Because Rawhide, the new Nevada gold camp, was born during the financial crisis of 1907, I couldn't see any future ahead of it from the promoter's coign of vantage—not "through a pair of field-glasses." It requires capital to develop likely-looking gold "prospects" into dividend-paying mines, and I could not imagine where the money was going to come from. Eastern securities markets were in the doldrums. Time money commanded a big premium. Prices for all descriptions of mining stocks had flattened out to almost nothing. Investors were at their wits' end to protect commitments already made. Financiers everywhere were depressed. A revulsion of sentiment toward speculation had set in, seemingly for keeps. Only a hair-brained enthusiast of the wild-eyed order could hope at such a time possibly to succeed in the marketing of new mining issues.

A financial panic has no terrors, however, for gold-seekers. The lure of gold is irresistible. Money stringency serves only to strengthen the natural incentive. By the first week in January, 1908, fully 2,000 people were reported to be in Rawhide. At the end of January the population had grown to 3,000.

The camp easily held the center of the mining stage in Nevada.

Many of the Rawhide pioneers hailed from Tonopah and Goldfield. Without exception the opinion of these veterans appeared to be that the surface showings of the new district excelled those of either of the older camps. Never before in the history of mining in the West had there been discovered a quartz deposit so seemingly rich in the yellow metal at or near the surface which at the same time embraced so large an area of auriferous mineralization. Goldfield, at the same early age, had been a mere collection of prospectors' tents, while Rawhide was a thriving, bustling, populous camp with more than a hundred leasing outfits conducting systematic mining operations.

News was brought to Reno of a phenomenal strike made on Grutt Hill in Rawhide. Specimen rock taken from a seam of ore assayed $300,000 to the ton. The Kearns lease on Balloon Hill reported 15 feet of shipping ore on the 65-foot level which assayed from $300 to $500 to the ton.

There was full verification of this. Also regular shipments were being made to the Goldfield reduction works.

Samples of rock were received in town that were studded with free gold. I was thrilled. Statements made by camp "boosters" that a part of Balloon Hill was "gold with a little rock in it," were not exaggerations, judging from the specimens that were placed in my possession.

My apathy began to melt away. Against my earlier judgment, I now began to change my attitude.

The camp looked like "the real thing," panic or no panic.

Why should not the American public, even in these tough financial times, enthuse about a gold camp with possibilities for money-making such as are offered here, I asked myself. Don't drowning men grasp at straws? Is it not the habit of horse-race players when they lose five races in succession to make a plunge bet on the sixth with a view to getting out even? This panic had impoverished hundreds of thousands. What more natural than that those who were hit hard should now fall over one another to get in on the good things of Rawhide? If the camp makes good, I reasoned, in the same measure that Goldfield did, early investors will roll up millions in profits.

I visited the camp. What I saw electrified me. Soon I was under the magic spell.

REAL GOLD AT RAWHIDE

Half a day's tramp over the hills seemed sufficient to convince anybody that the best of the practical miners of Nevada had put the stamp of their approval on the district. Most of the hundred or more operating leases of Rawhide were owned by these hard-rock miners. More than half a dozen surface openings on Grutt Hill showed the presence of masses of gold-studded quartz. At the intersection of Rawhide's two principal thoroughfares a round of shots in a bold quartz outcrop revealed gold-silver ore that assayed $2,700 a ton. A gold beribboned dyke of quartz-rhyolite struck boldly through Grutt Hill's towering peak. I walked along its strike and knocked off, with an ordinary prospector's pick, samples worth $2 to $5 a pound.

Across Stingaree Gulch to the south Balloon Hill's rugged hog-back formed a connection link between Grutt and Consolidated hills. The Kearns Nos. 1 and 2 leases on Balloon Hill were scenes of strikes of such extraordinary richness that they alone would have started a stampede in Alaska. The Murray lease on Consolidated Hill was rated as a veritable bonanza. There I saw quartz that was fully one-third gold.

Along the southern slope of Hooligan Hill several sets of leasers were mining ore so rich that guards were maintained through the night to prevent loss from theft. At the Alexander lease on Hooligan Hill the miners were crushing the richer quartz from their shaft and washing out gold to the value of $20 a pan.

These were the three principal centers of activity, but they by no means embraced the productive area of the district. Tall, skeleton-like gallows-frames dotted the landscape for miles in every direction. The soughing of gasoline engines suggested the breathing of some spectral Titan in the throes of Herculean effort. I was forcefully impressed, too, with the class of miners at work.

It seemed to me there was no longer any room for cavil as to the fortune-making possibilities of investors who put their money into the camp. Less than a half year old, Rawhide loomed up as the most active mining region I had ever seen at anything like the same age.

It required nearly three years for Goldfield to make as good a showing, I reasoned.

During my earlier efforts at press-agenting Southern Nevada's mining camps I had to conjure in my mind's eye what the reality would be if half the hopes of camp enthusiasts were fulfilled. Here was apparently a fulfillment rather than a promise. At the threshold of the first stage of its development era Rawhide could boast of more actual producers and nearly as many operating properties as Goldfield could claim at the age of three years.

I recalled that Cripple Creek had been panic-born but had lived through the acute period of 1893-96 to take rank with the greatest gold camps of the world.

I was more than convinced. Effervescent enthusiasm succeeded my earlier skepticism. History is about to repeat the record of Cripple Creek, I concluded.

Grutt Hill, Hooligan Hill, a part of Balloon Hill, and the intervening ground, forming a compact group of eight claims, 160 acres, were owned by a partnership of eight prospectors. The area formed the heart and backbone of the whole mining district.

I soon "tied up" this property for Nat. C. Goodwin & Company of Reno, with whom I was identified. A company, with 3,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 a share, was incorporated to take title. It was styled the Rawhide Coalition Mines Company.

Of its entire capitalization, 750,000 shares were turned into the treasury of the Rawhide Coalition Mines Company. Nat C. Goodwin & Company became agents for the sale of treasury stock, and were given an option by the company on 250,000 shares, to net the treasury $57,500 for purposes of administration and mine development. The Goodwin company also purchased 1,850,000 shares of the 2,250,000 shares of ownership stock, amounting to $443,500 more, or at the rate of 23.3 cents per share plus a commission of $12,500 to be paid to a go-between.

The ownership stock that was retained by the original owners, and the residue of treasury stock, amounting in all to 900,000 shares, were placed in pool.

When I made this deal the cash in bank of Nat. C. Goodwin & Company amounted to about $15,000. It was up to me to finance the undertaking. I did.

The contract I made called for only $10,000 in cash and the balance on time payments. Nat C. Goodwin & Company didn't borrow money from any bank or individual, nor did anybody identified with the concern tax his personal resources to the extent of a single dollar to go through with the deal. The money was raised, first for the Coalition's treasury and later for the vendors, by appealing directly to the speculative instinct of the American investing public. The public, too, paid the expense that was incurred in reaching them. It did this by paying Nat C. Goodwin & Company an advance in price on Coalition stock purchases, over and above the cost price.

Nat. C. Goodwin & Company had agreed to net a fraction more than 23 cents per share to both the treasury and the vendors without any deductions whatsoever. All of the advertising expense and other outlays of promotion, it was stipulated, must be borne by Nat. C. Goodwin & Company and none by the mining corporation.

What was the system? How was it done?

A RACE OF GAMBLERS

Prior to the birth of Rawhide I had for seven years catered to the speculative (gambling) instinct of the American public, chiefly in building mining camps and financing mining enterprises. I now realized that in order to make a success of the undertaking before me, namely, to put the new camp of Rawhide on the investment map, I must again appeal loudly to the country's gambling instinct.

Maybe you think, dear reader, that a man who caters to the gambling instinct of his fellow men, be his intentions honest or dishonest, is a highly immoral person. Is he?

Do you know that the gambling instinct is responsible for the wonderful growth of the mining industry in the United States? Would you believe that without the gambling instinct the development of the great natural resources of this country would be almost impossible?

With rare exceptions every successful mining enterprise in the United States has been financed in the past by appealing directly to the gambling instinct. In the decade antedating this year considerably more than a billion dollars was raised and invested in this way.

Conservative investors who are satisfied with from three to six per cent. on their money do not buy mines or mining stocks. Speculators (gamblers) who are willing to risk part of their fortune in the hope of gaining fivefold or more in a year or a few years—these are the kind who invest in mines and mining stocks.

There are legions of these. Not less than 500,000 men and women in the United States, according to the best statistical information obtainable, are stockholders of mining companies.

In fact, the gambling instinct finds employment in the mining industry long before a property has reached the stage where it can be classed as even a prospect worthy of exploration. The prospector who follows his burro into the mountain fastnesses or across the desert wastes often gambles his very life against the success of his search; those who grub-stake him gamble their money.

The gambling instinct seems bound to continue to play an important rÔle in the mining industry for all time, or until either the fortune-hunting instincts of man are eradicated or all the treasures of the world shall have been mined.

Now, if the practice of catering to the gambling instinct is baneful, I'm a malefactor. So, too, would then be such lofty-pinnacled financiers as Messrs. Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, the Guggenheims and others. My own thought is that it is custom and the times which are responsible for the maintenance of the great game, and not individuals.

The truth is, we are a race of gamblers and we allow the captains of industry to deal the game for us.

Next to money and political power, publicity is recognized by all "doers" as the most powerful lever to accomplish big things. Not infrequently publicity will accomplish what neither money nor political power can. Generally, publicity can be secured and controlled by either money or political power.

When Rawhide was born I had neither money nor political power. The camp needed publicity. I had nothing to secure publicity with but my wit. I promptly requisitioned what wit I had, and used all of it.

There is an important difference between owning a series of excellent gold-mine prospects, which have tremendous speculative possibilities, and the public recognizing them to be such. It is one thing for a manufacturer to be himself assured that his article is a better product for the money than that of his competitor. It is another thing for the consumer to be convinced. Therein lies the value of organized publicity.

To focus the attention of the great American investing public on the camp of Rawhide was the proposition before me. How was this to be accomplished? Display advertising in the newspapers is costly and requires large capital; the purchase of reading notices in publications which accept that class of business, even more so.

One major fact stood out from my early experience as a publicity agent in Goldfield. Few news editors have the heart to consign good copy to the waste-paper basket, particularly if it contains nothing which might cause a come-back.

I resolved to "press-agent" the camp.