Toronto—An Interest in a Mine—The Railway Strike of 1894—Stranded at La Junta, Colorado—Strike Incidents—Troops called out.

This young hobo friend of mine was about the smoothest card-sharp I ever came across. He never played for money, as a man does not live long cheating at cards in the west or south. He could deal from any part of the pack of cards, and could shuffle the cards into any position he wished. My wife’s uncle considered himself a champion player, and one night this young fellow proposed to me that he and I should play the old man and one of his sons, and that we would not let them win one single game. We started about 8 P.M.; at 6 A.M. we were still playing, and had won every game.

My health was now all right again, and I had no excuse for further lingering. I had written to Mr. Townsley in Toronto, to whom I had a letter of introduction, asking him about work. He wrote back inviting us to stay with him, and said he could get 74me a position in the Canadian Public Works Department. So off we started for Toronto.

I found the Townsleys very hospitable, but the promised job did not materialise. Mr. Townsley was a general broker, buying and selling anything on which he could make a profit, and into every sort of scheme. He was also financing an inventor who could invent more useless things of rare mechanical ingenuity than any man I ever came across.

Mr. Townsley was much interested in a mine in British Columbia; he had not, however, the necessary funds to carry it through alone, and there was another gentleman, a Mr. Sayers, interested with him. On Mr. Townsley’s suggestion I wrote for funds to buy an interest, and also went down to Guelph to see a college chum of mine who had recently fallen heir to a small fortune. When the money arrived I bought an interest, and Cursin, my Guelph friend, invested some $11,000.

Meanwhile, however, I had received a letter from my friend Bole in New York advising me to go slow. It was decided that I should go and take a look at the mine, and take out samples myself, and have them assayed. Mr. Townsley and the lawyer Sayers thought they would go too, as they wished to see personally the work that was being done at the mine. I was to 75go on ahead to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I was to go up into the Espinola Valley to look at a Bucyrus dredge, at work there on a placer field, that Mr. Townsley and some associates were thinking of buying if it turned out all right. There Townsley and Sayers were to join me later.

Everything went well till I reached La Junta, Colorado. Here, at the division terminus, the engineer and fireman refused to go on, as the great railroad strike of 1894 was in progress; and there our train and six others were stuck for ten days. The railway company issued us meal-tickets free, and we ate at the station restaurant. We certainly kept them busy, as they had to serve meals in three detachments, there being so many of us that there was not the necessary seating accommodation; for, besides the passengers, there were some 350 deputy United States marshals guarding the trains and the mails, which were stacked up in a mountain on the platform. At night it was like war times, for when you stepped out of your car you were challenged at every turn by pickets, and had to show your railroad tickets. The strikers did not try to molest any one or anything at first, but instead gave dances and entertainments in their lodge hall to raise funds to help their cause. To these the passengers used to go, as they were glad to break 76the monotony of sitting in the cars reading and playing cards all day.

But one night there was a terrific thunderstorm, such as they have in Colorado, and in the morning it was found that the strikers had been busy; for they had cut off the rubber hose connections of the air-brakes from every car, while our noble guards were hunting cover from the rain. These guards were a queer conglomeration, and had the greatest assortment of weapons I ever saw—from the 32-calibre bulldog to the 45-calibre frontier sixshooter with............