[Sam P. Davis, The Mystery of the Savage Sump, The Black Cat, December 1901]

 

The Mystery of the Savage Sump.*

BY SAM DAVIS.

          IT was more than twenty years ago that Virginia City, Nev., first wrestled with what was known as "The mystery of the Savage Sump."

          The sump of the Savage mine is an excavation at the foot of the incline where the hot water of the mine collects in volume, and from whence it is pumped into the Sutro tunnel, steaming, scalding hot. The Sutro tunnel strikes the great Comstock ledge 1,750 feet below the surface, and is the drain pipe through which all the water in the Comstock mines is discharged. It runs through the boxes in the tunnel nearly five miles before it reaches the lower mouth of the tunnel and from thence finds its way into the Carson River. The sump is more than three thousand feet below the surface, and when this point was reached it marked the limit of man's ability to pierce the depths of the earth on the Comstock ledge.

          The water came in so fast that the big pumps had to be kept constantly at work to prevent the flooding of the lower levels.

          One morning the miners who came off the three o'clock shift

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* Copyright, 1901, by The Shortstory Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

2        THE MYSTERY OF THE SAVAGE SUMP.

reported the finding of the body of a man in the sump. It was a horrible, shapeless thing, with the flesh cooked in the hot water and the features unrecognizable. The body, what was left of it, was exposed in the morgue for more than a week, but not identified. Several thousand men were working in the mines at the time, but the roll of the Miners' Union and the tally sheet of the Savage mine showed no one missing.

          Beside this it was noticed that the corpse had on fine boots with high heels. It also had on remnants of clothes, and portions of a broadcloth coat were fished up from the sump. It could not have been a miner, and those who had charge of the incline leading to the sump were positive that no such man had ever gone down. There was but one way of reaching it and that was by riding down on a sort of cage known as the " giraffe," let down and pulled up by a cable worked by machinery running in the hoisting works above ground.

          The men who were employed in the responsible positions about the mine were all of the most trustworthy character, and had been employed there for years. No one could enter the mine without a permit from the superintendent, and even then no visitor ever went into the lower levels, where the hot water dripped from the rocks and the heat was sometimes as high as 140 degrees in places where the half-naked men worked with cold water playing from a hose on their bodies.

          If it was a murder, who could possibly be implicated ? The authorities and the newspapers and the officers of the Miners' Union and the superintendents of the mines investigated the mystery on separate lines, and after a year of probing it was as much a mystery as on the day the body was discovered floating about, swollen and distorted, in the foul and steaming waters of the sump.

          As the years passed the incident was well-nigh forgotten, but now, at this remote time, I am able to furnish the world with a complete solution.

          If the reader will take the pains to look over the files of the San Francisco papers during the latter part of 1869 and the spring of '70, some of the most violent fluctuations that ever occurred in the mining stock-market will be noticed. One and the same narra-

THE MYSTERY OF THE SAVAGE SUMP.    8

tion tells the story of the death of the unknown man found in the Savage sump and the rise and fall of mining stock at the time mentioned. In the fall of '69 a San Francisco stock speculator was spending a few weeks at Lake Tahoe, the summer resort in the Sierra Mountains, which lie partly in Nevada and partly in California.

          Wishing to be out of the way of the world as much as possible, he engaged quarters at a little secluded place on the Nevada side of the lake, known as Cornelian Bay. It was a cheap and out-of-the-way place, and not over a dozen guests were there at a time, but the fishing was excellent and the surroundings pleasant. The tourist's name was William Meeker, and he had lost a large fortune in the whirl of stock speculations on California Street.

          One morning, while fishing about a mile from the hotel, he noticed that his boat began slowly turning, and in a few minutes described a complete circle in the water. Some chips and debris were collected about the boat and they seemed to stay there. He studied the situation carefully and reached the conclusion that there was some subterranean outlet which caused the eddy.

          He was a man of quick action, and that night he carved the initials W. M. on a piece of pine, and next morning rigged up a weight at the end of a line and, fastening the stick to the weight, rowed out and lowered it into the water where his boat had been affected by the currents. It went down in about a hundred feet of water and then something began bearing it down. There was a succession of tugs and the line began spinning over the edge of the boat with rapidly increasing speed. Then the line caught in the boat and snapped with the strain. This made it clear to him that the water was surging through an outlet in the lake bottom. That night he settled his bill and started for San Francisco.

          He took but one man into his confidence and that was Colonel Clair, one of the heaviest and most unscrupulous operators in the market and a member of the biggest firm on the street. They figured for more than a week with maps and surveys and reached the conclusion that the water making its exit from the lake was finding its outlet in the lower levels of the Comstock mines.

          They pored over statistical tables showing how the lake had been, on an average, at least one foot higher before the mines in

4        THE MYSTERY OF THE SAVAGE SUMP.

Virginia City had encountered water in the lower levels, and to them the mystery of the fall in the water of the lake was explained.

          It was decided to send a man into the Savage, to watch for the piece of pine with Meeker's initials on. But why trust it to a third party? Meeker himself went to Virginia City, and on a letter of recommendation from Colonel Clair was given work in the Savage, and placed at the foot of the incline as a station tender.

          He had not been long at his post when the little piece of wood with the initials W. M. came up on the surface of the waters of the sump and his heart gave a great bound of joy. That night he was flying to San Francisco on a fast train, and next morning was closeted with Colonel Clair, the mining operator and millionaire.

          The plan these two men fixed on was the boldest ever conceived in the annals of stock speculation. It was nothing less than a method by which the hole in the bottom of Tahoe might be stopped by a mechanical contrivance and then opened and closed at will. By this means the mines might be cleared of water or flooded, to suit the convenience of the two operators, and this condition, having its influence on the stock-market, would make millions of money for the men who had conceived the bold design.

          Before the week was over, Meeker, backed with the money of Colonel Clair, was back at Lake Tahoe. He ordered a large flatboat built, ostensibly for fishing purposes. It was completed in a couple of weeks and fitted with a good cabin, and here he took up his abode. From that on a lot of mysterious consignments reached Tahoe for Meeker, and he received them on his flatboat at Tahoe city and moved the boat from place to place by the aid of a small gasoline launch.

          To all intents and purposes it was an angler's craft, the mere pastime of a man who had the money at his disposal to catch Tahoe trout in his own way.

          It proved really a simple matter to stop the hole in the lake. Careful investigation showed it to be nearly circular and about four feet across. The dimensions of the hole being known approximately was sufficient. The butt of a log about five feet in diameter was given a conical shape, and bolts were sunk into the end, to

THE MYSTERY OF THE SAVAGE SUMP.    5

which a heavy chain was attached. This was connected with a windlass and let down through the " well " in the bottom of the boat. The well was enclosed in the rough-board house built on the boat, and on a calm day when the water was still, Clair and Meeker could see a long distance into the depths of the water, by the aid of a large mirror and the sunlight which came in through a hole in the roof of the house, reflected down the well.

          Then came the grand test, when they let down the big plug. Slowly it was lowered until it was caught in the suction and the chain showed the strain. Then down, deeper and deeper it went in the mighty current, taking the handles of the windlass from the hands of the men and sending it whirling. It revolved like a buzz-saw for a few seconds, and then came to a standstill. It was evident that the plug had settled into the hole as far as it would go, and that the pressure of the water was keeping it there. The deflected light thrown down by the mirror showed that such was the case.

          Could the plug be lifted back ? The fate of their plot depended on the answer. The two men threw their weight on the handles of the windlass, but they could not budge it an inch. That night they bored holes in the windlass shaft and inserted long crowbars. With this improved leverage they succeeded with comparatively little trouble in drawing the plug out of the hole and lifting it beyond the influence of the suction. Several times they lowered and raised it again. That night Colonel Clair was on his way to San Francisco, leaving Meeker to guard the boat.

          During the next ten days brokers who watched the market noticed that the firm of Goodman & Crowley were buying Savage in any lots offered. There was nothing special in the way of developments in the mine, and those who had become tired of holding Savage began to unload on a rising market. Presently the brokers who had the handling of the deal were active bidders on the stock. The tall form of Joe Goodman was soon noticeable in the centre of a gesticulating crowd, bidding up Savage. The price rose gradually, and still he stood calm and serene, as was his wont, and taking in all the Savage offered.

          " Five thousand at twenty-six, buyer thirty."

          Goodman took them, and ten thousand more at the same figure.

6        THE MYSTERY OF THE SAVAGE SUMP.

          A little man rose and flung twenty thousand shares at Goodman. He took them without blinking.

          There was a pause and the swirl of speculation seemed for a moment to have lost its momentum.

          Thirty-five thousand shares inside a minute, and snapped up by one man, was not a usual thing. They waited to see what the calm, blue-eyed man would do, and if he would dare bid higher. Then his voice rang out :

          " Twenty-seven for twenty-five thousand shares, buyer thirty." In an instant the cry of " sold " was shouted at him from all sides of the Board room.

          " Take 'em all," he cried, "and will give twenty-eight for fifty thousand more."

          Not a sale was offered at those figures. Something was on. The brokers scented a big deal in Savage, and no one dared take his offer.

          The session closed and in a few minutes the street was a scene of extraordinary excitement. The wires were hot between San Francisco and Virginia City with cipher dispatches, but no one could report anything extraordinary in Savage. There was no development, and the water in the lower levels required the full working capacity of the big Cornish pumps to hold it in control.

          Goodman was a commission broker and evidently not speculating on his own hook, and Colonel Clair's brokers were selling Savage — but in mighty small lots.

          Colonel Clair was moving about the street in front of the Exchange building, deprecating the idea of a rise in stocks not based on actual merit.

          "Me son," he said to one of the curbstone brokers, "there can never be anything in buying Savage until the water is out of the lower levels."

          Inside a week the water was nearly all out of the Savage, and also out of the adjoining mines, and stocks began to soar. The pumps all along the big lead were slowing down and the word went out that the water had been conquered at last and now the big bonanzas were going to be uncovered. Virginia City was happy and the Stock Exchange in San Francisco was a whirl of speculation.

THE MYSTERY OF THE SAVAGE SUMP.    7

          Then Colonel Clair began shorting everything right in the midst of the flurry. He had sold and realized a cool million, and was now a bear. It seemed odd that this should be the case when the pumps had drained the lower levels almost dry and no water was coming in. Then, unexpectedly, the waters came into the lower levels in a great flood and caught the miners napping with the pumps barely moving. There was a crash in stocks when the news reached Pine Street, San Francisco, and everything went by the board. Colonel Clair cleaned up another million.

          " I didn't think it could be permanent," he said.

          Then came a series of rises and breaks in the market and Colonel Clair always "hit them just right." No man seemed so shrewd as he, and so the deals went on and his wealth accumulated. 'William Meeker had but to raise or lower the plug in Lake Tahoe according to advices.

          One night, as Meeker was raising the plug with the big windlass, he became aware of a figure behind him. It was Colonel Clair, who had reached the spot by a boat.

          "How is she working ? "

          " Never better."

          " I have your share deposited in the Nevada Bank, and it is now over two million."

          Meeker smiled and his heart bounded when he heard those words.

          " How big the moon looks over yonder," exclaimed the Colonel.

          Meeker turned his head, and a heavy iron bar crushed in his skull. Colonel Clair tied a weight to the body and lowered it into the depths. Down and down it slowly sank, and then the swirl sucked it into the hole and it was gone. Colonel Clair lowered the plug.