luck rather than design on his part, he though of the genius of Gardnier and felt satisfied with himself.
The next day the man from Boston went to the Capitol with Gardnier to conclude the business at hand. As they got on the train, Gardnier shook hands cordially with Walthran and told him to do nothing until he returned the next day. The next day he did not return, nor the next or the next. The man from Boston came however, and called at Gardnier’s office, which was locked.
On the fourth day a letter came from Gardnier to the “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co. (Limited)”, saying he had gone east on urgent business and would not be back for some time. Suspicion, for the first time arose in Walthran’s mind. He disliked feeling that Gardnier perhaps had not played fair with him, but he could not understand why some personal word had not come. The man from Boston put all doubts to sleep however, by hunting him up and confiding the information that he had bought Gardnier’s entire interest and one-half of another for “Ten Thousand Dollars” and had paid him the cash for it. “When can I meet the other boys to arrange for the trip”, he inquired. Walthran appeared lost in thought, or wrapped in mediation deep. It was fully five minutes before he spoke. He had taken in the depths of Gardnier’s duplicity and rascality and remembered what he had told him about the Boston man being a hog. He hesitated, made up his mind then faltered. Gardnier, is a damn rascal but, we will not be too hasty. Let us wait a little.
In about a year a letter came from South Africa addressed to George Walthran. It inquired if the “Skeleton Bar Gold Mining Co., (Limited)” was still in existence. There was an attorney trying to sell stock in such a concern. The attorney’s name was, H.E. Gardnier.
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